Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is a challenging picture that still provokes one’s definitions of heroism and vigilantism more than a decade later. It depicts torture as a somewhat effective means of intelligence gathering. It depicts extraordinary rendition as helpful. It demonstrates secretive mass surveillance of citizen’s cell phones to be extremely effective and necessary under the right circumstances. It’s a film that presents the obstruction of justice for the murder of 5 cops as justifiable for social cohesion and a cleaner narrative. And it depicts a city government telling this lie to its citizens.

In case it wasn’t obvious then, or now, The Dark Knight is a parable for the United States’ vigilante role of sheriff of the liberal world order, with special emphasis on the Iraq War era. Nolan’s achievement is realizing the potential of a philosophical battle between Batman and Joker to server as an imperfect mirror to current events and a politically plural audience.

A few observations that stuck with me on this recent viewing:

• The expansive mob network that effectively runs Gotham City is operating as a money laundering outfit for dark money emanating from mainland China via Mr. Lau’s company. The implication is that dirty money from China is directly empowering the rot in Gotham.
• The reason Mr. Lau runs to Hong Kong is because China will not extradite one of its citizens to a foreign power under nearly any circumstances. That Nolan is including irregular international extradition law as a key plot challenge for Batman went way over my head when I first saw this.
  • A digression: This is the second Nolan Batman film where China and Chinese culture plays an elliptical role in the proceedings. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne is seen speaking Chinese after committing a robbery abroad, eventually finding himself in a prison in Bhutan. And notably, the terrorist organization Bruce briefly joins called the League of Shadows, headed by Ra’s al Ghul, is depicted as a vaguely Indo-Chinese faction by their fighting style, garb, set design and from the casting of the other members.
• The final action sequence takes place in an under-construction building from which Joker is conducting his ferry-prisoners-dilemma spectacle and holding hospital patients hostage in clown mask disguises. That building was then under-construction Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. . .