Settling In
China’s first scifi mega film starts a new chapter
For a long time, domestically made blockbuster sci-fi films have been absent from China’s film market, leaving fans to satisfy their need for the genre by watching Hollywood productions. The situation has changed, however, as The Wandering Earth, hailed as China’s first big budget sci-fi film, takes the country by storm.
As of February 17, the film had raked in 3.66 billion yuan ($540 million), becoming the second highest grossing film in China’s history after military action film Wolf Warrior 2, according to Maoyan, a box office tracker and an online-ticketing platform. The film is loosely adapted from a namesake novella by Liu Cixin, a multiple prize-winning sci-fi writer, whose novel The Three-body Problem won the Hugo Award in 2015. He also won the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society in Washington, D.C., in November 2018.
In the film, the Sun is dying out and the temperature on Earth dives to unbearable lows. As a result, people have to live in underground cities to escape the cold. In order to save the Earth, people all around the world build some 10,000 giant planet thrusters to move the Earth out of its orbit to a new star system. The undertaking, called Wandering Earth, will take 2,500 years and the journey will be 4.3 light years long.
Liu Qi, son of international space station astronaut Liu Peiqiang, and Han Duoduo, a teenage girl adopted by Liu’s grandfather, escape from the underground city, curious about the outside world. However, since the journey is filled with unexpected dangers, the two inadvertently join the battle to avoid the Earth from colliding with Jupiter.
A breakthrough
The film is widely seen as ushering in Year One of China’s sci-fi movie market. Ming Zhenjiang, Executive Chairman of the China Film Producers’ Association, told the media that China has abundant historical films and its realistic films are also on the rise. However, futuristic films haven’t had any breakthroughs for a long time. The Wandering Earth has deeply satisfied Chinese audiences’ demand for the genre.
Rao Shuguang, President of the China Film Critics Association, said The Wandering Earth signals the upgrading of China’s film industry, indicating China has grown from a country making a great number of films to a leading film producer in the world.
The spectacular special effects and exquisite props are major attractions for audiences. In contrast to the one-hero-saves-the-world model often seen in Hollywood blockbusters, a united government is formed in the film involving countries around the world to confront the apocalypse together. And instead of deserting the Earth, human beings choose to take the Earth on a space journey, reflecting Chinese people’s love for their homeland.
Moreover, in comparison to Hollywood films which feature landmarks in cities such as London and New York, audiences were thrilled to see Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai instead.
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