China sci-fi improving, but far behind Hollywood blockbusters
SHANGHAI: Director Guo Fan has conceded that Chinese sci-fi films still have a long way to go to keep pace with Hollywood’s high standards, but he is hopeful.
“Science fiction is the barometer of a nation.... If this nation wants to embrace the world and dream of the future, then the journey of Chinese scifi will be an ocean of stars and ( have) a broad future,” he told state television.
Guo had produced the Lunar New Year blockbuster The Wandering Earth, which has already raked in over US$ 576 million ( RM2.42 billion) at the box office in China.
It is China’s first space- age blockbuster, and could well become the country’s highestgrossing movie ever.
Based on a novel by Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin, the film tells the story — through the eyes of Chinese protagonists — of a project to move the Earth away from a dying sun using giant fusion-powered engines.
Reportedly made with a US$ 50 million budget, the movie draws on pride in China’s growing space programme and is packed with advanced special effects.
Director Guo said that threequarters of the more than 2,000 special- effects shots were created by Chinese staff.
Noted film commentator Wang Hailin told a recent movie seminar that The Wandering Earth showed that “the historic moment to rival Hollywood has arrived.”
The Wandering Earth has also made US$ 3.8 million ( RM15.9 million) in North America in the 11 days since its release, the highest for a Chinese film in nearly five years, the film’s official social media account said on Sunday.
With Chinese President Xi Jinping asserting tight control over arts and entertainment and pushing patriotic themes, any Chinese film depicting a future world is bound to draw political scrutiny. But the movie largely ignores politics, with no mention of China’s ruling Communist Party. Chinese heroes figure most prominently in the action, but the film’s overall message is to encourage international collaboration.
In a pivotal scene, a Chinese astronaut played by martial artist and actor Wu Jing — the star of the Wolf Warrior franchise — works closely with a Russian counterpart in a bid to save the world.
Co-produced by state- owned China Film Group Co. and Beijing Jingxi Culture and Tourism Co., Wandering Earth also shows frames — rare for a Chinese movie — of a destroyed Beijing and collapsing landmarks in Shanghai as apocalypse hits.
Liu, the Hugo Award-winning author of the story, said in an interview with state television that China lacks good original science fiction, but that the strong “sense of future” in the rapidly modernising country bodes well for the genre.