Battle of the planets
▶ Chinese sci-fi blockbuster makes box office history, but divides opinion
○ The Wandering Earth drew a polarized reaction in China’s social media and triggered a rating war on review websites.
○ Many people see the film from a political perspective and think it symbolizes China’s rising role in the world.
○ Others see it as highly overrated in terms of filming and storytelling techniques.
Chinese sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth has been the most profitable film so far this year. But it has not been without controversy.
Having raked in more than 4 billion yuan ($0.6 billion) in ticket sales as of press time, the film has taken second place in China’s all time box office records, surpassing Operation Red Sea and the second only to action thriller Wolf Warrior 2, which premiered in 2017.
But very few films have drawn the kind of polarized reaction in China that The Wandering Earth has. For the film’s fans, the movie is a milestone in Chinese sci-fi film history, and a step forward for China’s film industry as a whole. Its critics, however, are either put off by the collectivist and patriotic theme in the film, criticize its storytelling techniques, or are irritated by how it is overrated by the fans.
Unable to convince each other, the film’s fans and detractors even launched a rating war on movie review sites. On movie review website douban.com, for example, the film received an overall rating of 7.9. However, among the 20 hottest short reviews given by users, seven gave the film four to five stars and 12 gave the film one or two stars.
Those who are unhappy with the dropping rating on douban.com then inundated the Apple App Store and took their revenge by giving the douban app a one-star rating.
The Wandering Earth, loosely based on a short story by science fiction writer Liu Cixin, tells a story set in the future when the sun is about to explode, and the United Earth Government, formed by various countries to save the planet, launches a massive project to move Earth out of the Solar System. As Earth nears Jupiter, disaster is about to strike and one Chinese astronaut decides to sacrifice himself to save Earth from destruction.
The film soon garnered labels such as “China’s first hardcore sci-fi film” and “Chinese finally saving the Earth for the first time,” resulting in a surge of patriotism, collectivism and national pride that went far beyond the story itself.
Rave reviews
In the first few days after the film hit cinemas, it soon amassed rave reviews and achieved an 8.5 rating on douban. com. Shen Yifan (pseudonym), a 31-yearold sci-fi fan from Shanghai, said she was so excited after watching the film that she raved about it on her WeChat moments, a Chinese social media platform, and even took her mom to see the film when she watched it a second time.
“For ordinary audiences, this is just an ordinary film with some sci-fi elements, and is no match for a Hollywood blockbuster. But for a Chinese sci-fi fan like me, the significance is huge. We’ve been waiting for this day for too long,” she told the Global Times. She gave the film five stars.
Like Shen, many more gave the film a five-star rating as a way to express their encouragement to this genre which had been rare in Chinese films. “Hope this film will be a big hit, because only this
way will we see more Chinese sci-fi films in the future,” reads one popular five-star rating on douban.com.
“It definitely lags behind Hollywood films, but the gap is closing and with time, we will be able to catch up,” another one reads.
“It’s exciting to see a Chinese director being able to make such a hardcore sci-fi film, and this alone makes me forgive all its imperfections. Although it’s not really right to say this marks the beginning of Chinese sci-fi films, it is definitely the first milestone done with the highest level of professionalism so far. It’s a film that will be written into Chinese film history,” another one reads.
Criticism
As The Wandering Earth amassed a rating higher than Hollywood blockbusters such as Gravity, The Martian and Arrival, other audiences felt the movie was highly overrated and felt uncomfortable about it.
While some gave the film lower ratings for what they said its bad storytelling, sensationalism and bad editing, many people started to give the film one-star ratings just to “balance” the 5-star ratings that the fans gave. One user who gave the film a one-star rating wrote, “I’m fed up with so many fans giving the film such good reviews just because it’s a Chinese sci-fi film. I’ll give it a one-star to make things even.”
“Why does Wu Jing always save the country or the planet in his films?” another user who gave a one-star review wrote, referring to the film’s lead actor who also played the hero in Wolf Warrior 2.
As a result, The Wandering Earth’s rating on douban.com dropped from 8.5 to 7.9.
Fans of the film, unhappy about this result, then diverted their anger to douban.com, as they started to give one-star ratings to its app on the Apple App Store. Some even accused those who gave the film one star of being traitors who are only willing to give high scores to American films.
Politicized entertainment
Shi Wenxue, a Beijing-based film critic, said the controversy surrounding the film is a typical example of how entertainment has become politicized in China in recent years. “The selling point of ‘Chinese people saving the Earth for the first time,’ after being hyped up by social media, became a form of political correctness, and criticizing the film becomes opposition to this political correctness,” he told the Global Times.
“The various elements in the film, such as patriotism, collectivism and national pride, all went beyond the film itself and turned it into another litmus test for patriotism after Wolf Warrior 2,” he said.
Shi said the participation of “little pinks” or young online warriors who are fired up with patriotic zeal, added to the film’s controversy. “Little pinks, who embrace patriotic consumerism, are the main audience of the film and also China’s major web users. They are experienced in defending mainstream values online and oppose people with different views,” he said.
Other critics, however, prefer to interpret and appreciate the film politically. Shen Yi, associate professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, said the film’s background is an echo of the political reality that China has faced in recent years. “Although in reality, Earth isn’t facing the massive threat of a dying sun, the pressure and challenges brought by changes in international relations are a no less difficult test. The situation in The Wandering
Earth, which asks for someone to take responsibility, make sacrifices and take action, is a common thing for China to face,” he wrote on guancha.cn.
Sima Pingbang, a leftist cultural critic, even associated The Wandering Earth with the China-US trade war. “Today, almost a year into the trade war between China and the US… Chinese people need more successful commercial products to boost their lives and their struggles. They need to let others know that Chinese products are great, Chinese are rich and the Chinese market is full of opportunities, which is the only way for China to win the trade war,” he wrote on his Weibo account, hoping the film will ultimately see box office revenues of 10 billion yuan to boost Chinese people’s confidence.
“In the next one or two decades, surpassing the US in economy and cultural confidence is bound to be an important theme of the effort of the Chinese government and its people. Chinese films should embrace this theme, rather than avoid it. Wolf Warrior 2, Operation Red Sea and The Wandering Earth, all these films are themed around China-US cultural competition,” he wrote on Weibo.
“The selling point of ‘Chinese people saving the Earth for the first time,’ after being hyped up by social media, became a form of political correctness, and criticizing the film becomes opposition to this political correctness.” Shi Wenxue
A Beijing-based film critic