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<h3 style="margin-top:0;"><a style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 21px;line-height: 30px; margin-top:25px; margin-bottom: 10px;" href="http://u.osu.edu/mclc/2019/02/05/film-industry-joins-the-space-race/" target="_blank">Film industry joins the space race</a></h3>
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<p>Source: NYT (2/4/19)<br />
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/movies/wandering-earth-china.html">China’s Film Industry Finally Joins the Space Race</a><br />
By Steven Lee Myers</p>
<p>BEIJING — China was a latecomer to space exploration, and in the movies, it has been a latecomer to science fiction, too. That is about to change.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">The country’s first blockbuster set in space, “The Wandering Earth,” opens Tuesday amid grandiose expectations that it will represent the dawning of a new era in Chinese filmmaking.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">It is one in a series of ambitious, big-budget films tackling a genre that, until now, has been beyond the reach of most filmmakers here — technically and financially. Those movies include “<a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6628322/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Shanghai Fortress</a>,” about an alien attack on Earth, and “<a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://asianmoviepulse.com/2017/11/watch-teaser-chinese-sci-fi-action-thriller-pathfinder/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pathfinder</a>,” about a spaceship that crashes on a desert planet.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“Filmmakers in China see science fiction as a holy grail,” said Raymond Zhou, an independent critic, who noted that Hollywood had set the technological standards, and thus audience expectations, very high.</p>
<p>“The Wandering Earth,” shown in 3-D, takes place in a distant future in which the sun is about to expand into <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/science/what-will-happen-to-the-planets-as-the-sun-dies.html?module=inline">a red giant and devour the Earth.</a></p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">The impending peril forces the world’s engineers to devise a plan to move the planet to a new solar system using giant thrusters. Things go very badly when Earth has to pass Jupiter, setting off a desperate scramble to save humanity from annihilation.</p>
<p><iframe class="css-uwwqev" title="YouTube Video" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MLcghUzzQCg" width="600" height="300" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></p>
<p><span class="css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0">A preview of the film.</span><span class="emkp2hg2 css-1nwzsjy e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit</span><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Credit</span>Video by Gavin Feng</span></p>
<p>The special effects — like the apocalyptic climatic changes that would occur if Earth suddenly moved out of its cozy orbit — are certain to be measured against Hollywood’s, as ever here. And the preliminary reviews have been positive.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“It’s like the coming-of-age of the industry,” Zhou said.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“The Wandering Earth” opens with the Lunar New Year, the beginning of an official, weeklong holiday that is traditionally a peak box-office period in China. It has a limited release in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">At home, it will compete with “Crazy Alien,” a comedy inspired by “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” about two brothers hoping to capitalize on the arrival of a visitor from outer space.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">Both “The Wandering Earth” and “Crazy Alien” are adapted from works by Liu Cixin, the writer who has led <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/books/liu-cixins-the-three-body-problem-is-published-in-us.html?module=inline">a renaissance</a> in science fiction here, becoming the first Chinese winner of the <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/science-fiction-prize-is-awarded-to-chinese-writer-for-first-time/">Hugo Award</a> for the genre in 2015.</p>
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<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">His novels are sprawling epics and deeply researched. That makes them plausible fantasies about humanity’s encounters with a dangerous universe. Translating them into movies would challenge any filmmaker, as the director of “The Wandering Earth,” Guo Fan, acknowledged during a screening in Beijing last week.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">That has made the film, produced by Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism Company and the state-owned China Film Group Corp., a test for the industry.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">Guo, who uses the name Frant Gwo in English, noted that Chinese audiences have responded coolly to many of Hollywood’s previous sci-fi blockbusters. Studios, therefore, have been wary of investing the resources required to make convincing sci-fi.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">The film’s budget reportedly reached nearly $50 million, modest by Hollywood standards but still significant here in China. More than 7,000 people were involved in the production. Much of it was filmed in the new Oriental Movie Metropolis, an $8 billion studio in the coast city of Qingdao, built by the real estate and entertainment giant Dalian Wanda.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“I really hope that this movie will not lose money at least,” said Guo, whose previous film, “My Old Classmate,” was a romantic comedy. “As long as this one does not lose money, we can continue to make science-fiction films.”</p>
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<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">The popularity of Liu’s novels could help. So could two recent Hollywood films, <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/movies/gravity-stars-sandra-bullock-and-george-clooney.html?module=inline">“Gravity”</a> and <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/movies/review-in-the-martian-marooned-but-not-alone.html?module=inline">“The Martian.”</a> Both included important plot twists that, not incidentally, cast China’s space program in a positive light, and both were huge hits here.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">The openings also come as China reached a milestone in space: the landing of a probe on the far side of the moon in January. Although decades behind Russia and the United States, China has now put astronauts in orbit and has <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/asia/china-change-4-moon.html?module=inline">ambitious plans</a> to join — or even lead — a new age of space exploration.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“I think there is a very close connection between Chinese cinema and the nation’s fortunes,” said Sha Dan, a curator at the <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.cfa.org.cn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">China Film Archive</a>, who moderated a discussion with Guo.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">He cited the most popular film in China last year: <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/operation-red-sea-honghai-xingdong-film-review-1149626" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Operation Red Sea,”</a> an action drama loosely based on the Chinese rescue of several hundred civilians from Yemen when war erupted there in 2015.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“When we have the ability to go to war, we can make movies like ‘Operation Red Sea,’” he said, alluding to China’s <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/world/asia/china-navy-aircraft-carrier-pacific.html?module=inline">military modernization</a> in recent years. “Only when China can enter the space era can we make works like ‘The Wandering Earth.’”</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">Unlike “Operation Red Sea” or the two “Wolf Warrior” movies, which featured a Rambo-like hero battling Western villains, “The Wandering Earth” is not jingoistic, though it does star Wu Jing, the hero of the “Wolf Warrior” films, who put up <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2019-01/30/content_74426208.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">his own investment</a> in the project. He plays an astronaut aboard an international space station who has to contend with a HAL-like computer.</p>
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<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">Guo said he consciously avoided making Wu’s character a do-it-alone superhero. The fight to save Earth is fought instead by an ensemble, including an affable Russian cosmonaut who explains why his country prohibited alcohol in space, at least officially. (To say more would be a spoiler.)</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“The Wandering Earth” takes for granted China’s central role in future space exploration, but it also has a vision of the international collaboration necessary to cope with the threats facing the planet, a theme that runs deeply through Liu’s fiction. Liu, who attended a screening last week, noted that science-fiction films in China dated as far back as the 1930s, when the director Yang Xiaozhong <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/search/publication/7373319" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">made ones</a> like “Exchanged” and “Visiting Shanghai After 60 Years,” but those were largely forgotten here after the Communist revolution in 1949.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">A 1980 movie, “<a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="http://www.unseenfilms.net/2017/08/future-imperfect-death-ray-on-coral.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Death Ray on Coral Island</a>,” was a campy, propagandistic flop. There have been few attempts since.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">“This is mainly because Chinese society is relatively closed and conservative,” Liu said in a written response to questions. “There were not the conditions for science-fiction movies to have an impact.”</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">A film project based on Liu’s best-known work, the trilogy that began with “The Three-Body Problem,” was optioned and even filmed in 2015 but has since languished in postproduction, <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002589/the-three-book-problem-why-chinese-sci-fi-still-struggles" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reportedly</a> because of technical challenges and costs.</p>
<p class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">The conditions now seem ripe. Seeing the “The Wandering Earth” on the screen, Liu said, was “soul shaking.”</p>
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<p>Claire Fu contributed research</p>
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by <a href="mailto:denton.2@osu.edu">denton.2@osu.edu</a> on February 5, 2019 </div>
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