The Wandering Earth II

Last weekend I got to see this three-hour-long movie, subtitled in Chinese and English (with dialogue in both languages, plus French, Russian and several others but mostly Chinese). As a bonus, I also got to sit in on a Zoom Q&A session with one of the actors, Ning "Nick" Li, who lives locally (one town over) and has a lot of local supporters. Ning played a scientist named Ma Zhou in the movie; he's the guy in the space suit in the poster shown here, and apparently he was quite excited to find himself acting primarily opposite Asian film superstar Andy Lau (the guy at the very top of the poster).

Though it has the number 2 in its title, this is actually a prequel to the 2019 sci fi epic The Wandering Earth, which I'm told you can currently see on Netflix and of which I've only seen an extended review on YouTube. It tells the story about how human civilization faces (and to some extent, creates) a series of crises involving the impending death of the sun, fighting among themselves while at the same time seeking a way to survive the coming cataclysm. The path chosen by the United Earth Government is at first titled Moving Mountain, then Wandering Earth, and it basically involves using a bunch of huge engines to eject the moon from orbit around the earth, and then a bunch more to eject the earth from orbit around the sun, before setting off across interstellar space in search of a new star. A big challenge is the opposition to this plan, who would rather see people digitized and uploaded into computers where they can live forever after their death. These folks are so passionate about their plan that they won't shrink back from terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage on any scale, even at the risk of dooming the planet. And in the final, agonizing crisis, all depends on the heroism of a scientist (played by Lau) who has betrayed mankind once before.

It's an emotional whallop of a sci fi epic, and I mean epic in the full sense, covering a wide range of years, multiple facets of the project, an enormous cast of characters (the cast credits go on for screen after crowded screen), things happening on a space station, things happening on the moon, things happening on earth, things happening underwater ... It's drawn on a colossal scale, yet richly detailed. It has superb production values, gorgeous imagery, thrilling action, agonizing suspense, powerful emotions, good acting, special effects that just don't quit. It must have cost the GDP of a medium-sized country and involved enough people to populate it. It's an unbelievable spectacle even by the standards of the American film industry. I was totally entertained.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The attack on the space elevator, an early action sequence that sets a high mark for the rest of the film. (2) The countdown to when the earth has to launch itself, each minute and second coming closer to total disaster. (3) When the soldiers over age 50 volunteer for a lunar mission they have no chance of surviving, instead of letting the young bucks sacrifice themselves – and what happens when they start to detonate their nukes on the moon's surface. It's one of the most moving depictions of large-scale courage I've ever seen, and beautifully filmed.