Commentary
The 2019 Frant Gwo film “The Wandering Earth II” is the sequel to China’s first domestic sci-fi blockbuster. Based on the award-winning sci-fi novel “The Three-Body Problem” by Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin, the plot follows a group of young people attempting to save the Earth from a planetary disaster.
The film was released in China on Jan. 22 and has become the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time. Simultaneously, it was released in the United States by Well Go USA Entertainment, which also did the release of the “Ip Man” movies. As a limited release, “Wandering Earth II” was placed on 142 screens.
Chinese state media is touting the success of the movie because it managed to earn $3,006,525 at the box office and hit the No. 10 spot on its opening weekend at the end of January. However, to put that number in perspective, Avatar grossed nearly $16 million the same weekend even though it’s been in theaters since late last year. From the online comments on the movie trailer and reviews, it appears that the only people who went to see the movie were Chinese people in America and Americans with some very specific connection to China. Presumedly, the box office surge is not sustainable, and ticket sales will drop sharply. In China, sales are already down 42 percent since the opening.
Major media outlets, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and Movie Nation, all gave the movie bad reviews for being boring and long with “convoluted story lines” and “flimsy ideas.” The film has also been criticized for stealing the character of HAL, who is the evil self-aware computer from the 2001 film “A Space Odyssey.” Other complaints included a lack of humor and sex, terrible dubbing, and that the movie was too long, while parts did not make sense because segments had been cut out and repackaged. The fight scenes were also cluttered with choppy editing making them visually difficult to follow.
Up until this point, “The Wandering Earth II” was just a movie that did not appeal to Americans for various reasons, which is typical of other bad movies. However, the most disturbing aspect of the film is the overt Chinese Communist Party (CCP) messaging in both the dialogue and the story. According to Movie Nation, the film was full of Chinese people sacrificing themselves to save the world as decadent Westerners and Western democracy failed. The film praises Russia while an American astronaut is shown crying.
Pro-CCP propaganda included slogans and themes, such as “in times of crisis, duty above all.” The movie also blamed individualism while stressing “cultural/racial cohesion,” highlighted by the noble Chinese characters who were willing to sacrifice because “unity comes with a cost.” The Earth station for the space heroes is set in Gabon, which was clearly done to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its African expansion.
There are a number of trailers and reviews on YouTube, all of which have only positive comments despite this being an obscure CCP-sponsored film. Many of the positive reviews on social media seem to have been written by wumao or the 50 Cent Army, bots, or patriotic Chinese people who hate America. “Better than Avatar” and “Better than all of the Western sci-fi movies within a decade” were among the top comments. A number of the comments focused on how noble the Chinese heroes were: “There is no individual heroism … only China calling on the people of the world to work together and unite in order to pull the Earth out of the abyss of destruction. The glory of human unity will last forever!”
Touting a CCP line, one comment read, “Facing the end of the world, the Earth people from ideological confrontation, war and then cooperation to save the Earth to save all mankind.”
The author of the movie’s book inspiration, Liu Cixin, ruffled feathers when he was in the United States in 2019. A journalist from The New Yorker asked him about the genocide in China’s Xinjiang region and the internment of ethnic Uyghur Muslims. He responded: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” When asked about civil liberties and democracy, he answered: “But that’s not what Chinese people care about. For ordinary folks, it’s the cost of health care, real estate prices, their children’s education. Not democracy.” These comments were disturbing to most Americans if for no other reason than that they parroted the official Party line.
After Liu’s comments about Xinjiang, a group of American congressional representatives led by Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee sent a letter to Netflix criticizing its decision to run the film adaptation of Liu’s “The Three-Body Problem.” Netflix responded by defending its decision and saying that Liu was the author of the book and not the creator of the series.
Apart from “Wandering Earth II” just not being a very good movie, Americans do not like CCP messaging, particularly when it’s critical of the United States. On the opening weekend, the movie was seen by a pro-CCP minority in the United States. And now, Beijing will claim the victory of hitting No. 10 at the box office. Of course, it was just a weekend of fame for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, while movies like “Avatar: The Way of Water” have now passed $2.1 billion, becoming the fourth biggest film of all time. Hollywood will continue to dominate the global box offices as the CCP flails in its attempts to export its message to a broader audience.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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