This Movie Made $700 Million In China And It's On Netflix Now, So I Watched And Here's How It Is
The second highest-grossing non-English film EVER!
Hi, I'm Christopher, and I LOVE SCI-FI. I also enjoy Netflix, so when I saw that a Chinese blockbuster called The Wandering Earth was available for streaming, I was intrigued!
When I googled The Wandering Earth I saw people in space suits and pictures like the one below that made me say "YUP" out loud.
I also read that it made $700 MILLION so I figured it had to be solid if it did numbers like that.
Here's how Netflix describes the movie:
"A looming collision with Jupiter threatens Earth as humans search for a new star. The planet's fate now lies in the hands of a few unexpected heroes."
Father leaves child with grandparent so he can go on a mission to save Earth? That's BIG INTERSTELLAR ENERGY from the jump and I'm all about it.
The film's early setup got me hyped. The sun is expanding? And it's going to engulf Earth? AND we built a bunch of giant engines everywhere to boost ourselves out of the solar system?! DOPE.
So, the story really gets going with the son (who is now 17 years older and a bit of a rebel) getting into some trouble that lands him, his sister, and his grandpa in jail.
While they're in jail a massive earthquake happens and they escape (along with some random in the cell next door), but they quickly learn that it's more than just your run-of-the-mill tremor.
It turns out that Jupiter's gravity pulling at Earth caused the quakes, but more importantly, the two planets are now on a collision course.
So the group goes on a mission with the ultimate goal of restarting a bunch of Earth's thruster engines that went down during the earthquake.
Without giving the entire movie away, they accomplish a mission that you expect will resolve the problem, only to find that NOPE, it didn't work and they're all screwed.
There are about 50 minutes left at this point, and they go on to deliver some suspense and some sadness.
The Wandering Earth has falling debris, it has people dangling from cables, it has spaceships and people in space suits, and it has folks casually trying to jimmy a planet out of the solar system.
It's basically a mixed bag of all of the exciting outer-space action things you could possibly want.
If you do watch and you speak English, one thing I'd recommend is using the original Mandarin audio with English subtitles.
Sadly, I didn't consider this until I was DEEP into the movie, but I feel like it's way easier to be immersed without the English voiceover.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Entertainment rating: 8/10.
Favorite visual: There are so many, but I really dug the shot of a very frozen stadium in Shanghai.
Recommend for English-speaking sci-fi fans?: YES. It's definitely different from how it might've been if it were made by, like, Christopher Nolan or whoever, but that's the beauty of it. It's wild and cool to see what a sci-fi box-office smash looks like in another country.
PREVIOUSLY WATCHED:
The Silence on Netflix
Black Summer on Netflix
How It Ends on Netflix
Set It Up on Netflix
The Kissing Booth on Netflix
Hell House LLC. on Amazon Prime
Veronica on Netflix
Dude on Netflix
Irreplaceable You on Netflix