The Wandering Earth II (2023)

9 December 202313 April 2024

Rating: ★★★

(Liu Lang Di Qiu 2)

China. 2023.

Crew

Director – Frant Gwo, Screenplay – Gong Geer, Frant Gwo, Yang Zhizue & Ye Ruchang, Based on the Novel by Cixin Liu, Producers – Gong Geer & Wu Xian, Photography – Michael Liu, Music – Roc Chen, Visual Effects Supervisors – Ahdee Chiu, Ding Yanlan, Allen Wei & Eric Xu, Visual Effects – 4th Creative Party (Supervisor – Leedong Hoon), Baolin Chuangzhan Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Yim Ilhyuk), Beijing Hi Quxue Technology Co., Ltd. (Supervisors – Guan Fusong & Lu Zhi), Beijing Kup-Vision Cultural Communications Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Jie Hu), Beijing Light Digital Culture Media Co., Ltd (Supervisors – Liang Tenglong, Shi Feng & Zhang Kai), Beijing Orange Vision Studio Co., Ltd. (Supervisors – Ding Yanlai & Sun Haoyuan), Beijing Sherlock Cultural Communications Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Zhao Janhui), Beijing Source VFX Film and Television Culture Co., Ltd. (Supervisors – Wu Zhen & Yuan Huatang), Beijing Uezj Visual production Co., Ltd. (Supervisors – Li Zinyu & Sun Bo), Box Studio (Supervisor – Wang Wei), Changkong Image (Supervisors – Sun Haidong & Zhang Wei), Fat Face Production Limited (Supervisor – Kwok Tai), Film Tree Studio (Supervisor – Luo Chao), Firework Film Technology [Beijing] Co., Ltd. (Supervisors – Teng Zhaquei), Frames VFX (Supervisors – Liu Dongfang, Tian Bing & Wu Sifan), Guangyo VFX (Supervisor – Aether), House of VFX (Supervisor – Adam Hopper), Image Architect VFX (Supervisor – Tycka), Jiangxi Mirage Crazy Explosion Culture Media Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Hu Xueliang), Light Visual Studio (Supervisor – Larry Han), Llumina Technology Co., Ltd (Supervisors – Martin & Zhu Shaonian), Lumina VFX (Supervisor – Liu Shiyang), Luxpopuli VFX (Supervisor – Geng Chengyuan), Magic Vision VFX (Supervisor – Qu Junyang), Mixing Light Yi Image Culture Communications (Supervisor – Tian Yue), More Visual Production Co., Ltd. (Supervisors – Ahdee Chiu, Li Shuai, Allen Wei, Wang Ziyang, Eric Xu & Zhang Fan), Nanjing Digital Ocean Culture Media Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Joseph Zhou), Nimensions VFX (Supervisors – Wayne Bruce & Lynn Wang), Nucleus FX Studios (Supervisor – Yang Rijing), Retina Imageworks (Supervisor – Cao Han), Shanghai Kuiyi Cutural Communications Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Tao Kunzhan), Shanghai PL Culture Communications., Ltd. (Supervisor – Benson Guo), Shanghai Wuerhezi Film Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Warren Wang), Shenzhen Madcat SFX Company Limited (Supervisor – Michael Leung), TexturingXYZ Sarl (Supervisor – Jeremy Celeste), Time Axis Digital Graphics Co., Ltd, (Director – Chen Yi), Trehmer Film LLC, VA Studio (Supervisor – Jaeseok Kim), Visual Impact Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (Supervisors – Kang Yning & Billy Zhuang), YoungFX [Beijing] Culture Media (Supervisor – Sun Tengfei), Yanjin VFX, Yufengrui Movies (Supervisors – Li Hongwei, You Rui & Zhang Zhengwei), Zenus Tech (Supervisors – Qin Yao & Tegen Taku), Zhangjiakou Saishang Culture Media Co., Ltd. (Supervisor – Wang Xiqing) & Zhuqingting Animation Co., Ltd (Supervisor – Zhuo Huajing), Special Makeup – Manas Effects (Supervisor – Kan Shui) & R3D Effects (Supervisor – Cherlynn), Production Design – Gao Ang. Production Company – CFC Pictures Limited/Gifilm Studio [Beijing] Co., Ltd/Beijing Dengfeng International Culture Communication Co., Ltd/China Film Co., Ltd./Beijing Alibaba Pictures Culture Co., Ltd/Sunac Culture Entertainment [Beijing] Co., Ltd./Wanda Pictures/More Visual Production Co., Ltd./Xiao Xiang Pictures Co., Ltd./Huace Pictures/Ningbo Amazing Box Pictures Co., Ltd./Douyin Culture [Xiamen] Limited/Huayi Brothers Pictures Limited/Shanghai Film Group/Xiamen Magic Pictures Co., Ltd./Poly Film Investment Co., Ltd./Beijing Free Whale Pictures Co., Ltd./Shezhen Yi Yi Yi Culture Media Co., Ltd./Lianray Pictures Co., Ltd./Huawen Picture Co., Ltd./Shanghai Hanna Pictures Co., Ltd./Ningbo Cultures & Tourism Investment Group Co., Ltd./Emperor Film Distribution [Beijing] Company Limited/Changchun Film Studio Group Co., Ltd./Sichuan Science Fiction Worldwide Magazine Co., Ltd./Zhijiang Film Group Corporation/Sina Studios/Zhi Jiang Heng Dian Film Co., Ltd./Aranya Pictures Co., Ltd./Beijing Cool Whale Film and Television Industry Development Co., Ltd./Cgina Film Digital Cinemaline [Beijing] Co., Ltd./Liaoning China Film North Theatre Chain Co., Ltd./China Film Southern Cinema Circuit Co., Ltd./Shaanxi Radio Film and TV Culture Industry Development Co., Ltd./Beijing Guoyingzongcheng Film Co., Ltd./Zhujiang Film Group Co., Ltd./Emei Film Group Co., Ltd./Benxiao Media Co., Ltd..

Cast

Andy Lau (Tu Hengyu), Wu Jing (Liu Peiqiang), Li Xuejian (Zhou Zhezhi), Wang Zhi (Han Duoduo), Ning Li (Ma Zhao), Sha Yi (Zhang Peng), Manzi (Hao Xiaoxi), Ruoxi Wang (Tu Yaya), Andy Friend (Mike)

Plot

As the sun threatens to explode, the Moving Mountain Project is launched. Plans are made by the countries of the world to build vast engines that will move the Earth out of orbit and on a journey to relocate around Alpha Centauri. Meanwhile, a similar project is begun to build engines that will push The Moon out of Earth’s orbit. However, there are increasing protests from some factions of the public who are in favour of creating digital avatars of people and uploading them to live electronically instead. A group of terrorists sneak aboard the space elevator while it is taking recruits up to the space station and detonate bombs, bring the elevator cages crashing down. This leaves many countries having doubts about the project, but China leads the way determined to go on. On The Moon, scientist Tu Hengyu has created an illegal digital avatar of his dead daughter Yaya, although she has only limited interactivity. Threatened with shutdown, he releases Yaya into the system – only for the program to trigger the engines prematurely, threatening to cause The Moon to collide with the Earth.

The Wandering Earth (2019) was huge hit in China – the second biggest box-office hit in Chinese history. It came as part of China’s newfound embrace of the SF film and the Hollywood-styled effects blockbuster in the 2020s. At the time, I criticised the film for its bad science – the idea of moving the Earth as depicted in the film would have far more disastrous consequences than is imagined. The Wandering Earth II is a sequel, well actually a prequel from the same director Frant Gwo. Cixin Liu, the Chinese SF author, upon whose 2000 novella the first film was based, acts as a producer.

When it came to The Wandering Earth II, I was expecting more of the same but was surprised that it is an altogether better film than its predecessor. What it does well is present the sheer scale and ambition of a multi-generational engineering project. The film has been mounted as an absolute spectacular and was released in IMAX theatres. It contains the most visual effects house I have ever had to type up for a film’s credits using the pause button and what may well be a record for the number of production companies involved too. It’s a film that out Ronald Emmerch’s Roland Emmerich himself. Indeed, the scenes with the Moon about to crash into the Earth make for a far more plausible scenario that Emmerich gave us in Moonfall (2022). The film also features the oddity of screen captions that announce the number of hours or minutes before some catastrophic event.

The effects are quite incredible. The space elevator looks stunning and there are epic shots of it coming crashing down, along with a great zero g fight sequence. There are shots on the lunar surface where you awe at the amount of granular detail gone into the moonbases, craters and each individual rock, or shots that pull back to a wide angle to show a lunar buggy as small as a bug crawling along the surface. And the film gets truly epic when it comes to the scenes of moon debris impacting with the Earth, the firing of the rockets and detonation of the nuclear arsenal on the Moon. There are also some really interesting looking robots that essentially consist of jointed metal legs.

The space elevator comes crashing down in The Wandering Earth II (2023) — The space elevator comes crashing down

It is a film that is alive whenever it has big, big things happening. On the minus side, some of the human drama in between the effects scenes slows things down – probably not too much of a surprise give that the film runs to nearly a three hour (2 hours 53 minutes) length. After some epic scenes with the destruction of the space elevator, the show slows down with assorted scenes with grieving father Andy Lau building an illegal avatar of his dead daughter and the assorted in-politicking around this. Some of the plotting here gets a little vague – I was never clear, for instance, why releasing the daughter into the moonbase’s computer system instantaneously ends up with the moon’s rockets firing prematurely.

As with most Chinese cinema these days, The Wandering Earth II does come with an undeniable Chinese nationalism. After the terrorists bring the space elevator down, most of the world wants to give up on the Moving Mountain Project but it is only the Chinese government that has sufficient vision and determination to keep going. Certainly, this is very much an internationally focused production and contains scenes shot in different parts of the world. We also see people from different countries participating in the project, while the climax has world governments collaborating to donate their nuclear arsenals for the turning back of The Moon. There is also the theme of individual sacrifice for the greater good that regularly turns up in modern Chinese genre cinema, none more so than the nuclear detonation scenes where 300 volunteers are needed to manually detonate the bombs and people proudly stand up to give their lives for the sake of their nations.

(Nominee for Best Special Effects at this site’s Best of 2023 Awards).

Trailer here