4 ms·

China’s grand, gloomy sci-fi is going global

32 points by jkuria 7y ago

equalunique 7y ago
I saw my girlfriend's step dad watch this on netflix earlier this month. It looked like the type of film which could hold an audience. I want to see it in it's entirety.
evo_9 7y ago
The Wandering Earth is a terrible film. If my wife wasn’t Chinese and really wanted to see it through I would have stopped it 30 minutes into it and that is something I’ve only done a few times ever. The Three-Body Problem Is a pretty good book at times and could translate well with a big budget. Looking forward to seeing it.
- salutonmundo 7y ago
  A Chinese production of 3Body has been "postponed": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(film) Though personally I don't see how certain parts (like the VR sequences) would translate to screen.
  - dpau 7y ago
    While the film version was cancelled, apparently a TV series is in the works: A TV adaptation of Chinese sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem is in development https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700675/chinese-science-fiction-three-body-problem-tv-series-cixin-liu https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700675/chinese-science-...
- CannisterFlux 7y ago
  Maybe I'm easily pleased, but I quite liked Wandering Earth. It's extremely far fetched and a bit cheesy, but the story races along, there are loads of good set pieces, the characters are alright (watching with subtitles I think I missed out here) and the special effects are well done. It has a few Liu "tropes" in there that reminded me of 3 Body, like "Project X has now become Project Y", authority is surprisingly organised and has a grand plan, while in the end the job depends on the brilliance and self sacrifice of individuals.
- rqs 7y ago
  About The Wandering Earth, I didn't watch the film except the trailer, but many years ago one of my classmate in school read the book, so I still vaguely remember the story. In my memory, it's an epic, big, huge and vast story, and Cool. But it's just that, cool and empty. The story itself I think is targeting high schoolers, so the storyline does not run very deep and logical. And it's very hard to build an inspiring story on such shallow background. I'm expecting this movie at the same level with something like The Avengers: A fine movie, but in the end, nothing new. No new thinking, no enlightenment, you'll probably learn nothing from it if you're already a Scifi fan. Good for time killing, not a good for sink yourself in. However, Scifi in China is really a dead desert, the level of success Liu has reached as a Chinese scifi author could inspire other authors to create better stories in the future. Maybe himself could write some better stories when he's world view got deeper[0]. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war...
  - em-bee 7y ago
    indeed, it was a fine movie, good action, drama and all that. not hard science-fiction, and i don't remember learning anything new either. but my hope is that the commercial success of the movie will attract more chinese science-fiction, so that this won't be the pinnacle of what chinese science-fiction films can achieve, but only the beginning.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cromwellian 7y ago
The Wandering Earth is China’s _The Core_ but not as fun. Maybe similar to that movie where they restart the Sun with a fission bomb :)
- rqs 7y ago
  You mean https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/ ?
writepub 7y ago
> Startlingly, the moral authority of the security forces is never challenged in the film. Far from being villains, they help save the world. You mean, the Chinese adopted Marvel's not-so-stealthy glorification of the American military complex (Capitan America, iron Man, Wolverine,....)
- Animats 7y ago
  Wolverine?
  - writepub 7y ago
    He served in the US armed forces. Check out his origin story
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      He was also tortured by the military and given his metal skeleton and claws against his will, killed people to escape iirc, etc. He hates the people who did that to him and understandably has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide.
      - Apocryphon 7y ago
        Also, he's Canadian.
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        Yes, true. I didn't remember that. Thank you. But even if you don't remember that, I can't fathom anyone seeing his origin story as somehow pro military. It's quite critical of the military. He continues to have nightmares about what was done to him. This is why he stabs Rogue, who really should have died from it and only didn't because she is able to "borrow" his powers to heal herself. She was trying to wake him up from a nightmare. And his ongoing hatred of the military and the people who did that to him shows up as plot points in various stories. So it isn't simply his backstory I the past. This is part of the ongoing storyline. So how anyone can say "He was in the military once -- check his origin story" as evidence that his story is highly pro military is beyond me.
dpau 7y ago
The recent renaissance in Chinese (and Chinese-American) Science Fiction has been incredible, and as the article mentions, much of this work is a tool of "subtle dissent". I've been surprised as to how much Mainland authors have been "getting away" with. An excellent example is Hao Jingfang's "Folding Beijing", which is a wonderful critique of contemporary (Chinese) society. Ken Liu's translation is freely available here: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/ https://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/ Translating monumental works like The Wandering Earth or even the full trilogy of the Three-Body Problem to the screen is already a tremendously challenging undertaking. Adding on top of that institutional problems within the Chinese film industry, the desire to cash in and popularize these works with spectacular but superficial treatments (e.g. "The Wandering Earth" movie), and the heightened level of censorship that movies must undergo, and I don't have much hope for film adaptations of these books. The best Chinese/Chinese-American production I've seen of late is the "Good Hunting" episode of "Love, Death & Robots" on Netflix, based on the short story of the same name by Ken Liu. Although the story is in part anti-colonial, I seriously doubt the story would have survived intact and be as well made if it were made in the Mainland. ("Good Hunting": http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2012/special-issue-hunting1-f.shtml http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2012/special-issue-hu...)
- em-bee 7y ago
  a good starting point to get into chinese science-fiction is clarkesworld ( http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ ), which, since a few years is publishing a translated chinese story every month. (and just recently they also added translations from korean too)
kristianp 7y ago
It's refreshing to see some science fiction that doesn't have magical super heroes like marvel and star wars (and isn't part of a huge franchise too). It's also cool to see sf ideas of "mega" engineering.

32 points by jkuria 7y ago

I saw my girlfriend's step dad watch this on netflix earlier this month. It looked like the type of film which could hold an audience. I want to see it in it's entirety.

evo_9 7y ago

The Wandering Earth is a terrible film. If my wife wasn’t Chinese and really wanted to see it through I would have stopped it 30 minutes into it and that is something I’ve only done a few times ever. The Three-Body Problem Is a pretty good book at times and could translate well with a big budget. Looking forward to seeing it.

salutonmundo 7y ago
A Chinese production of 3Body has been "postponed": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(film) Though personally I don't see how certain parts (like the VR sequences) would translate to screen.
- dpau 7y ago
  While the film version was cancelled, apparently a TV series is in the works: A TV adaptation of Chinese sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem is in development https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700675/chinese-science-fiction-three-body-problem-tv-series-cixin-liu https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700675/chinese-science-...
CannisterFlux 7y ago
Maybe I'm easily pleased, but I quite liked Wandering Earth. It's extremely far fetched and a bit cheesy, but the story races along, there are loads of good set pieces, the characters are alright (watching with subtitles I think I missed out here) and the special effects are well done. It has a few Liu "tropes" in there that reminded me of 3 Body, like "Project X has now become Project Y", authority is surprisingly organised and has a grand plan, while in the end the job depends on the brilliance and self sacrifice of individuals.
rqs 7y ago
About The Wandering Earth, I didn't watch the film except the trailer, but many years ago one of my classmate in school read the book, so I still vaguely remember the story. In my memory, it's an epic, big, huge and vast story, and Cool. But it's just that, cool and empty. The story itself I think is targeting high schoolers, so the storyline does not run very deep and logical. And it's very hard to build an inspiring story on such shallow background. I'm expecting this movie at the same level with something like The Avengers: A fine movie, but in the end, nothing new. No new thinking, no enlightenment, you'll probably learn nothing from it if you're already a Scifi fan. Good for time killing, not a good for sink yourself in. However, Scifi in China is really a dead desert, the level of success Liu has reached as a Chinese scifi author could inspire other authors to create better stories in the future. Maybe himself could write some better stories when he's world view got deeper[0]. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war...
- em-bee 7y ago
  indeed, it was a fine movie, good action, drama and all that. not hard science-fiction, and i don't remember learning anything new either. but my hope is that the commercial success of the movie will attract more chinese science-fiction, so that this won't be the pinnacle of what chinese science-fiction films can achieve, but only the beginning.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

cromwellian 7y ago

The Wandering Earth is China’s _The Core_ but not as fun. Maybe similar to that movie where they restart the Sun with a fission bomb :)

rqs 7y ago
You mean https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/ ?

writepub 7y ago

> Startlingly, the moral authority of the security forces is never challenged in the film. Far from being villains, they help save the world. You mean, the Chinese adopted Marvel's not-so-stealthy glorification of the American military complex (Capitan America, iron Man, Wolverine,....)

Animats 7y ago
Wolverine?
- writepub 7y ago
  He served in the US armed forces. Check out his origin story
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    He was also tortured by the military and given his metal skeleton and claws against his will, killed people to escape iirc, etc. He hates the people who did that to him and understandably has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Also, he's Canadian.
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        Yes, true. I didn't remember that. Thank you. But even if you don't remember that, I can't fathom anyone seeing his origin story as somehow pro military. It's quite critical of the military. He continues to have nightmares about what was done to him. This is why he stabs Rogue, who really should have died from it and only didn't because she is able to "borrow" his powers to heal herself. She was trying to wake him up from a nightmare. And his ongoing hatred of the military and the people who did that to him shows up as plot points in various stories. So it isn't simply his backstory I the past. This is part of the ongoing storyline. So how anyone can say "He was in the military once -- check his origin story" as evidence that his story is highly pro military is beyond me.

dpau 7y ago

The recent renaissance in Chinese (and Chinese-American) Science Fiction has been incredible, and as the article mentions, much of this work is a tool of "subtle dissent". I've been surprised as to how much Mainland authors have been "getting away" with. An excellent example is Hao Jingfang's "Folding Beijing", which is a wonderful critique of contemporary (Chinese) society. Ken Liu's translation is freely available here: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/ https://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/ Translating monumental works like The Wandering Earth or even the full trilogy of the Three-Body Problem to the screen is already a tremendously challenging undertaking. Adding on top of that institutional problems within the Chinese film industry, the desire to cash in and popularize these works with spectacular but superficial treatments (e.g. "The Wandering Earth" movie), and the heightened level of censorship that movies must undergo, and I don't have much hope for film adaptations of these books. The best Chinese/Chinese-American production I've seen of late is the "Good Hunting" episode of "Love, Death & Robots" on Netflix, based on the short story of the same name by Ken Liu. Although the story is in part anti-colonial, I seriously doubt the story would have survived intact and be as well made if it were made in the Mainland. ("Good Hunting": http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2012/special-issue-hunting1-f.shtml http://strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2012/special-issue-hu...)

em-bee 7y ago
a good starting point to get into chinese science-fiction is clarkesworld ( http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ ), which, since a few years is publishing a translated chinese story every month. (and just recently they also added translations from korean too)

kristianp 7y ago

It's refreshing to see some science fiction that doesn't have magical super heroes like marvel and star wars (and isn't part of a huge franchise too). It's also cool to see sf ideas of "mega" engineering.