The Wandering Earth

The Wandering Earth
Directed by	Frant Gwo
Produced by	Gong Ge'er
Starring	Qu Chuxiao Li Guangjie Ng Man-tat Zhao Jinmai Wu Jing Qu Jingjing
Edited by	Cheung Ka-fai
Production company	China Film Group Corporation
Release dates	February 5, 2019 (2019-02-05) (China) February 8, 2019 (2019-02-08) (North America and Australia)
Running time	125 minutes
Country	China
Language	Mandarin
Budget	$50 million

The Wandering Earth (Chinese: 流浪地球) is a Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo. It is based on a story by author Liu Cixin and was released on February 5, 2019 (the 2019 Chinese New Year's Day).

The Hollywood Reporter describes it as "China's first full-scale interstellar spectacular".

Synopsis

In the near future, the Sun ages and is about to turn into a red giant, pushing the United Earth Goverment to consolidate into a world government and initiate a project to move Earth out of the Solar System, and travel to the Alpha Centauri system, to preserve human civilization. Huge thrusters running on fusion power are built across the planet to propel it. Human population is reduced severely due to catastrophic tides that occur after the planetary engines stop Earth's rotation, and later as the planet moves away from the Sun, much of the surface is frozen due to lowered temperatures, forcing humans to live in vast underground cities built adjacent to the engines.

At the beginning of the film, Liu Peiqiang (Wu Jing), a Chinese astronaut, promises to his son Liu Qi of his eventual return before his mission to a space station that helps Earth navigate as it moves out of the Solar system, and hands guardianship of his son over to his father-in-law Han Zi'ang (Ng Man-tat).

Several years later, Liu Peiqiang's mission is about to end and he will soon return to Earth. To celebrate Chinese New Year, an adult Liu Qi (Qu Chuxiao) brings adopted sister Han Duoduo (Zhao Jinmai) on a trip to the surface in a truck they steal using Han Zi'ang's clearance as a trucker. They are arrested, and meet Tim (Mike Sui) as well as Han Zi'ang who unsuccessfully tries to get them released.

As Earth passes by Jupiter, it is captured by Jupiter's gravity, causing devastating earthquakes that disable many thrusters across the globe. The four escape amidst the chaos and attempt to make their way out using the stolen truck, but the truck is requisitioned for a rescue mission by the military; they are to transport an engine component to the damaged thruster in Hangzhou, supervised by soldiers led by Wang Lei (Li Guangjie). In the remnants of Shanghai, they lose their vehicle, and while transporting the component up the ruins of a skyscraper Han Zi'ang is killed. With news that the Hangzhou thruster was fully compromised and the city was completely destroyed, the group temporarily despair. They however find a new vehicle where the on-board engineer, Li Yiyi (Zhang Yichi), convinces them to transport an engine component to repair a larger planetary engine in Sulawesi.

In space, Liu Peiqiang discovers that the artificial intelligence commanding the space station has directed it to escape rather than to assist the humans on Earth. He breaks out of forced hibernation and attempts to stop the spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Makarov, who is killed by the spacecraft's automated security measures. Liu Peiqiang arrives in the control room, but his clearances were revoked due to his undisciplinary acts and he can do little to override the escape process.

Liu Qi's group arrive at Sulawesi to find that the engine was already fully restored. Globally, most of the planetary thrusters have been repaired as well. However, Earth has moved past Jupiter's Roche limit and will be destroyed anyway, with the restored thrust unable to propel it away. The group despairs on learning this, but Liu Qi, inspired by recollection of his father's explanation of the thrusters' mechanics as a child, proposes to ignite Jupiter's hydrogen-abundant atmosphere to move Earth away. Li Yiyi proposes to concentrate the Sulawesi engine's power to fire a beam high enough to ignite Jupiter. The group overcome various challenges, such as renewed aftershock tremors that injure several members, and are able to mostly reconfigure the engine to carry out the plan, however they are not able to push the firing pin of the engine to ignite it.

Liu Peiqiang, learning of this, is able to persuade the world government to use its communication channels to call assistance for the party at Sulawesi, even though the on-board AI reveals that the solution being attempted has no chance of success based on probability calculations. Other rescue and repair parties arrive and the engine is fired up, but it falls short of being able to ignite the hydrogen. Liu Peiqiang decides to use the space station's engine itself to ignite Jupiter's hydrogen; after disabling the resistant AI using a fire started with vodka that Makarov smuggled on-board, he pilots the spacecraft into the cloud between Jupiter and Earth, sacrificing himself as the ignition succeeds. Earth is saved from destruction, and continues to move towards the destination star system.

As the film ends, Liu Qi recounts and envisions the stages of Earth's migration, a process to take 2,500 years and still bound with uncertainty, in a hopeful tone.

Cast

• Qu Chuxiao as Liu Qi
• Li Guangjie as Wang Lei
• Ng Man-tat as Han Zi'ang
• Zhao Jinmai as Han Duoduo
• Wu Jing as Liu Peiqiang
• Mike Sui as Tim
• Qu Jingjing as Zhou Qian
• Zhang Yichi as Li Yiyi
• Yang Haoyu as He Lianke
• Li Hongchen
• Yang Yi
• Jiang Zhigang
• Zhang Huan

Production

Pre-production

In order to establish a rigorous setting, Frant Gwo invited four scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to act as consultants. The film's three thousand concept maps and more than eight thousand sub-mirrors were elaborately created by a conceptual art team of three hundred people over a period of 15 months.

Filming

Principal photography started on May 26, 2017 in Qingdao, a seaside city on north China's Shandong province, and wrapped on September 27, 2017.

Weta Workshop made the film's highly specialised spacesuits, exoskeletons and weaponry.

Post-production

The visual effects of the film were made by Base FX (VFX Supervisor: Varun Hadkar), Bottleship VFX, Dexter Studios, Macrograph, More VFX, Pixomondo and Black Nomad.

The film's IMAX 3D version was made by using the proprietary DMR (Digital Media Remastering) process.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was composed by Roc Chen and Tao Liu.

Release

On December 25, 2018, the first official trailer for the film was released at the China Aerospace Museum in Beijing along with a teaser poster.

On January 30, 2019, Beijing-based distributor China Media Capital (CMC Pictures) announced that it has secured the international rights and is planning a sizable North American release on February 8. The company will open the film in 22 cities in the U.S. and three in Canada, as well as throughout Australia.

External links

• The Wandering Earth at IMDb
• The Wandering Earth at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Wandering Earth at Douban (in Chinese)
• The Wandering Earth at Mtime.com (archived) (in Chinese)