The first place in box office word-of-mouth! 173-minute giant production, Wu Jing Andy Lau shot, worthy of the domestic king fried movie

This year's Spring Festival, mainland cinemas have been lively for a long time.

There are both blockbuster new works of famous directors and masters, as well as comedy dark horses in response to the scene, as well as two popular animated movies.

However, among the seven popular new films in the Spring Festival file, the work that currently ranks first in popularity is "The Wandering Earth 2".

The film's box office exceeded 200 million in the pre-sale stage, with a box office of 470 million on the first day, and the box office has exceeded 1 billion yuan in two days of release.

Not only has the box office climbed all the way, but the film's reputation is quite excellent, with a current Douban score of 8.3 points.

It is not only the best movie in the Spring Festival file, but also better than the previous 7.9 rating.

For a sequel movie after four years, "The Wandering Earth 2" can be said to surpass the previous work in an all-round way.

To paraphrase a comment from a netizen: You can always believe in the little broken ball!

In this issue's "Theatrical Movie Detoxification" column, let's talk about this domestic sci-fi movie——

The Wandering Earth 2

The Wandering Earth Ⅱ

When "The Wandering Earth" was released four years ago, many comments said that it gave the audience hope for the rise of domestic science fiction.

Now, after four years, "The Wandering Earth 2" continues to explore the boundaries of domestic sci-fi movies on the basis of its predecessor, while bringing greater surprises and shocks to the audience, allowing the domestic sci-fi theme to take off again.

The film is still written and directed by Guo Fan, and the success of the two "The Wandering Earth" has made him a leading figure in the current domestic science fiction theme, and the protagonist of the previous work, Wu Jing, continues to return to star, playing the protagonist Liu Peiqiang again.

At the same time, the sequel has added some new heavy characters, the cast includes Andy Lau, Li Xuejian, Sha Yi, Wang Zhi, Ning Li, Zhu Yan Manzi and other well-known actors, in terms of the lineup, the sequel is undoubtedly more luxurious and eye-catching.

It is worth mentioning that the length of this film also set a "record for the Spring Festival film", with a length of 173 minutes, highlighting the creator's greater ambition -

With the story of one movie, carry the volume of two movies, and double the shock and refreshment of the audience!

Considering that four years have passed since the last one, briefly popularize the story background of the previous work:

"The Wandering Earth" is adapted from the novel of the same name by science fiction writer Liu Cixin, set in the near future, mankind has encountered an unprecedented crisis, due to the rapid aging and expansion of the sun, about to engulf the entire solar system, the earth is not spared.

In the face of this doomsday crisis related to the survival of the global human race, mankind began to unite and put forward a bold plan called "The Wandering Earth", that is, to build tens of thousands of engines and steering engines on the surface of the earth, pushing the earth out of the solar system and rushing to another habitat in 2,500 years.

The protagonists of the first part of "The Wandering Earth" are astronaut Liu Peiqiang (played by Wu Jing) and his son Liu Qi, because of a global engine shutdown event in 2075, causing Jupiter's gravitational crisis, Liu Peiqiang and his son launched a rescue in space and on Earth respectively, and finally Liu Peiqiang sacrificed himself to resolve the crisis.

Since the protagonist played by Wu Jing in the previous work has been sacrificed, the story of "The Wandering Earth 2" is actually a prequel.

In the opening narration of the previous work, it was explained that "mankind became extremely united in the face of this catastrophe, and a coalition government was formed to start the Wandering Earth Project", and the story of the sequel began - before the "Wandering Earth Project" officially began, human beings were not so united and cooperative at the beginning.

In the first movie, the "Wandering Earth Project" has officially begun, and humanity is facing a "Jupiter gravitational crisis" in the process of Earth's migration and wandering, but in "The Wandering Earth 2", the timeline has been extended to decades ago.

At that time, the "Wandering Earth Project" was still in its infancy, but mankind at that time was facing a more complex apocalyptic crisis.

The first is the "crisis of social division" caused by "how to continue human civilization on earth" - the confrontation between the digital life faction and the wandering earth faction for many years, leaving the earth under the haze of war.

The film opens with an extremely divided world, Sha Yi's Air Force pilot Zhang Peng and his apprentice Liu Peiqiang walk on the devastated wreckage and ruins of the war, suggesting the chaos encountered by mankind at that time.

In order to achieve its goal, the digital life faction that pursues immortality in the virtual world launches a series of terrorist attacks, allowing the audience to witness the extremization of conflicts and contradictions in the future world, as if it is a realistic fable in the shadow of a future war.

The second is the predecessor of the "Wandering Earth Plan", the "Moving Mountain Plan", which encountered a "crisis of confidence" in the preparation and implementation stage - the Wandering Earth Faction also faced doubts about the feasibility of this plan, resulting in slow progress of the project.

Teacher Zhou, played by Li Xuejian, withstood pressure from all parties and lobbied the coalition government to obtain the consent of countries to the "Mountain Moving Plan", in order to protect the homeland and civilization on which all mankind depends.

Finally, there is the "lunar crisis" encountered in the opening stage of the "Wandering Earth Project", which is also the most thrilling and critical crisis in the film.

In addition, there is also the "artificial intelligence crisis" caused by the "ultimate paradox about digital life and human soul" drawn from the key protagonist Tu Hengyu, echoing the key plot of the first part.

It is not difficult to see from the conflict setting of these four crises that the story of "The Wandering Earth 2" is more compact and ups and downs than the previous work, and the film has emphasized the sense of crisis of the end since the first act, and how to deal with and resolve these crises has become the biggest suspense that affects the audience's heart, and it is also the core key plot of the film.

The film revolves around one crisis after another, bringing the audience a sci-fi disaster spectacle that comprehensively surpasses the previous work, from the protagonist Liu Peiqiang staged a mortal fight in a space elevator, to drones and fighter jets igniting air battles, and then to the shocking scene of the space station crash, all of which have reached the top level of the domestic film industry.

But the core of the film is warm, and the personal fate of the two protagonists in the face of crisis has become the main axis of the narrative.

Aerospace hero Liu Peiqiang also has a soft side in his heart, he and his wife from acquaintance and love, to life and death parting life is touching, in order to give his family a chance to live, he chose to step into space as a space station navigator, and finally never see his family again.

Why Liu Peiqiang appeared on the space station in "The Wandering Earth 1" was explained in detail in the sequel.

There is also the master-apprentice relationship between Liu Peiqiang and Master Zhang Peng, which is also moving, and the choreographer specially designed the small action of Master Zhang Peng poking Liu Peiqiang's forehead with his finger many times, and finally when the master and apprentice said goodbye to the moon, in the space where words could not be transmitted, this tiny action turned out to be a big tear point moment in the whole film.

In addition, the role of artificial intelligence expert Tu Hengyu, played by Andy Lau, newly added in the sequel, provides a second tear point for the film.

He is a desperate father living in the grief of losing his daughter, and an accidental car accident took the life of Tu Hengyu's daughter Tu Yaya. In the operating room, when Tuya was dying, her consciousness was uploaded to the relevant equipment and saved in the form of data, and the "Digital Life Project" gave him hope of giving his daughter a second life.

At that time, the "Digital Life Plan" had been completely banned at the legal level, but Tu Hengyu still connected the hardware device that stored his daughter's residual consciousness to the intelligent quantum computer, and after hundreds of iterations, the daughter in digital form finally had two minutes of life.

This is not enough, Tu Hengyu wants to give his daughter a complete life. In the end, he did whatever it took to upload his daughter's life data to the most advanced intelligent computer 550W, which led to the ethical speculation of digital life and real life.

If you follow the conventional trend of Hollywood movies, you will usually stand from the perspective of critical technology, just like Ma Zhao, a calm and rational scientist in the movie, before the final sacrifice, he is still telling Tu Hengyu to give up the false fantasy of digital life.

But surprisingly, director Guo Fan gave a completely different answer in this film.

At the last moment of his life, Tu Hengyu uploaded his life data to the network at the same time, completed the "reunion" with his daughter after many years in the form of digital life, and helped real humans complete the final rescue operation at the last moment.

As a sequel movie, "The Wandering Earth 2" has to face more critical eyes and expectations from the audience, especially the "The Wandering Earth" series is a "Chinese-style science fiction" story, which is different from Western-style science fiction movies in terms of theme core, which undoubtedly puts forward higher thresholds and requirements for the creation of sequels to the film.

Surprisingly, director Guo Fan did not disappoint the audience, although "The Wandering Earth 2" is a prequel movie, it has achieved a "comprehensive upgrade" in all aspects of the film, and has also continued and re-excavated the core themes in the previous work.

The whole film is 172 minutes but there are no urine spots, the story rhythm is very gripping, and the wonderful and shocking visual effects scenes are even more dizzying, presenting to the audience is a complex and grand space science fiction epic.

As a heavy industry film genre, science fiction movies need shocking and magnificent special effects scenes to present those subverting the imagination of future wonders and various high-concept science fiction settings and brain holes, and how to turn these grand imaginations into reality is undoubtedly the primary problem faced by science fiction film creators.

"The Wandering Earth 2" has made a lot of bold attempts and explorations for this, such as the cosmic highway "space elevator" that connects the earth and the universe at the beginning of the movie, which not only continues the design style of the "planetary engine" in the previous work with a sense of future technology and realism, but also shows more complex and detailed special effects.

Especially the epic sci-fi long shot of the empty elevator is breathtaking, the film follows the protagonist to take the space elevator from the surface to space, like taking a high-speed space viewing elevator, in the state of extreme weightlessness from the ground to the sky, and finally travel to space, truly transforming the romantic imagination of science fiction movies into realistic scenes that the audience can perceive, perfectly interpreting the grand imagination of the film.

On the other hand, compared with the previous work, "The Wandering Earth 2" further expands and enriches the sci-fi world view, and the theme of the story is more complex, using a chronicle narrative to connect a series of challenges and crises encountered by human beings before they started the "Wandering Earth Project".

According to the starring Wu Jing in an interview, the film has a script of 70,000 words, and the huge world view construction of 200,000 words is undoubtedly an unprecedented creative volume in the field of domestic science fiction films.

Director Guo Fan spent so much effort to enrich the world view, which corresponds to the creative philosophy of Liu Cixin, the film's producer and original author: a good-looking science fiction novel should write the most ethereal and crazy imagination as real as a news report.

The same is true of the main creative team of "The Wandering Earth", although it is a science fiction movie, the main creator has the ambition to make the film a "future documentary", ensuring that every detail of the film is done to the best and making it as realistic and realistic as possible.

On the other hand, although "The Wandering Earth" is a standard hard science fiction movie, the film explores completely Eastern emotions and philosophies outside of the science fiction and disaster genres.

The inseparability of the homeland and the protection of the homeland are emotions that linger in the depths of Chinese bloodline, and the "Moving Mountain Plan", as the name suggests, is taken from the allusion to "the fool moves the mountain", which is the romance that only Chinese understands, and only the infrastructure mad devil has the confidence.

If the first part of the series four years ago was to explore human courage and belief, then this sequel is to stand at the height of the entire human civilization, to think about the inheritance of civilization and the continuation of hope, just as Director Ma Zhao's line at the end of the movie "No one's civilization is meaningless", which directly expresses the final theme of the film - the interdependence between human beings and civilization.

Whether it is Liu Peiqiang or Tu Hengyu, or Zhang Peng, Ma Zhao, and even the foreign astronauts of different nationalities in the film, they are all doing their best to preserve the fire of human civilization, so that the audience can truly feel that "a community with a shared future for mankind" is not an empty phrase.

From this point of view, "The Wandering Earth 2" has completed more imagination of local science fiction movies, making the film truly an epic Chinese science fiction movie.