User reviews

Over the last decade, Chinese cinema has made giant leaps and bounds in terms of quality and sophistication of their films, especially in sci-fi genre. The Wandering Earth and this prequel, The Wandering Earth II, is a significant milestone. As a prequel, it has more depth in the story than the first, though the premise behind the main conflict is a bit shallow to be believed, as if "digital life" and survival of the planet are mutually exclusive. Pizza OR pepperoni? What kind of a decision is that? You still need the pizza, with or without the pepperoni.

But like its predecessor, the problem is pacing. The story is grand, an epic tale of an audacious plan to save mankind and Earth from the dying sun. But the pacing is so ridiculously fast, that it's difficult to enjoy and appreciate it. It's so focused on the crisis from all angles that it feels like every scene and every shot is less than two seconds long. For subtitle readers, it's even worse to follow. On top of that, there is visual information overload, with names flashing on the screen. There is so much going on, you will be afraid to blink and miss an important plot point.

And then there are the annoying tropes. I think this is the third or fourth Chinese film and TV show I've recently watched that has a shrill little girl/daughter yelling and crying "Baba! Baba!" to stoke our sympathy and emotional attachment to. And, where do they find these foreign actors?!? They cannot act and they are loud. Perhaps this is how they want to portray westerners, but there are plenty of international films shown in China--they have to know how bad these actors are, right? With so many actors (waiters) in Hollywood looking for work, you'd think it'd be easy to find more passable supporting cast.

Despite all this, you're not going to watch The Wandering Earth series for the acting--this is a CGI spectacle. It's gorgeous, and if you treat it like cut scenes from a triple-A video game, you'll enjoy it a lot.

Earth 2 has no ridiculous young man to do stupid things like in Earth 1, characters do the best to solve problems. Performers did their best in characterizing, and the story makes the Wandering Earth Project more reasonable. But personally, it has some cons:

1. Obvious post dubbing. Many characters talk in different mouth shapes, especially the black boy like he was talkin English but pronounced the others. These scenes quite disturb the watching.

2. The data and the effects of Earth Engines seems not right. It's not spoilers but if you started Earth suddenly you should have massive earthquakes, huge tsunamis and weather disasters... Oh I'm going to spoil so I have to shut now. Hope you've watched Earth1.

3. You got VR tec android but you ummmm why don't you guys create more operating bots? Oop I didn't spoil I'm talking about the trailers.

Still, I will give 7.5/10 for this movie. Hope they can fix cons and do well in the next. This gonna be a great series.

If you are a fan of science fiction films, action blockbuster films, or both, then this movie is for you. This movie takes the usual Hollywood sci-fi movie tropes and puts a unique Chinese spin on them. Without getting into details, it's about a group of scientists and astronauts trying to save the world from imminent destruction while governments disagree on the best course of action. The movie takes us on a wild ride as teams of unlikely heroes face moral dilemmas and make sacrifices to secure the future of mankind. At its core, the film delivers a hopeful message about the power of humanity when we work together to solve problems - a message that is sorely needed in the current times.

Pros: Jaw-dropping action sequences, slick CGI and some thought-provoking technological and philosophical concepts that will make you think about where humanity is headed in the future. Themes such as AI and automation, our increasing dependence on technology, the meaning of human existence and mortality, and the future of civilization, provide plenty of food for thought. There is also a major plot twist in the third act that you will not see coming, so stay tuned till the end, especially during the credits (there's an Easter egg scene that hints at a possible third installment to this franchise).

Cons: The movie is bit lengthy, at nearly 3 hours, so make sure you avoid drinking a lot of fluids before or during the movie. (Apparently the director already cut 80 minutes out of the movie, so it really was the equivalent of two movies packed into one.) Also, because the movie is multilingual, some languages are dubbed weirdly in some scenes, but it's easy to overlook this because you'll be too busy marvelling at the visuals or trying to keep up with all the action sequences.

Conclusion: If you are a fan of sci-fi action blockbusters then this movie is for you. Definitely do not miss it in cinemas - this is a movie that needs to be seen on the big screen.

This is a massive movie that has many many absolutely amazing scenes. I was really blown away, but after an hour I was finding it to be a bit too much intensity and it was becoming a bit exhausting. Still very impressive. I found I was not interested in the human drama built into the story. I don't know why the dubbed English parts were so odd. There is a lot of dialogue you have to read subtitles for that is going quickly but there is so much action you end up missing something no matter where you look. Overall this movie is a wild ride but just started to feel like too much of a good thing if that makes sense.

It's a catastrophical & sci-fic film with a novel epic narrative. The Wandering Earth 2 is more about the values of a community of shared future that unites all mankind. The special effects, needless to say, were a huge improvement over the first film, and the plot filled in the first film's shortcomings. At the same time, as the second of the series, it did not regress like most movies, but made obvious progress,. The overall score is 9 points, looking forward to the third part to bring us a better story.

There are three lines in the movie which build a wonderful construction. I promise it deserves one ticket.

By the way, it's a prequel. However,it doesn't matter to me.

Watched this last night and my head is still spinning, can't give too much away as my brain hasn't fully processed what was going on.

The only way I can describe it is when they were editing the film all the scenes where their was no action were cut leaving a bombardment of visuals, this included the non dubbed version with English subtitles flashing up on screen so fast it was hard to read.

Don't get me wrong TWE2 is a great film and really good fun if you love your big bold Si-fi with huge special effects, limited character development and explosions.

Thoroughly recommended 👌 Roll on TWE3.

The Wandering Earth II tells a disaster story from an oriental point of view instead of the western one (which is getting more and more cliche), where humans work as a team to face the overwhelming crisis. There's no hero who can save the Earth single-handedly; still, every effort matters.

In many ways, TWE II is a true sight for the sore eyes in nowadays movie industry, even by the criteria of Hollywood. Outstanding visuals & acoustics, compelling narrative, numerous convincing concepts and details, and furthermore, a much more "universal" human value. It raises the ceiling for movies of the same genre to a whole new level.

If you let go of all the stereotypical thinking and preconceived bias against Chinese movies, then TWE II is definitely worth seeing (better in IMAX).

(Taking one star off in case they get cocky /doge)

Good things about the movie: special effects were really cool, I love Andy Lau's performance, I believe it's a type of role he has rarely attempted. Spectacular movie.

Now moving on to the bad: parts of the plot were not closed and left one scratching their head - what was the point of that? Is this thing evil or not? For a movie of such high production quality, I really expected the plot to be tighter. The movie could be shorter. The UN parts were long and didn't add much to the movie for the most part except for one speech.

Overall, similar issues as the first movie. Even disregarding the nationalistic tone, plot logic has been sacrificed for grandiose scenes and lines.

With its epic scope and impressive production values, The Wandering Earth 2 ambitiously world-builds on its predecessor, delivering Hollywood-level special effects, action-packed spectacle, and dual storylines featuring Wu Jing and Andy Lau.

Unfortunately, the film is dampened by sequelitis and predominantly focused on outdoing the previous film's production values. Director Frant Gwo throws everything on screen to the point of sensory overload.

It is still fun popcorn entertainment; fans of the original will appreciate the expanded mythos, but with no breathing room, it buckles under the weight of its ambitions.

The story is a prequel to 2019's The Wandering Earth. The Sun's gradual expansion into a red giant threatens to engulf Earth in 100 years. Countries submit plans of action, including the Digital Life Project, which proposes the digitized preservation of human consciousness, and, the Moving Mountain project, which proposes installing thousands of ion engines to propel the Earth into a new solar system.

The United Earth Government chooses the Moving Mountain project, spurring terrorist attacks from Digital Life supporters. UEG astronaut Liu Peiqiang and his team race against time to restore the world's faith in the Moving Mountain project.

The mission is threatened by Digital Life engineer Tu Hengyu, who seeks to prolong his dead daughter Yaya's digital consciousness after losing her in a car accident. The construction of the Moving Mountain engines is interrupted when Tu uploads his daughter's consciousness into the network.

First off, as seen above, there's too much plot. The story covers an entire TV season's worth and the plot strands are so tightly interwoven, that cutting one thing out would mean cutting out an entire story arc.

The fast editing with blink-and-you-miss-it subtitles weakens the dramatic impact of what's happening as the film never gives time for the drama to properly breathe. This could have easily been two movies.

Wu Jing is a charismatic leading man and with every new movie, is getting better at manipulating his star power and fitting himself in whatever scene he's in.

Andy Lau gets to flex his acting muscles playing against type as the film's antagonist Tu, but distinctly not a villain. Lau plays out the humanity of the situation and keeps his character sympathetic.

The two stars share one scene together and it left a lot to be desired in terms of having human moments. I was hoping for a Blade Runner-esque philosophical debate between the two leads, one arguing for human life and the other for digital consciousness.

As someone who was sad for two weeks when he passed away, it was fulfilling to see the CGI Ng Man Tat cameo. It struck me still seeing Uncle Tat, as short as it lasted.

The film was so overwhelming that I tired out during the 3rd act. Everything just blurred together into one vague memory. It was just a lot of stuff happening and I honestly forgot a lot of it when I walked out.

I am invested in the Wandering Earth world and would happily watch a third installment. However, the filmmakers don't need to do everything bigger. Everything is big enough.

There is no question this movie had a big enough budget to allow for top notch CGI effects. And when that happens, it holds its own against the best companies out there. So for those liking blockbuster special effects, this is a movie to see. The background is that the sun is expanding, and there are two approaches to saving humans. One is a Digital Life project, where the person's memories are put into a computer, and with quantum computers, it can make it seem as if the person is still alive. The second is a massive engine project, where massive engines on both the earth and the moon are in tandem, and both are moved out of orbit to another location in the solar system. The engine approach is the one in favor, but there is opposition, and the computers get hacked, leading to a rousing CGI battle. One doesn't watch movies like this to assess how real the solutions might be, just is it entertaining. A problem I have with the movie is that crisis after crisis gets thrown to the audience, and each solution became even more far out. It becomes overload. Being that it is a very long movie, there are entire sub-stories that could be left out without ruining the intent of the story. And it seems standard in Chinese movies that at some point, a Chinese person plays a super human role that no mere mortal could go, and that becomes key. I will leave it to the viewers if that happens in this movie, since there are so many moving parts. And while I understand the role the child Yaya plays, she became irritating with her voice quickly.

While many of the reviews for this thing are likely paid posts - but then so are many for Disney and Marvel - this is interesting to watch for non-Chinese viewers to assess the Chinese mindset in the middle of the biggest political crisis since WWII. With all the noise about Taiwan, do the Chinese use mega-productions like these to rouse anti-foreign sentiment like the Americans do (and they themselves did with "Wolf Warrior 2"? Well, turns out this is not the case and China seems committed to a we-have-to-work-together-or-else ideology which is fairly appropriate given the many, many problems the world is facing right now.

The very convoluted story is almost impossible to break down for this three-hour action piece in which something explodes every five minutes, but the basics are that a Chinese-led, yet internationally financed and coordinated team of scientists builds a net of mega thrusters to propel Earth out of the solar orbit before the sun flares up. There's a lunar station to test those thrusters reached by some kind of mega elevator which is attacked by terrorists (suspiciously similar to Isaac Asimov's "Foundation"). First of many major script flaws: who are they? What is their motivation? Who backs them? The film makers can't be bothered to explain.

At this point you have to switch off your brain to enjoy the movie, otherwise it becomes sheer torture because nothing makes sense. Andy Lau's scientist is obsessed with uploading his dead daughter's collected memory into a new form of AI - does this cause the malfunction on the Moon which then puts it on collision course with Earth? No answer. But hey, did "Avatar The Way of the Water" make any sense? Not really, but it had perhaps a tad more character development. After two hours, you continue asking yourself "who are these people"?

If you are neutral on the US-China conflict, this is an enjoyable albeit completely bonkers disaster flick which may give you a little hope that the Chinese are not quite as belligerent as the US would have make us believe. If you find glaring plot holes and complete lack of coherency insufferable, better watch something else.

Once the best science fiction film in my mind was Interstellar , but this film from China opened a new world for me. Its thinking about the future of mankind is completely different from the personal heroism of Hollywood. I didn't think that collectivism was so magnificent. I think we should seriously consider this issue. The film also discusses the relationship between AI and people. The plot is very deep, the picture is beautiful, and the sound effect is also great. I think Hollywood needs to make changes. I'm tired of the old plot.

This film is the best science fiction film in recent years, just like Interstellar . Interstellar is the latest bestest film of science fiction films that any science fiction fan can't ignore. It perfectly shows the awesome romance of the universe. Cooper is in a different gravitational environment, and the time passed on him is different from the earth. In a moment, there are countless days and nights in the remote hometown. In a moment, there is eternity. It really shocked me at that time. But there are two problems. Cooper can say that his responsibility is to look for light, and Brand can say that he is carrying despair. What despair? Because mankind has given up, the world is desperate, the government and the people have given up. This kind of lonely burden on the whole world is really magnificent, but it is really unreal. Just like his ending, the five-dimensional space is too beautiful to be true. And I can understand that love can cross the Milky Way, can it cross time and space? It's fantastic.

But The Wandering Earth 2 is different. It is true that every flower, every tree, every person, and every thing are like the future that will happen soon. From the beginning of the vast space elevator project, the automatic takeover of quantum computers, including the details of Liu Peiqiang's multifunctional robot for security inspection,it shocked me deeply. It seems to be the same sense of reality as the recorded video sent 20 years later. In particular, the design of the space elevator, which is propelled by rocket and pulled by magnetic force, is too detailed, too real and too powerful. Moreover, the huge plan to save mankind and the lucky gambling of several people in the Interstellar have been decided! Every step of action has an operational plan in The Wandering Earth II. The feasibility verification of planetary engines, the upgrading and iteration of quantum computers, the training of astronauts, the lunar push-off plan, the lunar collapse plan, and the Internet root server restart plan. All these have steps, plans and implementation; In the process, there are command organizations, technical personnel, and alternative solutions. This is the real hard-core science fiction setting. Saving humanity necessarily requires the unity of the whole humanity. Science fiction, science fiction, theory can be fantasy, engineering should be closer to reality. Otherwise, it would be too much less scientific to imagine.

The dream of Interstellar beauty, while The Wandering Earth 2 is thick and real,and still beautiful to the extreme.

This one is better than the first movie, which is very rare these days. The story lines are great. Although there are some plots that do not make a lot sense, it doesn't affect the overall rating at all. It doesn't make me feel it's a 3hr movie at all. This is actually the best Si-Fi movie I have watched in the last 3 years (and I've watched a lot lol) and I think it's fair to say it's better than 70% of the Hollywood Si-Fi movies these days.

I'm looking forward to the third one now given there are some flash forward scenes hinting at the next story line. Also, don't miss the credits at the end. I left early and have to read up on the end credit scenes online afterwards.

Definitely better than Moonfall (a traumatizing tragedy) and lives up to the fame of its first counterpart. Inventive cinematography, compelling performances, and jokes that really land. Moreover, sublime visual effects, shown in the futuristic production design, blade-runner-ish architectures, and aesthetic visual layout especially upon the moon, which I can confidently claim amount to Dune's level of impressiveness. Plot-wise, despite the multiple storylines and fragmented expedition, the film does successfully employ suspenseful buildups through countdowns, recurring motivic dialogues, and emotively riveting missions, which all demonstrate the directory's effort and heed to this ardently demanded movie (at least in the mainland). This takes me to my major complaint: I understand the profit-oriented intention behind revising the Wandering Earth into a movie series, but as a fan of the book, the conversion of the original's spinal ideology and the abandonment of its overarching incidents have exceeded my level of tolerance. Why does the production refuse to present the already-there perfectly constructed story in the book, which has all of apocalypse, desolation, hardcore science, dystopia, survivorship, conspiracy, revolution, filial piety, and censored love, and choose to borrow the mere concept. Comparing to the desperately rational and selfish characters in the novel, the film adapts a bunch of romantically heroic idealists, as their martyrdom is emphatically lauded. However, has it really been this way when humanity encounters a global crisis? Do the saints actually unite and salvage us? Or do they (censored material)?

That film looks like a tik-tok feed - every 15 seconds nothing happens. Nothing makes sense, but it is colourful. If you try to make some inferences about the overall plot from the random scenes you are about to end up in a very bad place. The thing that is really intrusive is how awfully incompetent are all totalitarian regimes in their propaganda efforts. That film is entirely composed of contradictory, incoherent propaganda symbols, they are not even developed into messages, but are very basic symbols. The CCP committee responsible for the production is strikingly unaware of national stereotypes and it failed miserably in trying to make a caricature or conveying some satirical effect. The positive ratings and generic reviews here are definitely bots.

Don't worry about political propaganda and nationalism. China is not what Westerners now imagine, and Chinese movies are not. If you watch the film with the fear of political propaganda, you will miss a piece of art. In this film, the proportion of Chinese is not very high, and the image of Americans in this film is not what some people think of as "villains or clowns". The United States is only in conflict with the protagonists, and the United States has also participated in all actions of human self-rescue.

Unlike the heavily biased Hollywood films, no country has been devalued in this film.

This film continues the theme of unity and peace in the first film. And this time it has a rich and thought-provoking plot.

Please put down racial prejudice, take your mind to watch the whole movie carefully, and don't miss the final colored egg of the movie. All the questions that arise when you watch the film, and all the places that seem to be the director's mistakes, will form an interesting turning point at the end of the film. This transition makes the plot of the whole film more reasonable, and at the same time gives you deeper philosophical thinking. In addition, many details are arranged in the film by the director. If you have watched the first film or have lived in China, they will be very good seasoning.

Finally, many websites, especially rotten tomatoes, wrote about the film before January 22, which means they have never seen it. To draw a conclusion on it only by virtue of stereotype, they used lies to deny the painstaking efforts of the film team for four years.

The Chinese Sci-fi blockbuster is absolutely a visual spectacle. The three-hour film featured wild imagination and bold designs that matches, if not surpasses, world-class sci-fi big names. One should be amazed at the level Chinese visual effect industry has reached within such a short time (Chinese sci-fi movies with stunning visuals were extremely rare before 2017). On the other hand, the movie marks a return of a post-pandemic Chinese society which, upon its release on the first day of the year of the Rabbit, rings a particular bell for both all Chinese and the world.

It is definitely worth the ticket, yet the story could be refined in many ways because its narrative seemed a bit flawed and empty in my personal view. To start with, this movie is too lengthy for its contents, some jokes and emotional plots may seem unnecessary and redundant. If it were to be around 2 hours, it would look much better. The plot twist entering the second Moon crisis where human were forced to nuke the Moon, seemed confusing and undercooked. I was dumbfounded and puzzled when the character played by Andy Lau made such a bad decision that it caused a huge disaster for the whole planet. To me this plot twist doesn't make sense and surely needs more explanation.

The plot is hoaky and predictable, and wayyy to many cliché scenes they copied from American movies such as 'contact' and 'independence day'. The author of the story did well in 3 body problem trilogy, but his other works are just intolerably boring and facky. Sad he didn't even get the science parts, like solar wind doesn't blow the dust on the moon, and space elevators don't use rockets which defeats the purpose of space elevators (why use cables when rockets can sent space crafts upward without them?). The stories of the two guys, one trying to create digital copy of dead daughter and the other with cancer dying wife, are so overused in Chinese movies they are lame.

I didn't like The Wandering Earth and was not even 1% excited for the second part and that also a prequel.

The story was a prequel and was written better than the first part, the screenplay was bad like the original and the runtime was too long, the direction was good and the performances were also good, not great.

If I talk about the overall execution then it lacked a good screenplay even after having a vetter story than the original. The runtime and the pacing were also other major issues.

Overall, it was a decent prequel which was little bit on better side than the original but don't expect too much from it.

I've heard of a lot of so-called "high-budget" Chinese films, and the vast majority of them are unimpressive, but this one is completely different.

The special effects are great, with minor flaws, but they don't affect the viewing experience; The narrative has weakened individual heroism, and it is overall more towards a grand narrative. The middle part of the emotional portrayal is rather stiff, so the actual rating is 9/10, but I will give it an extra because Marvel movies these years suck.

Overall, this sci-fi movie manages to tell a pretty attractive story with good visual effects, and it comes from China. It's nice to see new competition in the sci-fi movie industry.

BTW, some critics think that there are parts of the movie that put too much emphasis on nationalism, which I think is a bit overstated. It seems to be more about some of the plots or statements that people associate with their stereotypes of China, rather than the movie itself emphasizing a political ideology.

The impending annihilation of Earth by an expanding sun triggers two competing projects to save humanity: the Digital Life Project (DLP), in which people are digitised and live on in-silico and 'Wandering Earth', in which a select subset of the population lives in underground cites while colossal rocket engines push Earth to a new orbital home around 'near-by' Alpha Centauri. This is a prequel to 'The Wandering Earth' and despite knowing how it's going to end (i.e. We wander), was to me the superior film. The CGI, design and special effects are outstanding at times and the film has a 'hard-science' realism to off-set the somewhat preposterous premise. Unfortunately, the filmmakers sacrificed facts and physics for spectacular CGI set-pieces ('rocket-powered space-elevators' are a bit of an oxymoran, solar storms don't cause lunar dust storms, and when something is 'cut loose' in orbit, it doesn't 'fall'). These kinds of 'scientific' flaws, along with the usual 'sound in space', objects falling on the moon at 1G acceleration, spaceships that 'bank' when flying in a vacuum etc are sadly typical for the genre and might as well be accepted as 'craft' over 'reality' (looking cool is more box-office friendly than looking real). I quite liked the backstory about the proponents of DLP fighting to maintain a project that could potentially 'save' everyone, not just a chosen few, and the side plot about the AI girl with a 2-minute lifespan was quite clever. The acting and direction is fine (and on par with similar 'western' CGI-epics) but the story is a bit disjointed and the mid-credit revelation seems to come out of nowhere (and seems like a simplistic plot driver rather than an intriguing twist). I am a sucker for epic 'world-building' effects, so liked the film more for its look than its substance. Given the mega-budget dreck Hollywood has been gurgitating, a little competition should be a good thing.