The Wandering Earth 2

The Wandering Earth 2
Theatrical release poster
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	流浪地球2
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Liú Làng Dì Qiú Èr Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Lau4 Long6 Dei6 Kau4
Directed by	Frant Gwo
Screenplay by	Frant Gwo Gong Ge'er
Based on	"The Wandering Earth" by Liu Cixin
Produced by	Liu Cixin Gong Ge'er
Starring	Wu Jing Andy Lau Li Xuejian
Cinematography	Michael Liu
Edited by	Ye Ruchang Yan Tingting
Music by	Roc Chen
Production companies	China Film Group Corporation Guo Fan Culture and Media GIFilm Beijing Studio Co., Ltd. Beijing Dengfeng International Culture Communication Co., Ltd. CFC Pictures Limited
Distributed by	China Film Group Corporation
Release date	22 January 2023 (2023-01-22)
Running time	173 minutes
Country	China
Language	Mandarin
Box office	$604.5 million

The Wandering Earth 2 (Chinese: 流浪地球2) is a 2023 Chinese science fiction action-adventure film directed and co-written by Frant Gwo, and starring Wu Jing, Andy Lau, and Li Xuejian. The film is a prequel to the 2019 film The Wandering Earth, which is based on the short story of the same name by Liu Cixin, who serves as the film's producer.

After the major box-office success of its predecessor, a sequel was announced by Guo on 20 November 2019 before being greenlit on 21 July 2021, with production officially starting on 13 October 2021. The Wandering Earth 2 was released on 22 January 2023, the same day as the Chinese New Year Day. The film has grossed $604 million, making it the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2023.

The film was submitted for nomination in the Best International Feature Film category of the 96th Academy Awards, as Chinese entry. The third film in the series, The Wandering Earth 3, is set to be released in 2027.

Plot

As the Sun becomes an expanding red giant and threatens to engulf the Earth in a 100 years, the United Nations, now renamed as the United Earth Government (UEG), decides to proceed with the Moving Mountain Project, a proposal of building ten thousand gigantic nuclear fusion engines that can propel the Earth out of the Solar System towards another habitable star system. A sister project, the Lunar Exile Project, was also initiated that involves pushing the Moon away from the Earth, utilizing three such fusion engines to minimize its gravitational attraction on Earth. In doing so, the UEG shuts down and bans the Digital Life Project (DLP), which proposes the continuity human civilization through digital immortality by developing mind uploading technologies. This ban occurs despite skepticism and increasingly violent protests from the public.

The first phase of the Moving Mountain Project is to pilot two of such fusion engines, one as one of the 3 Lunar Exile engines built near a research base in the Moon’s Campanus Crater, and the other located near the Space Elevator built in Libreville, Gabon. However, during the construction of the engines, a series of terrorist attacks by well-armed DLP supporters on the UEG facilities in 2044 resulted in a hacked drone attack on the space elevator, as well as coordinated hacking of the elevator vehicles by highly trained infiltrators. Their aim was the destruction of the Ark Space Station supplying the lunar operation. Although UEG trainee astronaut Liu Peiqiang and his fellow trainees manage to defeat the hijackers on their vehicles, this was after the hijackers detonated one elevator with a missile that bypassed the cargo bay using counterfeit passes. As a result, the top of the space elevator and the Ark Space station are critically damaged and crash down to Earth.

Due to this attack, many countries working on the pilot program pulled out, leaving China alone to take on finishing construction of the Lunar and Earth engine. Meanwhile on the Moon, Tu Hengyu, a computer engineer part of the Lunar Exile pilot program, is awakened from hibernation to receive a batch of supplies, which includes a 550C, the newest of the 550 Series quantum computer, intended for test running the Lunar engine. Using a 550A that appears to be owned by him, Tu Hengyu views a simulation of his daughter Tu Yaya, who had died in a car crash 5 years prior. As part of the DLP before it was outlawed, Tu Hengyu succeeded in recording his daughter’s consciousness and storing it on a hard drive, with his mentor and project lead Ma Zhao bearing the responsibility. However, Yaya’s digital consciousness can only live for two minutes before restarting, due to the 550A’s hardware restrictions. For this, Tu Hengyu sought to use the newer 550C, but was outright rejected by Ma Zhao. During transportation of the 550C, it was damaged by a sudden solar storm, and in a meeting with other accompanied scientists, Tu Hengyu proposed to use his 550A for the testing. In return, Tu asked Ma Zhao to involve him in future developments of the 550 series, in hopes of having a chance to give Yaya “a complete life”.

Following the successful test runs of both the Lunar engine, as well as the subsequent Earth engine, the UEG gives the full go ahead to the Moving Mountain Project. In the next 14 years, over 7000 engines were built at and north of the Equator, with those at the Equator being Torque engines that stop the Earth's rotation. Subterranean cities were built under every engine as well, providing shelter for ordinary citizens for the upcoming 2500-year interstellar journey, however a sortition plan made it that only 50% of the world’s population can gain a spot in the underground cities. Liu Peiqiang, in the meanwhile, marries colleague Han Duoduo and subsequently conceives their son Liu Qi. The Moving Mountain Project is officially renamed as the Wandering Earth Project, and the Lunar Exile Project goes in full swing as the three completed lunar engines start to propel the Moon away from Earth.

As time goes on, the Solar crisis becomes more and more imminent, evidenced by spikes in solar radiation. Due to the radiation, large parts of the world’s population fell to cancer, Han Duoduo among one of them. More bad news struck as Liu Peiqiang was the only one in his family to obtain a spot in the subterranean cities, and only their son Liu Qi is eligible to tag along. In 2058, Liu Peiqiang applies for work in the rebuilt space station, now renamed the Navigator ISS, in hopes of being part of a preferential policy that could guarantee Han Duoduo a spot in the subterranean cities as well. During an interview conducted by an offline AI-equipped 550W, the newest and most advanced 550 series iteration, Liu Peiqiang becomes enraged by the 550W as it confirms his family-oriented intentions of working aboard the Navigator ISS, all being part of a stress test personalised for each examinee. Tu Hengyu, being one of the examiners, witnesses Liu Peiqiang’s anger unfold, and has a flashback of the car crash that killed his daughter. Having not seen his daughter in the past 14 years, and having been influenced by Liu Peiqiang’s outburst, the now elderly Tu Hengyu decides to upload Tu Yaya’s recorded consciousness into the 550W supercomputer still kept in the interview room. Immediately after doing this upload, the lunar engines overload and then explode, sending the Moon on a collision course towards Earth. Tu Hengyu, having broken the law by the upload, was immediately arrested and imprisoned.

To deal with the “Lunar Fall crisis”, the UEG initiates a backup plan that involves detonating all of the Earth's nuclear weapons on a concentrated phased array on the Campanus Crater, triggering nuclear fusion within the Moon’s core, thereby leading to its implosion. After that, the 7000 Earth Engines will be powered up to propel the Earth out of the Lunar debris’ way. However, as the Lunar Fall crisis happened on such a short order, the dedicated control network of the Earth Engines haven’t been completed. Thereby, via rebooting the Internet root server data centers located in Tokyo, Beijing and Dulles, a plan was initiated to restart the internet, which had been long shut down, to use as a control network. Tu Hengyu, while serving his jail term, was recalled by the Chinese government to undertake the task of restarting Beijing’s root server as part of a team which included his mentor Ma Zhao.

The counter for the Lunar Fall crisis faces numerous setbacks due to the difficulties in nuclear code decryption, further exacerbated by the short time window before the moon reaches its Roche limit and fragments into pieces which will destroy the Earth. Liu Peiqiang, as part of the mission detail to place nukes on the Moon, narrowly avoids death as his team’s spaceship crashes into debris sent up by the exploded Lunar engines. He finds transport in the abandoned research base, as well as a lander that he used to send the rest of his team back to the Navigator ISS with, much to their displeasure, while he himself transports the nukes assigned to his team. In the meantime, the code deciphering hits a deadlock, which led to 300 astronauts over the age of 50 voluntarily sacrificing themselves in order to manually detonate the nukes. Liu narrowly survives the nuclear detonation, managing to pilot a capsule back to the Navigator ISS. Around this time, lunar debris had already started hitting the Earth, one of which scored a direct hit on Beijing’s data center, flooding the insides and drowning Ma Zhao. Tu Hengyu, realising he doesn't have long before drowning as well, uploads a copy of his own recorded consciousness into the network. Initially believing to have failed, the UEG broadcasts a final message to humanity, warning that the Moon will crash into Earth in 3 days. This leads to mass panic, looting, and riots around the world. Reuniting with Tu Yaya, Tu Hengyu's digital self manages to reboot the last Internet server in time, activating the Earth engines en masse and moving the Earth away from the course of the lunar debris. The Wandering Earth Project then officially sets sail with the Earth's course towards Jupiter.

In a mid-credits scene, Tu's digital self is addressed by the 550W artificial intelligence, who now goes by the personified name "MOSS" ("550W" upside down). The now-sentient supercomputer reveals that it has been behind every crisis that has ever harmed humanity's efforts to save themselves, adding that it will also trigger many more in the future.

Cast

• Wu Jing as Liu Peiqiang, a UEG trainee astronaut who survives numerous crises involving the Moving Mountain Project and a major character from the first movie.
• Andy Lau as Tu Hengyu, a computer scientist who worked on both the Digital Life Project and the Moving Mountain Project.
• Li Xuejian as Zhou Zhezhi, the Chinese ambassador to the UEG.
• Sha Yi as Zhang Peng, a senior UEG fighter pilot and Liu's mentor.
• Ning Li as Ma Zhao, AI and quantum computing researcher and Tu's colleague.
• Wang Zhi as Han Duoduo, Liu Peiqiang's fellow trainee and later wife. She eventually succumbs to cancer from radiation sickness.
• Zhu Yanmanzi as Hao Xiaoxi, Zhou's personal assistant and protégé.
• Khalid Ghanem as tower commander, American commander
• Andy Friend as Mike, the American ambassador to the UEG and a good friend of Zhou.
• Vitalli Makarychev as Andre Graschnov, a senior UEG fighter pilot and Zhang's close friend
• Clara Lee, Tony Nicholson and Vladimir Ershov as the three space elevator hijackers who tried to impersonate astronaut trainees.
• Daniela Dassy, as the Brazilian astronaut.

The Wandering Earth 2 is dedicated to Ng Man-Tat, who died of liver cancer in 2021 after starring as Han Zi'ang in the first movie. Ng appears in a brief CGI-rendered cameo.

Production

Development

After The Wandering Earth was released to major commercial success in January 2019, director Frant Gwo announced at the Golden Rooster Awards on 20 November of the same year that a sequel was in the works, revealing that audiences were being conducted and sorted to guide the sequel's guide structure which will focus more on characters' emotions as well as improving visual effects. Gwo also stated that production may not begin for four years. On 2 December 2020, Gwo announced at the 2020 Golden Rooster Awards that the shooting plan for the sequel has initiated and have set the release date for 22 January 2023, the first day of the Chinese New Year holidays. A teaser poster which features the phrase "Goodbye Solar System" written in numerous different languages was also released.

On 18 June 2021, Andy Lau announced during a live broadcast celebration of the 33rd anniversary of his fan club, Andy World Club, that he will be starring in the film. On 21 July 2021, it was reported the film has been approved by the National Radio and Television Administration and production is set to take place from October 2021 to March 2022 in Qingdao and Haikou. Wu Jing was confirmed to return to the prequel. Aside from directing duties, Guo also co-wrote the script with producer Gong Ge'er while the film will be financed by Guo's company, Guo Fan Culture and Media and China Film Company.

Filming

Principal photography officially began on 13 October 2021 in Qingdao, where a production commencement ceremony was held. Aside from Andy Lau and Wu Jing, actor Zhang Fengyi was also present, confirming his participation.

Release

On 19 August 2022, The Wandering Earth 2 officially released the first "a little white dot" version of the trailer.

The Wandering Earth 2 was theatrically released on 22 January 2023, the first day of the Chinese New Year holidays. It was also given a North American limited release by Well Go USA Entertainment in 125 screens, 30 IMAX, starting day-and-date 22 January. In the Philippines, the film was released by Encore Films through Warner Bros. Pictures on 31 May.

Reception

Box office

The Wandering Earth 2 was a massive commercial success in China. The film earned close to US$70 million on its opening day on January 22 in China, followed by US$55 million on its second day. In total, it made US$187 million in its first three days In just 8 days, the film had earned over US$378 million with US$31.3 million coming from IMAX shows. The film earned US$56.4 million on its first weekend and passed the US$500 million mark on its sixteenth day. It held on the top spot for a second weekend after earning US$24.5 million.

Critical response

On Douban, the movie received a user rating of 8,3/10 based on 1.2 million reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 22 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Wandering Earth II's spectacular visuals and brisk pace are more than enough to make up for its lengthy runtime and nationalistic subtext." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

See also

• List of submissions to the 96th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
• List of Chinese submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

External links

• The Wandering Earth 2 at IMDb
• The Wandering Earth 2 at Mtime.com (archived) (in Chinese)
• The Wandering Earth 2 at Douban (in Chinese)
• The Wandering Earth 2 at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Wandering Earth 2 at Metacritic
• The Wandering Earth 2 at Box Office Mojo