“The Wandering Earth” (2019), which was an adaptation of a novella, took place in the future. The title refers to the official name of a United Earth Government (UEG) project. Enormous engines moved Earth to find a new solar system and avoid an impending threat that the sun would engulf us in one hundred years if the largest blue marble had stayed in its original orbit. As Earth passes Jupiter, the entire mission is in jeopardy. “The Wandering Earth II” (2023) is a sequel because of the release date, but the story is a prequel and makes slight changes to the first movie’s story. This film unfolds during the Moving Mountain project, the antecedent to the Wandering Earth project, but it is uncertain whether this project is feasible. There is one successful, now outlawed, project called the Digital Life Project, where people can download their consciousness and live virtually. DLP proponents turn into terrorists to try and destroy the Moving Mountain project.
The original movie’s run time was 125 minutes whereas the prequel is a daunting 173 minutes. Frant Gwo, the writer and director, is deft at balancing spectacle and evoking human emotion, which could have gotten swept away amidst the dramatic dueling mammoth projects. The first film pandered more to a younger demographic by following two grandchildren on a sci-fi action adventure which turns into a character building, epic mission to save all humankind whereas the characters in this film always have noble, self-sacrificial motives. Gwo is the kind of filmmaker who could take up Gene Roddenberry’s mantle without missing a beat. His faith in humanity’s ability to do good is retro considering all evidence to the contrary in our current dystopian landscape.
“The Wandering Earth II” expands on the origin story of Chinese astronaut Liu Peiqiang (Wu Jing), who is only a heroic, mythic, distant father-figure supporting character in the first film where his son and adopted daughter take centerstage. Here Gwo gives Peiqiang’s backstory—how he started as a bashful trainee under the tutelage of Zhang Peng (Sha Yi), a senior fighter pilot, and how he met his wife, Han Duoduo (Wang Zhi), a bigger badass from jump. If there is another prequel, I would not mind if it only focused on her. It is a brief, sweet, rated G love story that is meant to illustrate how real life has more potential than digital to forge new connections and create new life despite the pain of loss and sacrifice.
“The Wandering Earth II” introduces many new characters. Zhou Zhezhi (Li Xuejian), the Chinese ambassador to the UEG, is the elder statesman who keeps humanity on course during times of crisis. Basically, if Xuejian was more well known in the west, Morgan Freeman would no longer dominate casting choices for leaders, and Bill Pullman’s president in “Independence Day” (1996) would be blown out of the water. Zhezhi feels like an elderly FDR. While reassuring the anxious Americans, he takes time out to mentor future leader, Hao Xiaoxi (Zhu Yanmanzi), a young woman who stands up to the bluster of those who try to dominate her and hijack her nation’s autonomy. Though China is hella problematic in real life, and this film is state-approved propaganda, on screen, it serves a more civil, nonviolent counter image to defeating the West, who usually acts as the world’s hope in disaster movies, without kicking their ass in such wonderful films as “RRR” (2022), “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022) and “The Woman King” (2022). It offers an image of patient resolve as if dealing with children, gentle parenting as governance.
The most provocative new character is Tu Henyu (Andy Lau), a computer scientist who worked on DLP and a 550 Series quantum computer pivotal to speeding up the Moving Mountain project. He is a harbinger of the difficult choices that lay ahead for Peiqiang. Henyu’s family died, and his daughter’s existence is stuck in a two-minute loop in DLP, but she is self-aware and responds to her father and his surroundings in the real world, which she can see through the screen. This section of “The Wandering Earth II” is reminiscent of the City of Light in “The 100,” the Framework in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” or “The Matrix” (1999) except his daughter is stuck in a room, not a vast world. Alone. It is a heartbreaking sequence, which makes Henyu endanger the entire Moving Mountain project to expand her existence. This backstory alters the motivation of Moss, an obedient version of Hal from “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), in “The Wandering Earth” to a more sinister figure, and if there are future sequels, I would be more intrigued with the battle between human beings and AI for dominance.
While I enjoyed “The Wandering Earth II,” it was a mistake to have constant countdowns to an upcoming dramatic event. It destroyed all suspense since there was an announcement before an attack on the Ark Space Station, the Moon almost colliding with the Earth, time needed for the Internet root server data center to restart or the detonation of nuclear weapons on the moon. I found myself nodding off when I knew what was going to happen, and explosive excitement became monotonous. Without the countdown, there was no reason that I would anticipate any of the aforementioned events.
While the Moon collision felt like a remix of the Jupiter Earth collision threat, I will allow it because it led to a moving sequence which felt reminiscent of older volunteers willing to face certain death to protect younger people during the Fukushima power station. It is a love letter to the future as everyone over fifty takes over for the younger volunteers and each country boasts of its dominance in space to drown out their fear of obliteration. Like the first film, the Russian characters act as comedic relief and show camaraderie, but it hits different four years later in light of the attack on the Ukraine so I just pretended that they were really Ukrainian cosmonauts. Then on the moon, the older volunteers behave similarly to usher Peiqiang to safety. Both films have wistful references to salmon fishing on Lake Baikal, which must be a wonderful experience since it keeps coming up. If you told me that I could be moved at the image of a mass suicide bombing, I would have scoffed, but context matters, and it works.
There are way more American and African characters. The African characters with speaking roles were good guys, and those without were bad guys. I did not see any black women, but I could have missed them. The American characters were excitable nervous nellies, which is fair, and inclined to follow the most commanding, stable voice. The terrestrial base for the space station reminded me of “District 9” (2009).
It is unnecessary to watch “The Wandering Earth” before seeing the prequel though I am glad that I did. “The Wandering Earth II” is dedicated to Ng Man-Tat, who played the maternal grandfather, i.e. Duoduo’s dad, Han Ziang in the original movie. He died of liver cancer in 2021 and CGI briefly brings him back in the prequel. This film could have been shorter, but the wealth of human emotion makes it worth watching.
