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The Wandering Earth (2019), directed by Frant Gwo and adapted from a novella by Liu Cixin, is currently on Netflix and is well worth your time as an interesting example of a Chinese science-fiction film, a film genre that is much rarer in China than America.Permalink On Internet Archive
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The special effects are a bit ropey and video-game-y; the characters are fairly shallow and broad similar to the characters in Roland Emmerich's large-scale ensemble sci-fi films.Permalink On Internet Archive
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But the scale and ambition of the film is really something. Like Liu Cixin's other work, the scale is realistically cosmic and talks in terms of light years, thousand-year projects, and the entire Earth coming together.Permalink On Internet Archive
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And it has a kind of radical optimism in positing that, faced with destruction on a cosmic scale, humans across the Earth would come together to save humanity and forego petty concerns like money. It's similar to Star Trek in that respect (as well as Liu Cixin's other work).On Internet Archive
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It's the kind of radical optimism that you don't really get in Hollywood science-fiction movies after 9/11. Even Star Trek has drifted away from socialist utopianism in the movies and in Discovery. It's cheesy, like the big speech in Independence Day (1996), but... it works.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Minor quibble: if you're watching in an English-speaking country, Netflix defaults to English dubs. You can change to original Mandarin audio and English subtitles in the options though #subsnotdubsPermalink On Internet Archive