Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an action, adventure,
sci-fi film from 2019, titled The Wandering Earth. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In the year 2061, Earth finds itself in danger: the sun is about to turn into a red giant and
will engulf the Earth's orbit within a hundred years. The nations of the world
consolidate into the United Earth Government, or UEG, and create the Wandering Earth Project,
which consists of migrating Earth out of the Solar System using twelve thousand
huge fusion-powered engines built across the Northern Hemisphere and along the equator.
The human population will be living in underground cities built adjacent to and under those engines.
Chinese astronaut Liu Peiqiang will be going on a mission to the Navigation Platform International
Space Station to help navigate the Earth along its journey, so he's spending his last night with his
son Liu Qi and his father-in-law Han Zi'ang while overseeing the gravitational slingshot maneuver
of Earth using the gravity of Jupiter on his computer. After teaching Liu Qi that Jupiter
has a windstorm and is composed of ninety percent hydrogen, he tells him he'll be coming back when
Liu Qi can see Jupiter without a telescope and that until then, he'll see his father as a star
in the sky. Once the child has fallen asleep, he gives Han Zi'ang his astronaut tags so he and his
son can obtain the right to underground city residency without drawing the lots.
As he remembers his deceased wife, Liu Peiqiang apologizes to her father for everything.
As years pass, much of the human population dies to cataclysmic natural disasters like tsunamis,
and most of the surface becomes frozen solid after Earth distances from the Sun.
Seventeen years later, in 2078, the astronauts at the Spaces Station are set to return to Earth
after the Chinese New Year, but Liu Qi, now a young adult, isn't excited about this news.
He leaves a note for his grandfather saying he's leaving, then goes to his foster sister
Han Duoduo's school to cut power and get her out while everyone else is distracted. He takes her
with him to a bar to see Yi Ge, a criminal capable of getting them fake IDs and stolen thermal suits.
The amount Liu Qi pays him is enough for him to keep the suits for only one day,
so he lies and says he'll return them tomorrow. But when his sister says she thought they weren't
coming back, Yi Ge gets angry and tries to stop them. In order to escape, Liu Qi throws
a special sphere that grows in size in the middle of the room, pushing all the criminals against the
walls as they run away. The siblings are chased throughout the city and reach the lines of workers
that are about to be sent to the surface, which is an area the criminals can't enter. Thanks to
the fake IDs, the suits and a clearance pass Liu Qi stole from his grandfather, he and Han
Duoduo pass off as workers and are allowed to go outside to the now frozen city of Beijing.
Using their grandfather's pass, they steal a heavy transport vehicle, which Liu Qi is still learning
to drive because he's just a trainee. Their take-off is rather clumsy, and they hit other
trucks on their way out, but eventually, Liu Qi manages to take the road without much trouble - at
least, until they reach a vehicle checkpoint and get arrested. In jail, they're pranked by a young
man on the next cell called Tim, who is half Chinese and half Australian. Five hours later,
Han Zi'ang comes over to bail them out, but he's arrested as well for trying to bribe the warden.
Meanwhile, in the Space Station, Liu Peiqiang is keeping an eye on Jupiter to see how much time
he has left before returning home. His fellow astronaut Maxim Makarov gives him a bottle of
vodka as a goodbye gift, which he had to smuggle into the ship because alcohol isn't allowed on
board. After going through his daily chores one last time, Liu Peiqiang logs in for the last time,
and MOSS, the ship's AI, congratulates him for so many years of service, which the rest of the crew
punctuates with applause. They're all unaware that MOSS has detected a high probability of colliding
with Jupiter soon and is sending that information to the UEG. Back on Earth, Han Zi'ang is scolding
his grandchildren for what they did and Tim tries to offer commentary, which frustrates Liu Qi and
causes him to hit the wall with his fist. The wall starts to crumble under his hand, but it's
not just the cell - the whole underground city is going down because Earth's proximity to Jupiter is
causing earthquakes. As many of the Earth engines start failing, Han Zi'ang, his grandchildren,
and Tim take advantage of the broken walls and the overall confusion to escape prison. They get back
on Han Zi'ang's truck and drive away while dodging all the building parts that are now falling to the
ground and the rocks falling from the mountains; Han Zi'ang proves to be an excellent driver and
manages to get the truck even through a huge wave of snow until they're out of the Beijing.
The UEG announces that Emergency Protocol 3 has started, and all Earth Engines must
be restarted in thirty-six hours. All rescue workers must concentrate on this task while the
Space Station enters low consumption mode to consolidate resources, this means all
astronauts must go into hibernation mode as well. Before joining his crewmates in the capsules,
Liu Peiqiang contacts Han Zi'ang so that MOSS can give them directions to the nearest refuge center.
Guards try to stop Han Zi'ang but he drives around them, only for them to chase after
them and park their vehicle in front of Han Zi'ang's truck, threatening to shoot if they
don't collaborate. These guards turn out to be a military rescue team led by Captain Wang Lei,
who orders them to follow the emergency protocols and use their truck to help them
transport a Lighter Core to restart the engine in Hangzhou. The ride through the snow is uneventful,
but things change when they arrive in the frozen ruins of Shanghai, which look pretty unstable.
Wang Lei sends some of his men and a drone to do a recon of the area and orders the trucks to
carefully drive through the narrow path ahead of them. Suddenly they're contacted by Liu Peiqiang,
who has just entered his hibernation capsule and has heard from MOSS that his son is on the mission
too. He asks Wang Lei to drop all the civilians at the nearest refuge, and the captain responds
he can do that with Liu Qi, Han Duoduo, and Tim, but he needs Han Zi'ang to drive them to
their destination. Liu Peiqiang asks Wang Lei to take care of Han Zi'ang, but Liu Qi cuts in and
says his grandfather can leave with his sister and he'll be the one to take over the driving.
Liu Peiqiang tries to protest against the idea, but Liu Qi tells him he can't make
decisions for him as he did for his mother. It's then revealed that seventeen years ago,
when Liu Peiqiang learned only one custodian could go with Liu Qi to the underground city,
he decided to give up the treatment of his very sick wife who didn't have much time left. Her
death was the only way he could ensure his son's survival. Their conversation is interrupted when
the planes above them start falling and the ice under the truck begins to crumble, there are also
incoming avalanches, all because of Jupiter's gravitational spike. At the Space Station,
MOSS starts loading evacuation procedures, which confuses Liu Peiqiang. He asks to contact the UEG,
but MOSS doesn't listen and releases the hibernation gas into his capsule. Meanwhile,
Wang Lei's group loses a vehicle to the falling rocks and finds themselves on a blocked road.
Everyone starts leaving their trucks before they get crushed as well, and Liu Qi releases one of
his special spheres to protect his family while the soldiers rescue the Lighter Core since it's
humanity's last hope. The group decides to climb the Shanghai Tower from the inside to try to reach
the other side of the ruins. As the civilians climb up the elevator shaft with the Lighter
Core behind them and the tower slowly starts to collapse, the soldiers try to find a way out
and find themselves with no other choice but to shoot at a frozen window to create a path. Most
of the crew makes it to the seventy-fifth floor, but the rope starts breaking before Han Zi'ang,
one of the soldiers and the Core reach them as well. The group prioritizes dragging in the Core,
so Liu Qi is left holding his grandfather alone, which means he's about to be pulled back into
the shaft. To avoid this, Wang Lei cuts his rope and causes Han Zi'ang to fall, but he's grabbed
by the soldier, who throws him into a gap in the wall before he's crushed by the falling elevator.
Han Duoduo and Liu Qi want to save their grandfather, but it's too dangerous and
there's no time, so Wang Lei's team drags them away as Han Zi'ang's suit runs out of oxygen.
Accepting his fate, he takes off his helmet and lets the cold freeze him to death while he
remembers how seventeen years ago, he rescued baby Han Duoduo from a flood and decided to adopt her,
naming her after his daughter. The rest of the group manages to escape the tower right before it
collapses, and Liu Qi is furious at Wang Lei for not saving his grandfather. He tries to punch him
to no avail, the captain is trained in combat. So Liu Qi decides that he and his sister will abandon
the mission since the military group has no use for them anymore now they've lost the truck.
Tim decides to go with them too. At the Space Station, Liu Paiqiang manages to force his body
to wake up from hibernation. This is a breach of protocol, so to rectify this accidental awakening,
the AI awakens two more crewmates: Makarov and Hamdan. Liu Peiqiang explains to them that the
station has changed courses and lost contact with Earth, the planet has been abandoned and he
worries about his son. When Makarov points out they're in low consumption mode, Liu Paiqiang
tells him it's a lie and shows him the energy readings on the screen, calling it desertion.
He plans to enter the main module to stop the station, and Makarov accepts to help. They put
on their suits and open an airlock by planting a bomb Liu Paiqiang has put together, they're sucked
out as soon as the door breaks open. Liu Paiqiang manages to hold onto a rope and grabs Makarov's
as well so he doesn't float away before noticing how Earth is being pulled by Jupiter. Han Duoduo,
Liu Qi, and Tim follow an SOS signal until they find a truck stuck in a crash but still intact.
Inside, they meet engineer Li Yiyi, who tries to attack them until they explain they're rescue
workers. Now Liu Qi has a vehicle he can drive, the four of them can go home, but they hear an
old message from Wang Lei's unit saying they're in trouble and they need help transporting the Core
because it's the underground cities' only hope, so Liu Qi gives in and decides to drive back to them.
Meanwhile, Wang Lei's team has reached the Hangzhou engine, only to find out it's destroyed.
One of the teammates suddenly drops behind them frozen to death, which angers agent Zhou
Qian and causes her to shoot the Core as she says she doesn't want to see any more deaths.
Liu Qi and the others arrive then and tell them they have another Lighter Core in the truck,
so everyone agrees to work together and take it to the engine in Sulawesi. Back at the station,
Liu Peiqiang and Makarov are climbing the ship's structure to reach the main module,
which is going in circles and pushes them off the rails when it comes closer. Both astronauts
manage to hold on to a different rail and plan to jump on the module when it passes by again,
Liu Peiqiang does so successfully but Makarov is killed by the automated security measures.
There's no time to grieve, though, so Liu Peiqiang hurries to enter the main module through a nearby
hatch and tries to stop the station, but manual override is invalid. MOSS explains to him that
this isn't desertion, all its actions have been approved by the UEG and are perfectly legal.
Liu Qi's group arrives at Sulawesi and discovers that the engine has already been fully restored
along with ninety percent of the engines around the planet. However, they are so close to
Jupiter's gravitational pull now, that the engines are no longer enough to divert the trajectory.
MOSS already knew this would happen and informed the UEG, which is why they've authorized the Space
Station evacuation. The AI has a new mission as a priority now: instead of assisting Earth, the
station must carry on a project called "Helios". Earth will collapse with Jupiter in seven days,
so MOSS broadcasts a final message to the world, telling them about Helios. The spaceship will act
as an interstellar ark and take the three hundred thousand embryos, one hundred seeds of basic
crops, DNA maps of all known species, and digital libraries of all human civilizations to a planet
with a fitting biosphere to begin a new Earth there. The AI offers kind words towards humanity,
but in the underground cities, people are panicking and rioting. Liu Peiqiang should return
to his hibernation capsule, but he asks MOSS to help him have a final talk with his son. Sadly,
MOSS can't find Liu Qi's location, so both father and son reminiscence about the old
days and the night they saw Jupiter together. This memory brings back an important fact:
Jupiter is composed of ninety percent hydrogen and has been absorbing Earth's atmosphere.
Liu Qi tells Li Yiyi this, and the engineer gets excited when he realizes there's still hope: with
all the oxygen Jupiter has sucked in, lighting the planet up could create a combustion shockwave
strong enough to push Earth away. They'd only need a match, and that match is the Sulawesi Engine.
Even if it's a very dangerous mission, Wang Lei's team accepts it, because it's better than
waiting a week for their deaths. The group goes to the control center by truck while
Li Yiyi assigns each teammate a task to do during the execution of their plan and Wang Lei tries to
contact the Space Station to no avail. All other rescue units are evacuating the area and ignore
Wang Lei's request for help, so they'll have to do this alone. Liu Qi and Wang Lei shake hands before
the team takes off on the mission. After entering the engine building, the group splits. Han Duoduo
and Zhou Qian will go to the communications room to try to ask for reinforcements,
Li Qiu and Tim are in charge of taking the Lighter Core to the reaction chamber, Wang Lei and his men
will manually unlock the engine, and Li Yiyi will gain control of the system to concentrate all the
energy in only one nozzle. Han Duoduo tries to contact the other rescue units, but they
either ignore her or can't understand what she's saying. Li Yiyi manages to hack his way into the
system and tells Wang Lei's team to start pushing the enormous pin while Li Qiu and Tim force their
way into the reaction chamber. Things seem to be going well at first, but soon the problems begin.
Li Yiyi can't shut down the engine because his software is stuck at ninety-nine percent, so a
fellow scientist called Lao He must enter the CPU room and reconfigure the connections. This causes
the engine not to fully incorporate the core so Li Qiu must jump in and push it manually, it also
starts creating some vibrations in the area that make walls crumble. Some debris falls between Wang
Lei's team and the locking pin, and Zhou Qian dies when protecting Han Duoduo and Li Yiyi.
While Li Qiu uses a blowtorch to detach the Lighter Core and push it farther,
Han Duoduo finds an astronaut tag and uses it to contact Liu Peiqiang and tell him of their plan.
MOSS cuts in and says some Israeli scientists had already thought of that and their calculations
said it wouldn't work, but Liu Peiqiang doesn't care and calls the UEG anyway. He requests for
reinforcements to be sent to Sulawesi, only to be turned down. Not wanting to give up, Liu Peiqiang
speaks from the heart and tells the government to think of the children, so the UEG decides to give
him a chance. They still can't send out such orders, but they will allow someone to speak
to the rescue units directly so each person can decide if they want to join this kamikaze
mission or spend the last few days with their families. Han Duoduo is the chosen one to talk
to the rescuers. She sends out a message talking about being scared but wanting to help anyway,
she also mentions hope. This is enough to convince most rescue units to turn around their trucks and
rush to help them. Once her speech is done, she joins Wang Lei's team to help them push while
Liu Peiqiang starts redirecting other engines towards Jupiter as well. After a lot of effort,
Liu Qi manages to kick the core into place but ends up getting stuck inside the chamber,
Tim rescues him by grabbing his rope and jumping off the bridge to create a counterweight.
Liu Qi is dragged onto the bridge safely, and he pulls Tim up with him before getting
in the truck to leave the room before it explodes. Meanwhile, Lao He manages to connect the CPU with
the new configuration right before dying from the wounds left by the debris that had fallen on him.
Li Yiyi's software reaches one hundred percent and shuts down the engine, the only thing left
to do is the manual unlocking. Wang Lei's team is still having trouble with the pin, but luckily,
the reinforcement teams arrive then and help them push the pin into place. The engines are started,
but the explosive range is too short to be able to ignite the hydrogen. Liu Peiqiang sees this on the
station monitor and decides he wants to help using the three hundred thousand tons of fuel
the spaceship is carrying. He asks the UEG for permission to plunge into the plasma beam but he's
denied since the point of the station is to ensure humanity's survival with Helios. The UEG hangs up
on him and MOSS tells him it will stop him from trying anything, so Liu Peiqiang takes an extreme
measure: he grabs the bottle of vodka Makarov had gifted him and throws it at MOSS, lighting it on
fire and effectively disabling it. Liu Peiqiang finally regains manual control of the station
and begins to steer it towards the plasma beam while listening to a message from the UEG saying
they've decided to opt for hope and to respect his decision. During his last moments, Liu Peiqiang
contacts Earth and tells the team not to turn off the engines, no matter how much Liu Qi protests
against his plan. He apologizes to his son and like that day seventeen years ago, he tells him
to look at the sky where he'll see his father as a star. The station collides with the plasma beam
then and this time, the resulting explosion is enough to blow up Jupiter and push Earth away.
The team and the rescue units start running to hide in the underground city, but Liu Qi doesn't
want to leave without Han Duoduo, who has fallen unconscious under some debris. Li Yiyi tells them
to hide under the engine, which should counteract the force of the shockwave. Wang Lei dies when
the whole building collapses, and the siblings fall into an abyss, surviving only thanks to one
of Liu Qi's special spheres. But when a piece of machinery hits the sphere, the siblings are
expulsed out of it and Liu Qi's helmet gets cracked. Han Duoduo cries to Tim for help as
Earth's engines start working again and finally allow the planet to leave Jupiter's atmosphere.
Three years later, humanity has started a new project to take Earth out of the Solar System
before the expanding Sun consumes it all. Liu Qi, Han Duoduo, and Li Yiyi work as transport
vehicle drivers while the Wandering Earth makes its way towards the Alpha Centauri star system.