The Wandering Earth

The Wandering Earth is a 2019 Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo, loosely based on the 2000 short story of the same name by Liu Cixin about taking the Earth and pushing it somewhere else. The film stars Qu Chuxiao, Li Guangjie, Ng Man-tat, Zhao Jinmai, Wu Jing and Qu Jingjing. Set in the far future, it follows a group of astronauts and rescue workers guiding the Earth away from an expanding Sun, while attempting to prevent a collision with Jupiter. The film was theatrically released in China on 5 February 2019 (Chinese New Year's Day), by China Film Group Corporation. The film grossed worldwide. It is China's fifth highest-grossing film of all time and the fifth highest-grossing non-English film to date. It has received generally positive reviews from critics, with The Hollywood Reporter describing it as "China's first full-scale interstellar spectacular." Netflix acquired the film's global streaming rights and began streaming outside China on 30 April 2019. A second film, The Wandering Earth 2, was released in January 2023, serving as a prequel. Plot In the year 2058, an anomalously expanding red giant Sun threatens to engulf the Earth within 100 years. The world's nations are forced to consolidate into a world government and construct 12,000 enormous fusion-powered "Earth Engines" to thrust Earth out of the Solar System. Before going on his mission aboard the Navigation Platform International Space Station, Chinese astronaut Liu Peiqiang leaves his son Qi in the care of his father-in-law Han Zi'ang. Half of humanity, mostly chosen by non-transferable lottery, are moved into underground cities; the remaining billions dying in the cataclysms resulting from stopping the Earth's rotation and thrusting the planet from its orbit, and later with the Earth's surface temperature dropping to colder than as the Earth moves further from the sun.