Original fish visual sense
Four years ago, The Wandering Earth became a gift beyond the audience’s expectation, from a "small broken ball" that was not optimistic to a "China science fiction film benchmark".
Four years later, under the expectation of the audience, the China film market finally ushered in Wandering Earth 2.
Four years ago, the earth started a wandering journey to its new home in a crisis. Jason Wu played the match that Liu Pei strengthened his body and lit Jupiter, and used his life to protect the earth and mankind.
Four years later, the story started prequel, and Liu Peiqiang returned to his twenties. In the early days of the solar crisis, he was persistent, confused, powerful and fragile in conflicts and differences.
Four years ago, Jason Wu was a "special actor" in The Wandering Earth, with few scenes, and was finally written as "sacrifice" by the screenwriter.
Four years later, Jason Wu not only played opera, but also had tenderness for tough guys. Family and emotion have become the anchor points that China’s sci-fi movies can’t shake.
Shi Juezhi had an exclusive conversation with Jason Wu, talking about the film and the story behind it.
Jason Wu said that he was very surprised that China’s sci-fi movies had made such great progress in four years.
Friends who have walked into the cinema and watched the film can feel that Wandering Earth 2 is better than the last one:
The upgrade of special effects visible to the naked eye, the large-scale texture that comes from the face, and many grand scenes are shocking.
Speak with a set of data:
When The Wandering Earth had more than 2,000 special effects shots, it was regarded as a great challenge and surprise.
In Wandering Earth 2, there are more than 6,000 visual effects lenses. There are 102 sci-fi main scenes, and 17 studios have a landscape area of 58,000 square meters; 5,310 conceptual designs, 9,989 split-shot drawings, and more than 22,000 group performances at home and abroad …
It goes without saying that the film production cycle is long, the workload is heavy and the difficulty is high.
As a result, the big screen presents a picture of doomsday.
There is an amazing "space elevator", and the towering tower supported by several cables is full of science and technology.
Out-of-control drones flew into the sky and bombed the space elevator. The scene of the ark falling is very enjoyable.
There are also various natural disasters and space crises, and every scene is frightening.
Special effects, pictures and textures are upgraded in all directions, and thousands of special effects shots have completed this visual feast.
But the film can’t just be an empty shell of special effects, and the plot is the core of the film. Fortunately, Wandering Earth 2 is also doing well.
Jason Wu lamented: "Science fiction movies have to be directed by people like Frant Gwo. His macro perspective is so big that I really admire him."
The story of Wandering Earth 2 is set in the near future.
"At first, no one cared about this disaster, a mountain fire, the extinction of a species, until this disaster was closely related to everyone …"
The prologue shows the picture of the future, and mankind is encountering an unprecedented disaster-
The sun continues to expand. After 30 years, the sun will engulf the earth, and after 100 years, the solar system will no longer exist.
In order to save the fate of mankind, different factions have emerged on the earth.
For example, the "Digital Life Plan" allows human beings to achieve "mechanical soaring" through the growing artificial intelligence technology.
China people put forward the "plan to move mountains" (the predecessor of the "Wandering Earth Plan").
Since the earth is in crisis, it is better to "run away with the ball" directly, protect our homeland and leave a decent future for future generations.
The film began slowly in verifying the feasibility of various plans.
Director Frant Gwo’s control of the plot, and the seamless imagination details unconsciously make the audience feel that the future is close at hand.
The excellent performance of the actors is also a plus item.
For Jason Wu, the whole scene is as difficult as several scenes in space:
"How to imitate fighting in space and how to show weightlessness is a conceptual subversion. "
Jason Wu, who had three top martial arts scholars in his ancestors, never played imaginary games, and every scene was real.
In a fight with actor Wang Zhi, Jason Wu told her seriously: "You must really fight." Wang Zhi listened to the advice and filmed it many times. Only after calling it a day did he know that Jason Wu was injured and his thigh was bruised for many days.
The success of Wandering Earth 2 is the result of the joint efforts of all the cast members.
Gained a good score of 8.2 points on Douban, and many film critics also became tap water:
"The breakthrough of China’s film industrialization was unexpectedly realized by director Frant Gwo."
As early as after the The Wandering Earth craze faded, the audience calmed down, and the production team investigated the audience’s expectations for the sequel-
"I hope to see the progress of China science fiction movies. “
Simple words are a great challenge to The Wandering Earth series.
This time, Wandering Earth 2 returned to the big screen with all kinds of pressures and challenges, once again showing the charm and progress of China’s science fiction.
I have to say, the little broken ball did it again.
In the The Wandering Earth, Jason Wu played Liu Peiqiang in few scenes, and the scene of him crashing into Jupiter with the space station became a classic.
As a prequel to The Wandering Earth, Wandering Earth 2 unfolds the character’s experience, and makes Liu Peiqiang become an ordinary man with flesh and blood from a fearless lonely hero.
Talking about the role, Jason Wu told us: "Liu Peiqiang has a growing process in this play."
"He had rebellion, youth, decadence, love, master, family, husband, son-in-law and children of his own."
In the film, the audience follows Liu Peiqiang’s perspective and experiences all the ways of life under the arrival of the doomsday era.
At the beginning of the film, the young version of Liu Peiqiang walked with his master in the near-destroyed urban ruins. He had dark skin and sunglasses, and he had an enviable youthful atmosphere.
Later, I met a female soldier named Han Duoduo (played by Wang Zhi), and Liu Peiqiang was in love. Even though the world was gloomy, he still held red roses to express his romance.
When the villain occupied the space elevator and Liu Peiqiang broke into the secret room alone to outnumber the enemy, he said, "Even if I am alone, I will defend the space elevator to the death." Then began a wonderful fight.
At the end of the film, Liu Peiqiang, who grew a beard and became a lieutenant colonel, stayed in space day and night, touching the photos of his family. When he looked up at the vast universe outside the space capsule, his eyes were full of firmness and sadness.
As Jason Wu said: "Liu Peiqiang may suffer a lot of grievances and even grief in the end, but for the sake of his family, he will continue to work hard."
"Wandering Earth 2" gave Jason Wu plenty of room to play and launched Liu Peiqiang’s wonderful or bumpy first half of his life.
When we asked Jason Wu which of so many wonderful scenes was the most enjoyable, he chose the quietest farewell scene.
Liu Peiqiang participated in the astronaut selection only to give his family a chance to survive.
Liu Peiqiang, who is about to go to space, looked at his terminally ill wife lying in the hospital bed and her 4-year-old son, full of tears.
He held his wife’s hand and said softly, "I miss you", and she tried to answer him, "I have been there".
There is no presupposition and dialogue in this play, and it is entirely up to the free play of the actors. Jason Wu performed a man’s simplest love for his family and relatives.
After filming this scene, Jason Wu couldn’t be calm for a long time. The strongest tough guy at that moment also had a soft spot.
Many viewers were moved to tears by this scene. Jason Wu said: "This is an recognition of my performance, even more fulfilling than any play."
Wandering Earth 2 continues China people’s feelings of home and country.
Jason Wu and Andy Lau had a scene opposite each other. During the filming, they could not hear the sound through a thick glass plate, and Andy Lau could not be seen in Jason Wu’s room. However, only by relying on the details of their expressions, they performed the state of mind of the two people who are equally worried about their families despite their different identities.
The pattern of Wandering Earth 2 is not limited to this.
In the later stage of the film, it is planned to need 300 living people to detonate a nuclear bomb. In this mission with no return, the members of the China Space Team over 50 took the lead to take the initiative to step out and strive to be the fuse of the nuclear bomb, and Russia and other countries followed suit.
This belief and courage of human beings in the face of disasters makes people cry instantly.
The film expands its vision to the destiny of all mankind and becomes a truly globalist film-
This is not an old-fashioned personal heroic adventure story, but a grand epic of all mankind.
Under such a grand narrative, China’s sci-fi movies, with their unique romanticism, make the smallness and flash of human beings deeply hit people’s hearts again and again.
Wandering Earth 2 is not only a continuation of the previous work, but also a pioneering work, and it keeps moving forward on the road of creating hard-core science fiction in China.
This also makes people believe that in the most difficult time, there are always people who keep walking, and China science fiction movies have not been delayed.
With the popularity of the film, more and more details of the film have been "stripped" by netizens.
In such a doomsday sci-fi work, the production team was not delayed at all.
There used to be a famous food "dried aged earthworms" in The Wandering Earth, but now it takes 500,000 mosquitoes to make a "mosquito cake". At first glance, it is grandiose, but it is also reasonable, suggesting a shortage of resources in the future.
There are also patterns worn by little girl characters. In the real world, the rabbit pattern is a smiling face, but in the digital world, the rabbit pattern is a crying face, which makes people feel numb in an instant.
There are also many tributes hidden in the movie.
Some netizens think that the appearance of the original data of the Digital Life Plan pays tribute to the black stone tablet in 2001: A Space Odyssey, both of which have the mysterious meaning of the unknown world.
The film also pays tribute to Ng Man Tat through AI and CG synthesis technology. Times have changed, and people have never forgotten Uncle Da.
From the front to the back, this film has left many surprises for the audience, but Jason Wu said:
In fact, the story on the movie screen is very moving, and the story behind it is even more moving.
Jason Wu told us many behind-the-scenes stories, including the efforts of the cast members that were not noticed by the audience.
The most representative is director Frant Gwo, who strictly implemented the "5+4" life routine during the filming of Wandering Earth 2, that is, 5 cups of coffee and 4 hours of sleep every day, and pursued every detail.
After The Wandering Earth, many viewers were curious about how the earth started. Frant Gwo made a chronicle of nearly 200,000 words, connecting the beginning of the solar crisis, the departure of the earth and the crisis of Jupiter, so that the audience could understand the civilization and conflict in the film.
Until the trailer of Wandering Earth 2 was released, Frant Gwo was still not relieved. Someone on the Internet pointed out the design problem of the aircraft, and Frant Gwo directly replied: "Thank you, thank you, let’s change it quickly."
The same is true of actors.
Teacher Li Xuejian, who plays the representative of China, was ill before. His hearing was not good. Every time the crew worried about his health, Li Xuejian always said, "You don’t have to worry about me."
At the time of the deep winter festival, Li Xuejian filmed a scene of getting caught in the rain, and the water rushed over. Li Xuejian said, "Nothing, come again."
Jason Wu said frankly: "If you don’t visit the scene, you won’t feel the dedication of the older generation of actors."
Andy Lau, who is now 61 years old, not only has an understanding of drama, but also is adept at shooting all kinds of dramas.
Andy Lau’s last scene was filmed in the water almost all the time. He choked on water for real, just to make the details more real.
As Jason Wu said: "I know how hard it is to make a movie. He needs everyone to make their best efforts and have the greatest enthusiasm for movies to fulfill their dreams."
In the Spring Festival of 2023, Wandering Earth 2 only opened for 8 days, and it cracked 2.5 billion box office, which made people see the future and hope of China science fiction movies.
From this film, we can see not only the sincerity of the cast members, but also the ambition of China filmmakers to go global.
Just as Jason Wu and many filmmakers insisted, The Wandering Earth came into being, and The Wandering Earth series universe came into being.
The audience’s feelings are free. Maybe it can’t meet everyone’s expectations, but just like the sentence praised by 30,000 people on Douban:
"There is no need to compare anything. As a milestone, it is invincible."
Original title: Dialogue with Jason Wu: What happened to Wandering Earth 2 in 4 years? 》
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