The new Chinese movie The Wandering Earth (流浪地球), which opened in Pittsburgh on February 5 for the Lunar New Year, will stay in town through at least Wednesday, March 6. The South China Morning Post summarizes the movie, considered China's first big-budget science fiction film.
The film portrays how a group of intrepid Chinese astronauts save the world from the brink of annihilation due to the imminent destruction of the sun. Like Hollywood space movies where Americans are portrayed as the only ones capable of saving humanity, here Chinese astronauts are the sole adventurers among the global space community determined to complete the arduous task of fending off the apocalypse.The film is the highest-grossing movie of the year in China so far, and #2 of all-time there behind 2017's Wolf Warrior 2 (战狼2).
In spite of such overt patriotism, the film is spectacular for its ceaseless stream of hair-raising close-shave encounters and apocalyptic landscapes oozing desolation and despair. There is also a touching subplot involving family bonds at the centre of the mission to save the earth.
Tickets are available online via Fandango. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.