While ostensibly a military-themed movie, none of the characters have any semblance of military bearing. However, Shanghai Fortress‘ plot quickly descends into the realm of absurdity. The actual fight sequence, despite drowning in more CGI than a Chinese banquet drowns in baijiu, is actually quite action-packed, and does a great job of framing the rest of the story and characters to follow. Shanghai Fortress opens with considerable energy: aliens slip through a crack in the forcefield, and Chinese forces fight the aliens both on the streets of Shanghai, and in the sky with remote-piloted drones from a command center. More Plot Holes Than There Are People in China A United Nations delegation seems to lead the whole effort, despite the fact that the UN would likely have been wiped out already. Military officer Lin Lan (Shu Qi) is tasked with helping to defend the city, along with a small squad of pilots including Jiang Yang (Lu Han). We’re not actually sure which branch of the People’s Liberation Army defends Shanghai in the film, but their snazzy Air Force-style uniforms suggests that this is the Chinese Space Force. Xianteng is an unstable energy source, so the forcefield occasionally falters and lets a few aliens in to ravage the metropolis. The aliens wipe out major global population centers, leaving only Shanghai standing behind a forcefield powered by xianteng. However, it turns out xianteng was actually stolen from aliens, who arrive on Earth with motherships. In Shanghai Fortress, Chinese astronauts (also known as taikonauts) discover a new material called xianteng, which quickly replaces coal and oil as Earth’s main energy source. Now, as the film arrives on Netflix, global audiences will get a chance to judge whether Shanghai Fortress was really that bad. One netizen‘s comments aptly symbolize China’s dashed hopes: “ The Wandering Earth was the start of Chinese sci-fi’s dynasty, but Shanghai Fortress is its ending.”
With an embarrassing three out of ten rating on Chinese movie review site Douban, and comments decrying its poor plot and even worse acting, Shanghai Fortress did so badly that director Teng Huatao even issued an apology.
Following The Wandering Earth‘s success earlier this year, Chinese moviegoers had high hopes for homegrown sci-fi films-until Shanghai Fortress dashed them with a massive box office flop.
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