Lights! Camera! Win-win outcomes!

摘要

EARTH MUST be moved away from the expanding sun, which threatens to engulf it. As it is propelled across the solar system by gargantuan thrusters it gets trapped in Jupiter's gravitational pull. The apocalypse looms. There is only one hope for the human race: China. "The Wandering Earth", China's first blockbusting sci-fi film, has achieved gravity-defying success with this absurd plot. In its first ten days in cinemas it earned an impressive 3bn yuan ($440m). The film is widely expected to become China's second highest-grossing, behind "Wolf Warrior 2", a jingoistic thriller whose lead actor, Wu Jing, also stars in the sci-fi pic. Many Chinese commentators attribute the film's stellar success to growing pride in the country's space programme. Last month China became the first country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon.