Shanghai Fortress

Shanghai Fortress

Director: Teng Hua-tao
Year: 2019
Rating: 6.0

Enough already. China is trying to take over every industry that America has dominated for decades, but this is too much. Now they think they can be in the business of saving the world from aliens? That is America's legacy. We have been doing it since WWII and there is no way China is going to take that away from us. Sure Japan saved us numerous times from all the Kaiju monsters over the years, but aliens are our business ever since War of the Worlds was written by HG Wells (ok, the Brits in that case), but you get the point. This will not stand. We will not let the Chinese take this away from us! Get to work America.

But the fact that this big budget ($57 million - big for China) imploded like the Mother Ship at the box office will probably keep us number 1 for a while to come. The Chinese audience hated this film like they do counter-revolutionaries and the director, Teng Huatao, had to actually come out publicly and apologize for making such a bad film and humiliating China in the eyes of the world. They have now added his name to the Gang of Four; now the Gang of Five. If this was North Korea he would have been shot for the disgrace he brought on the Mother Land.

So you might wonder why I gave this a 6. Because as flawed as it is, it is still fairly entertaining in a dumb way. Chinese audiences tend to overreact and they all get on social media and beat movies to death like professors during the Cultural Revolution. I could spend a fair amount of time talking about what is wrong with the film - it is more video game than movie, the plot has holes larger than the Ozone, all the actors are way too pretty, there is a lot of techno babble that made no sense at all and we never see the god damn aliens! That's easy but instead here are a few things about the film that I thought were pretty good.

Shu Qi of course heads the list. She is a miracle of nature. She rolled up on the shores of Hong Kong from Taiwan in the mid-90's capturing the hearts and loins of much of the Chinese world and more than a few Westerners - and here it is 25 years later and at the age of 43 she still looks about the same - like a wet dream on drugs. How much of it is the camera, the make-up, some photo-shopping, genetics or sacrificed virgins I don't know but she looks great. Especially in military uniform. Moving on - the special effects are not bad at all - not Avenger quality but fairly acceptable - a futuristic Shanghai looks spectacular, there is a huge amount of action - most of it CGI for sure but the Annihilators that the aliens send down by the thousands are pretty cool as sort of transformer ninjas and the emotional core of friendship and faraway love is corny but no more than we have seen in a hundred war movies. This is to say the least a patriotic orgy.

Chinese astronauts have returned in the future with an energy source - xianteng - that is able to supply energy to the world with no bad effects. Well other than the aliens come to the earth to get it. Why? No clue. Why don't they just ask to share it or to give it back if that is the case? No clue? Instead they start destroying the earth - blowing cities up and taking the xianteng. Only Fortress Shanghai is left with an energy shield covering the city. Below the military prepares with an army of drones and young fast moving men and woman controlling the drones. Commanding them is Lin Lan (Shu Qi) with not a hint of humor or a smile crossing her face. But then they are being attacked by aliens. Still if this was an American film there would have been witticisms and smart-alecky remarks being passed around like cheap confetti. Not the Chinese.

One of the members of the Grey Eagles - a close knit group of four - is heroine worshipping Lin Lan from afar. Now this seemed to bother the audience - having a romance between a young man and a Christmas cake put out on the curb. But damn its Shu Qi. Jiang played by Lu Han also came in for a lot of shit and this was not so far off the mark - as soon as I saw him I automatically thought Boy Band and sure enough he is with a face that must make 14-year old girls dream at night. He never feels like anything but what he is. But what I liked about the "romance" is that there never is one - it is just his admiration and wishful thinking but they are too busy killing the Annihilators for it to go anywhere. It was basically Summer of 42. Or did he end up sleeping with Jennifer O'Neill in that? Well, Jiang doesn't get that lucky.

Sci-fi is fairly new to Chinese films or even China really. Way back in the 1930's China banned wuxia films and China still frowns on any film to do with the supernatural. A few sci-fi writers though have emerged that are supposed to be very good with Liu Cixin being the best known. Earlier in 2019 a film from one of his books The Wandering Earth was made that was huge at the box office and part of the disappointment from the Chinese was that this film fell so short of that one. I expect there will be others coming out - I like sci-fi from anywhere - just stay away from saving the earth damn it. On Netflix I think.