Just watched the Mainland Chinese movie Per Aspera Ad Astra on Netflix. It’s the summer movie I’ve been wanting.
It had a cinematic release earlier this spring and was released on Netflix June 18th.
While set in space, it’s focused on virtual reality and AI. Some have described as a mix of EEAAO and The Matrix. I’d add in a fair dose of high concept Star Trek too.
It’s a fun ride with a good message. Highly recommend it for sci-fi fans looking for a well executed story with competent problem solving and positive values.
Dylan Wang He Di, Victoria Song Qian and Wang Duo deliver a compelling and action packed tale. While I watched with subtitles because the cast all voiced their own parts in the original Mandarin, the English language dub is reportedly excellent. I found the special effects well done (but would really welcome the views of experts here ).
Here’s the synopsis from Netflix:
An AI system lets people live their dreams during space travel, but when a crisis arises a technician must enter the dreamscape to save the passengers.
And here’s a translation of the original promotion for the movie:\
High school student Zhang Qi Meng, focused on preparing for exams, is pulled out of the examination hall by a stranger named Brother Biao, who breaks through the window. He is then informed of a shocking fact: his world is just a virtual metaverse program. In reality, Qi Meng is an astronaut in hibernation, and at this moment, disaster is rapidly approaching their spaceship...
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I watched The Great Flood 3 days ago, and it blew my mind.
Do you mean this 2025 Korean movie?
I haven’t seen that one but it sounds interesting. Thanks for the recommendation!
My sense is that North Americans just aren’t aware of the existence of high concept or well resourced productions coming out from Asia. China, Korea and Japan have large television and film production industries and the vfx specialists to make shows and films of similar or superior production quality. We’re just conditioned to think that’s Hollywood’s specialty.
The creative choices will be different and the narratives will reflect a difference in culture — and constraints of national censorship in the case of China — but there’s as wide a range of styles and types of stories.
Unfortunately, most of us only have access to the slice of Asian entertainment that Netflix choses to license. Disney+ partners with Chinese producers but then only offers the shows in SE Asia outside China rather than bringing them to Hulu. Amazon Prime was licensing Asian shows a few years ago but seems to have pulled back. Some shows are available to watch with ads on official sites on YouTube.
Asian streamers are available for subscription in North America but the majority of the content licensed at this point is romances and Idol dramas, with the occasional scifi show or thriller tossed in.
Yup, that's the one. I also very much loved The Eternaut.