bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Josh Ye

This article originally appeared on ABACUS
As the Avengers continue to smash box office records in China, many cinephiles in the country wish they had a film of their own with similar global appeal.
Those dreams seem a little less distant today as China’s first sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth finally starts streaming on Netflix. But it’s not the first major Chinese title featured on Netflix.
The video streaming giant has recently been cranking up the amount of Chinese content on the platform, acquiring the rights to 49 movies or shows over the past four years. We don’t want you to have to sift through all of them to find the best ones, so here are five of our favorites from various genres that we think a Western audience will enjoy.
(This list does not include Hong Kong movies as they have long been included in Netflix’s catalog. Plus, Chow Yun-fat and Jackie Chan need no introduction.)
The Wandering Earth
So the Sun’s about to die, and Earth is the only planet we have. What do we do?
To avert this apocalypse, scientists on Earth develop a solution: Build enormous thrusters around the planet to propel it to a new solar system. In the meantime, people live in underground cities to survive the centuries-long voyage.
That is the basic premise of The Wandering Earth. The movie is adapted from a short story penned by China’s first Hugo Award winner Cixin Liu. As with many adaptations, the film deviates widely from the book, and the movie also ends up using several space movie tropes -- so be careful if you hate movies that feel derivative.
Otherwise, it’s a blast, and it has some of the best visual effects you’re likely to find in any Chinese movie. It’s no wonder the film has done so well in China, where people have pinned their hopes on the film raising China’s status as cultural trendsetter.
“I’m crying. We finally have something good to show [those in the West],” a netizen wrote on Weibo.

Next Gen
If an epic space saga isn’t for you, then you might want to check out Next Gen, which is kind of like China's crack at remaking Big Hero 6.
Unlike The Wandering Earth, which still feels like a typical Chinese movie despite Hollywood-caliber visual effects, Next Gen feels like an American movie from start to finish. The film looks like something out of Pixar and features well-known American actors like John Krasinski and Michael Peña.
In fact, it’s a Canadian co-production, which might be why it feels like a big-budget Hollywood film. Most notably (and somewhat outrageously), the main character’s Chinese name is pronounced wrong.
In a way, Next Gen paints an Americanized vision of China in which corporations dominate and consumers worship CEOs from big tech companies. The story of the movie revolves around a girl whose negligent single mom is addicted to robots. But once society is exposed to the threat of a potential robot apocalypse, the girl has to learn how to stop hating the object of her mom’s obsession and start loving her new robot friend… in order to save the world.
How does it pan out? Only one way to find out.

Finding Mr. Right
If you find the previous two stories too techy (or, uh, cataclysmic), Finding Mr. Right, or Beijing Meets Seattle in Chinese, is a romantic comedy that can help give you some warm and fuzzy feelings. It’s not the best Chinese rom-com ever made, but the familiar setting of Seattle might help to make it more relatable to US audiences.
Finding Mr. Right follows the story of a rich Chinese mistress who flees to the US to give birth to her baby (yes, Chinese people engage in birth tourism).
Already used to an extravagant lifestyle sponsored by her married boyfriend, the protagonist one day finds that her boyfriend has gotten into trouble and can no longer support her. She then falls in love with a humble and attentive driver who was once a big-shot doctor in Beijing.
Finding Mr. Right is both a tribute to Sleepless in Seattle and a story about Chinese immigrants. If you like rom-coms and aren’t too hard to please, this just might be worth your while.

Empresses in the Palace
Empresses in the Palace was the show that jump-started Netflix’s aggressive buying spree of Chinese content back in 2015.
As a typical Chinese palace drama, Empresses in the Palace centers around the scheming and backstabbing of the lords and concubines in ancient China. There might be a lot of palace intrigue dramas out there, but Empresses in the Palace outdid them all, becoming an instant phenomenon across China.
So when Netflix announced that it would launch the show on its platform, fans of the show took it as a nod from Western tastemakers. Instead of featuring the full version of the show, though, Netflix only carries six 90-minute episodes rather than the original 38 one-hour episodes.  
Admittedly, I have only seen two of the episodes on Netflix. Still, I think it serves as a good introduction to a genre that fascinates millions of Chinese people.  

Curse of the Golden Flower
Before China had the technical prowess to pull off world-class CG effects, the special effects in Chinese movies were typically… people. Like, literally just A LOT of people.
There’s no better example of this than Curse of the Golden Flower. The film, directed by Zhang Yimou, is essentially King Lear but set in Tang Dynasty China.
The extravagance of some of the film’s sequences didn’t go unnoticed. Stephen Hunter described the film in The Washington Post as “an over-the-top, all-stops-pulled-out lollapalooza that means to play kitschy and grand at once."
The film also stars Chow Yun-fat! Gong Li from Miami Vice is the female lead and Jay Chou from The Green Hornet is a supporting actor. The film is worth watching for the star-studded cast alone.


For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters, subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report. Also roam China Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus.



Who is Michael J. Berman, who founded the magazine George with John F. Kennedy Jr?

Meet Constance Zimmer, who plays Carolyn Bessette’s mum Ann Messina in Love Story

K-drama casting news about Seo Kang-joon, Ju Ji-hoon, Kim Nam-gil and more

Meet Alessandro Nivola, who plays Calvin Klein in Love Story, starring Sarah Pidgeon

TV shows and streaming video

Five Chinese movies and shows you should watch on Netflix

Abacus

Culture

Tech

China’s new blockbuster The Wandering Earth is just one of many Chinese films you can stream right now


Five Chinese movies and shows you should watch on Netflix

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}China’s new blockbuster The Wandering Earth is just one of many Chinese films you can stream right now

The Wandering Earth

China’s new blockbuster The Wandering Earth is just one of many Chinese films you can stream right now