Unstoppable

天马星空

China, 2025, colour, 2.35:1, 93 mins.

Director: Yang Feng 杨锋.

Rating: 3/10.

Totally generic sci-fi drama, about an invasion of Earth by aliens, doesn’t have a single original cell in its body.

STORY

Star City, planet Earth, the beginning of the fifth Eternal Age [AD 2080]. Pegasus warrior Xingmei (Li Yuanyuan) is ordered by her father Fabiola (Li Liqun), commander of the Pegasus forces, to use the Energy Pendant to open the Space Door and unleash war on Earth tomorrow. Some Pegasus fighters manage to enter Star City but are then defeated. After a mighty battle, Earth Coalition Forces triumph and peace is restored on Earth. Fifteen years later, Space City is suddenly bombarded by a meteor shower and many buldings are damaged. Pegasus is suspected to be behind it. In the desert that surrounds Space City, the shower is watched by Grandpa Meaty (Li Liqun). Space City Command detects another shower is due to arrive in less than 38 hours. Amid all the choas in the streets, Qin Haitang (Chen Xiya), a co-ordinator in Star City’s immigration administration, arrests the shape-shifting Phantom Man (Zhang Xilai) for theft and public disorder. A meteorite kills Phantom Man but Qin Haitang is also knocked unconscious. Qin Haitang’s father, Qin Long (Fan Shaohuang), who fought in the war 15 years earlier, is ordered to search the city for other Pegasus informers. Qin Haitang is included in his team, though Qin Long thinks she is still too young for such action; her present job is just to moderate conflicts between aliens and Earthmen in Star City. Qin Haitang is called to the Biology Research Centre where Phantom Man’s body is being investigated by her scientist friend Ivan (Ji Hao), a Pegasus alien but a “good” one. Meanwhile, a red-haired warrior, Spider Woman (Zina Blahušová), breaks into the research centre and retrieves a blue meteorite fragment from Phantom Man’s corpse. The centre then suffers an alien attack when another meteorite fragment morphs into a monster in Ivan’s lab. Qin Long and his squad kill the monster, thanks to the self-sacfrice of Huzi (Luan Yihao), one of his men. Qin Haitang hunts down Spider Woman but she escapes, destroying the research centre behind her. (Fifteen years earlier, when Qin Haitang was a young girl [Chen Zhiyan], her mother Xingmei had betrayed her father by not following his orders. She had thus helped to save the Earth. Qin Haitang had then been saved from the wrath of Xingmei’s father by the desert-dwelling Grandpa Meaty.) Qin Long, Qin Haitang, Ivan and alien mechanic Xiaowo (Pema Jyad) join Grandpa Meaty, who helps them understand what is going on. Meanwhile, Spider Woman receives further instructions from the Pegasus leader.

REVIEW

A totally generic sci-fi drama without an original cell in its body, Unstoppable 天马星空 might just about pass muster as background wallpaper for bored under-10s. The chaotic plot, centred on a future invasion of Earth by aliens from Pegasus, makes hardly any sense despite taking six people (including director Yang Feng 杨锋) to write it, and the sole point of interest is watching veteran Taiwan actor Li Liqun 李立群 trying to impart some dignity to his foggy role. The whole thing isn’t helped by some eye-rolling over-acting by Hong Kong action veteran Fan Shaohuang 樊少皇 [Louis Fan], as an Earth commander. Looking like an online movie that somehow escaped into cinemas, it took a microscopic RMB35,000 on release.

Principal photography was in mid-2021 in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, with obviously extensive VFX work thereafter. It followed on the heels of Virtual Lies 虚拟的谎言 (2021), an online sci-fi movie set in the world of virtual reality, that Yang had scripted with two of the writers on Unstoppable. As well as that, Shandong-born Yang, 44, has an online drama series, Lush Mountains 青山遮不住 (2021), and one other theatrical feature, romantic drama Hidden Love 情丝万楼 (2020), to his directing credit.

The VFX are okay without being anything special and the basic widescreen photography by d.p. Cao Yanliang 曹艳良 (Inferior Student Qiao Xi 差等生乔曦, 2019) is also fine, portraying a futuristic Earth inhabited by a mixture of humans and aliens straight from the Cantina Bar of Star Wars (1977). The invasion plot, centred on the metropolis Star City, is seen from the perspective of a young woman (Chen Xiya 陈西雅, spirited) who’s the daughter of an Earth commander (Fan) but actually has a complicated parentage. She’s also a fighter, though her dad thinks she’s too young to really battle aliens. Before the plot runs out of control (and momentum), there’s some moderately interesting mix of action and VFX in a laboratory that’s been infiltrated by a Pegasus warrior, Spider Woman (Czech actress-model Zina Blahušová, Moscow Mission 93国际列车大劫案    莫斯科行动, 2023), but the physical choreography is weak.

The Chinese title means “Pegasus Heavens”.

CREDITS

Presented by Yule Pictures (Shandong) (CN), Dream Intenational Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Hainan Yule Film & TV Culture Media (CN).

Script: Yang Feng, Niu Jing, Chen Ken, He Zhao, Sun Fei, He Wei. Photography: Cao Yanliang. Editing: Xun Pengdong. Music: Zhang He. Music supervision: Pei Dongfeng. Art direction: Zhang Wei. Costume design: Wang Linzeng. Styling: Lu Yun. Sound: Chen Jun. Action: Geng Yonggang. Visual effects: Yin Yong. Second-unit direction: Cao Yanliang. Executive direction: Liu Taishan.

Cast: Fan Shaohuang [Louis Fan] (Qin Long), Li Liqun (Duorou yeye/Grandpa Meaty; Fabiola), Chen Xiya (Qin Haitang), Ji Hao (Yiwen/Ivan, scientist), Zina Blahušová (Spider Woman), Pema Jyad (Xiaowo/Gary), Li Yuanyuan (Xingmei, Qin Haitang’s mother), Da Li (Space City command chief), Chen Zhiyan (young Qin Haitang), Luan Yihao (Huzi, soldier), Jia Yinuo (Auntie 13), Zhang Xilai (Phantom Man/alien monster).

Release: China, 22 Feb 2025.