Shanghai Fortress (2019)

[Drunk Monk]

Here is a bad film, a big budget PRC bad film. Based on a significant Chinese Sci-Fi novel, it was a horrible flop, losing millions, and the director, producer and even the author of the original novel apologized. And rightly so. Some sort of space crystal is brought to earth and powers all our cities. Then some sort of alien comes to take it and destroys all our cites. Shanghai is protected by a glowing honeycomb forcefield shield powered by the crystals that also power the city and a weapon called the Shanghai cannon. There are some big scenes for sure - big crowd scenes, big military vehicles, big sets, and a lot of mediocre cgi. The aliens are bots with an extra set of arms/talons. They come out of a big mother ship that peaks down from stormy skies. 

Then there's Shu Qi, ruiner of movies. She's still gorgeous - that perfect skin, those voluptuous lips - but once again, she's in a horrible film probably because everyone got distracted by her beauty. There a spring-autumn romance - the boy toy lead (a pop singer in rea life) is crushing on Shu Qi - but he's like 14 years her junior and not even in her league. It's dumb. The resolution is sappily romantic and almost redeems it but no.  Shu Qi does look sharp in uniform however.

It took me several days to finish this because I kept falling asleep. I should've given up but I wanted to complete this review. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice. 

No sword fights. Lots of dumb cgi explosions. Not DOOM recommended at all.

[cranefly]

It took me several days to finish this because I kept falling asleep. I should've given up but I wanted to complete this review. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice. 

You are to be commended.

Maybe they should have gotten Crystal Liu for the female lead.  At least she'd be more thematically appropriate, with her name.

Crystals -- the go-to mcguffin for non-science fiction writers diving boldly into the deep end of science fiction.

[Drunk Monk]

I gather the book was totally different. But who knows? Any plot just disintegrated with the pop star pining over Shu Qi. Musta been the uniform. She does look hot in uniform. Totally unconvincing but hot.



Good point on crystals. What's the difference between Dilithium and Kyber crystals anyway?

[Greg]

The difference is the spelling.

[Drunk Monk]

I need some crystals, dilithium or kyber. I'm not choosy. 

I just don't need no xianteng. That's the Shanghai Fortress space crystals. No, I don't know what that translates into from Chinese. Okay, I just looked it up. It means 'surge up' or 'rage'. I'm raging about having been suckered into another Shu Qi film. 

Maybe I need to pull a cf and just binge a ton of her films.