From China’s first sci-fi blockbuster to a rom-com tribute to ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ here are five of the best Chinese movies and shows to watch on Netflix while you’re socially distancing yourself from everyone.
With people around the world stuck at home because of the coronavirus, there’s no better time to catch up on the movies and shows you’ve been meaning to watch.
Netflix has reported all-time traffic records as locked-down residents around the world are choosing binge-watching as their antidote to social isolation.
(Read more: How China inspired the makers of Netflix’s ‘Love, Death & Robots’)
If you’re itching the watch something new, the video streaming giant has recently cranked up the amount of Chinese content on the platform, acquiring the rights to 49 movies and 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.
(Note: This list does not include Hong Kong movies because they have long been included in Netflix’s catalog. Plus, stars like 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 by China’s first Hugo Award winner Liu Cixin.
(Read more: Meet the Chinese-American translator who is introducing Chinese sci-fi to the world)
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.
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. It looks like something out of Pixar and features well-known American actors like John Krasinski and Michael Peña.
(Read more: Why Pixar animated a bao, according to director Domee Shi)
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.
Finding Mr. Right
In Chinese, Finding Mr. Right is known as Beijing Meets Seattle, and you can probably guess why. (That’s right, it’s a tribute to that Tom Hanks classic.)
Finding Mr. Right is a romantic comedy that will give you some of the warm and fuzzies. It’s not the best Chinese rom-com ever made, but the familiar setting of Seattle might help to make it more relatable to U.S. audiences.
The story follows a rich Chinese mistress who flees to the United States to give birth to her baby.
(Read more: Why more women in China are choosing to be single moms—and getting pregnant abroad)
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, the show 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.
(Read more: What it took to be an emperor’s wife in imperial 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.
But instead of featuring the full version of the show, Netflix only carries six 90-minute episodes rather than the original 38 one-hour episodes. Still, it’s a good introduction to a genre that continues to fascinate millions of Chinese people.
Curse of the Golden Flower
Before China had the technical prowess to pull off world-class CGI 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 Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou, is essentially King Lear but set in Tang Dynasty China.
(Read more: Why Wong Kar-wai takes forever to make a movie)
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.”
Still, the film is worth watching for the all-star cast alone: Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat, critic’s darling Gong Li, and Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou are just some of the big names.
Adapted from an article first published in Abacus.
