Cli-fi movies will rise in Communist China, too, in future days as the nation abandons communism and accepts freedom for its people

OpEd: ''Cli-fi movies will rise in Communist China, too, in future days as the Soviet-style nation abandons communism and accepts freedom for its people''








by Liu Xiao-bao in absentia (but not forgotten)


Translated by freedom fighter artist Ai Wei-Wei in Germany






The growth of the Chinese film market in recent years, in tandem to its cooperation with Hollywood players, will eventually bring new cli-fi movies to the highly mindcontrolled communist country’s cinema screens. People might assume that domestic films can’t hold a candle to the polished products put out by Hollywood’s cli-fi screenwriters like Marshall Herskovitz yet actual box office figures will later show this not to be true.


China's crop of sci-fi movies have helped set the stage for the rise of cli-fi in China, too. In 2016, “The Mermaid” became China’s highest-grossing sci-fi fantasy movie of all time, raking in 2.2 billion yuan (US$333 million). “Monster Hunt,” meanwhile, led the charge for fantasy films at a whopping 2.43 billion yuan (US$360 million). Both were domestic movies.


The former showed  the existence of an isolated population of mermaids in a future war with humans, who wish to destroy the mermaids’ habitat as part of a sea reclamation project. The latter told the story of two hunters in a world populated with people-eating monsters. Typical escapist sci-fi.


Domestic cli-fi -movies will in the future fare well in terms of appealing to a mass audience, perhaps in part because of China’s emphasis as being a global leader in fighting climate change and global warming, despite the nation's heavy reliance on coal and its government habit of lying to the international media about its true aims.


In the eyes of many Chinese moviegoers, native cli-fi heroes will differ vastly from their Western counterparts since it's a different culture over there. People are brainwashed and mindcontrolled by a huge Chinese Communist Party apparatus, but there's hope. China killed Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobao but they can't kill freedom and democracy -- and truth-telling. Storytelling leads to truth-telling. Cli-fi will rise in China, too. One day. Not yet. Give it time,


The Tao will also influence the rise of Chinese cli-fi novels and movies. In China, according to some, a hero’s success isn’t just about discerning between right and wrong and carefully completing one’s mission. Following Taoist philosophy helps heroes understand how best to approach the crises they face.

So Chinese cli-fi movie heroes won’t need to attempt bombastic solutions to save the world; they will do so by following their mentor’s teachings.