Duration: 120mins
Contents:
China, c. 2008. The son of a peasant family, Zhang Tiancong (Liu Zhibing) is a veteran member of the first generation of Chinese astronauts but, now in his 40s, has yet to be selected for a space mission. One of those in contention for the Shenzhou VII mission, Zhang is once again passed over, and put in charge of the support team on the ground. His teenage daughter Siyu (Jiang Ruijia), who dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, is disappointed; his wife, Qu Dan (Niu Li) is as stoic as ever. As there won't be another major mission for a while, his faithful colleagues, Li Dawei (Wu Gang) and Zhou Guanxiong (Zhao Xiaoming), need to reconsider their own futures and decide whether to stay with Tiancong. Qu Dan urges Tiancong to step back and spend more time with her and their daughter, but he decides to carry on and train a new intake of astronauts for the Shenzhou IX mission. Dawei and Guanxiong decide to stay with him, but are subsequently transferred. A year later, the final six young astronauts - four men and two women - have been selected for the mission, with Tiancong as their chief trainer. The group goes into intensive preparation, including a visit to the Gagarin Space Centre in Russia, where they train in weightlessness alongside some Americans. While Tiancong is there, his mother (Bai Qing) is hospitalised with a brain tumour but the news is kept from Tiancong so as not to interrupt his work. Meanwhile, Siyu graduates as a fighter pilot. On his return from Russia, Tiancong and his group go into closed final training, and are divided into two groups of three, one headed by Tiancong, with Zhou Xiaosu (Zhang Xiaopei) and Wang Lisan (Wu Qijiang), and the other headed by the younger Xie Chaoyang (Yu Bo). One of the two groups is to be selected to fly the Wentian I docking mission, an important component of China's ambition to establish a manned space station.
|
Sign Up
Buy
Buyoyo News Feeds