Shang hai bao lei / Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
image © China Film Group
Article updated: 2022.09.17
The Shanghai Fortress (2019) is a futuristic military action film. The movie was reviewed by Kadmon.
Product: Shang hai bao lei / Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
Original title: 上海堡垒 (Shang hai bao lei, English: Shanghai Fortress), English title: Shanghai Fortress
Series: -
Setting: future fantasy Earth
Product type: Film, Genre: futuristic military action, Style: sci-fi, military action, action, aliens, alien invasion
Release: Premiere: 2019.08.04 (Beijing), Release: 2019.08.09
Reviewer: Kadmon, Type: Male, 40s, Preferences: Immersive, logical story, consistent setting, prefers surprises to spoilers, prefers establishing elements before referencing them
Watched: very recent (2021.01), first time
Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points), Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points)
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This is my review of Shanghai Fortress, a futuristic military action movie from 2019. It's about a team of soldiers fighting in the army against an alien invasion. The Shanghai Fortress film is watchable, but I only recommend it to fans of the genre.
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Review (spoiler-free) - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
I didn't know anything about the movie when I've found it, but the premise sounded interesting enough to give it a try. I didn't watch the trailer.
The Shanghai Fortress movie is about a team of soldiers fighting in the army against an alien invasion.
The story is okay, although not groundbreaking. The consistency is okay. There are no real character arcs. There are no major logical problems.
The cinematography is nice. The visuals are good, there's clearly effort put into the designs and execution. See a sample video here.
The characters are a little empty, but as the film focuses on the action, it's somewhat acceptable. The actors are okay.
The music (by Dong-jun Lee) is okay.
Similar to Indepence Day, but set in a futuristic setting, so humans have a fighting chance.
Although I didn't think the movie is very good, if you are interested in futuristic military action movies, it's probably worth your time.
Shanghai Fortress is a watchable futuristic military action film, that fans of the genre might enjoy.
My experience
I was mostly satisfied with Shanghai Fortress (2019).
Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points). Shanghai Fortress looks good, but it's not an interesting movie.
Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points). Shanghai Fortress is interesting, I liked it.
Rewatchability: Average. If you liked it for the first time, you probably found the action, the setting or the characters engaging, so you might like to watch this multiple times.
Chance of watching it again: Low. Now that I know the story, there's probably no need to watch it again.
Chance of watching a sequel: I'd probably watch it.
Shang hai bao lei / Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
image © China Film Group
Will you enjoy this?
If you like futuristic military action movies, you might like Shanghai Fortress.
If you like alien invasion movies, you might like Shanghai Fortress.
If you hate subtitles, it's tough, because currently the movie is only available in Chinese, with English subtitles.
If you prefer visuals over story, the movie looks good enough to watch it even if you mute the audio out or switch the subtitles off.
If you hate melo-dramatic movies, you might want to avoid Shanghai Fortress.
Do you need to read the original novel enjoy this?
There's enough explanation that you'll understand what's going on without reading the novel.
Watching for plot points
If you are interested in futuristic military action stories, I think it's worth watching the Shanghai Fortress movie for the plot points.
Should you watch this on your own screen at home, or is it worth going to the cinema?
The visuals definitely look better if you watch it in cinema.
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Shang hai bao lei / Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
image © China Film Group
Review with spoilers - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
I mostly liked the Shanghai Fortress movie.
Cover
The cover of the movie is interesting, and it doesn't spoil the movie.
The trailer
The trailer is okay, although it spoils some minor parts of the movie.
Promise of the first scene
We are going to get an alien invasion story. There will be some young pilots who will help to repel the aliens.
Execution: I feel that I got what I was promised, mostly. I wouldn't have predicted that those young pilots will die during the movie, from the upbeat beginning I would have thought they'll all survive. Or at least most of them.
Plot summary / Synopsis
Earth is under siege by an alien spacecraft that destroyed most of the world. Now it's up to the last city, Shanghai. Drone pilots (Lu Han as Jiang Yang, Sun Jialing as Lu Yiyi, Godfrey Gao as Yang Jiannan, Wang Sen as Pan Hantian, Wang Gongliang as Zeng Yu) are being prepared by the military command (Shi Liang as General Shao Yiyun) to use advanced fighter drones (AV28 fighters).
We see an attack by the aliens, when they shoot their guns to break through the shield of the city, then send in robot fighters through the hole. Fighter drones are sent, and they repel the attackers.
In the next attack, the aliens get through the defences, so the military leaders decide to use the planetary defence cannon. They shoot at the alien spacecraft that retreats.
After this, the drone pilots go to a bar to have drinks and to watch girls boxing. One of the drone pilots is attracted towards a female general (Shu Qi as Lin Lan), who tries to explain it to him that she is not open to relationships until the war is over.
In the next attack, an alien robot gets into the command centre, and disables the shield. They destroy the robot, but for some unfathomable reason, one of the soldiers starts the self-destruction of the command centre, killing most of the military staff.
The remaining military leaders decide to take the fight to the alien spacecraft in the next attack, because they won't be able to maintain the defence anyway. They start up the experimental fighters, piloted by the team they've prepared. They also plan to overcharge the power to be able to shoot the planetary defence cannon more effectively.
When the aliens attack, most of the team dies, but they finally manage to destroy the spacecraft with the cannon.
In the last 10 minutes we see the sole remaining team member brooding over the loss of his comrades and her love.
The setting
Shanghai Fortress is set in the future of Earth (2042). Humanity finds some kind of crystal somewhere in space, that radiates something that can be used to power generators, without being used up. The crystal also grows, after being planted, providing more and more energy with time.
Aliens find out about this, and try to get it from humans. An alien ship attacks Earth, destroying most of the big cities, robbing them of the crystals.
Shang hai bao lei / Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
image © China Film Group
The aliens
The alien ship is massive, probably kilometres in diameter. It has a force field that defends it. It has a large cannon that can cause massive damage. It can send robot fighters that can fly, but they can also fight in close combat with their arms. The robots are just as good in the air as the flying drones of humans. They are a lot faster and stronger than humans when on the ground. Their armour can withstand a lot of damage, although they can be shot down by rocket launchers, or sustained small arms fire. Sometimes some lucky shots can also take them out. Three shots from a vehicle mounted heavy weapon was also enough for one of them.
Shanghai
The last city that stands is Shanghai, and it's under constant siege by the alien ship.
The city has a shield that needs constant fine-tuning to be able to hold up. The shield can take single shots from the alien ship, but even if it holds, the pressure / energy that goes through can still break the windows of the buildings under the shielded area.
There's a planetary defence cannon that they never used before the start of the film. It uses so much power for a shot that there's not enough left to maintain the shield. The leaders of the city don't know how effective the cannon will be against the ship - in the end we find out that one shot was enough to make the ship leave, and later two shots destroyed the ship that was damaged earlier.
Both the shield and the cannon is powered by the crystals that grow under the city. These crystals give a constant output of power. The crystals can be overcharged, making them give additional power, but this causes damage to the crystals, and as the city is built on this field of crystals, causes earthquake-like damage to the city. So, if they overcharge the power often, they might destroy the whole city.
Drone pilots defend the skies with drone ships that are able to compete with the attacking robots. The ground forces have some vehicles that can shoot the robots down, but the soldiers are equipped with mostly ineffective small arms.
The message of the story
I'm not sure there's one. "Try to avoid aliens"?
The structure of the story
The scenes of the Shanghai Fortress film are mostly played sequentially, following the same storyline. There are some flashbacks that explain things that explain motivations of characters, that were hidden from the viewer.
There is no single viewpoint character.
It has the usual arc of the dramatic structure - introduction, action, resolution.
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Things I liked
- The look of the alien robots is nice.
- The basic concept (aliens attacking, last city on Earth to survive) is good.
- The heroes cemetery looked nice.
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How does it compare to the other works of the creators?
I haven't seen anything by the writer (Jinglong Han & Jiang Nan).
I haven't seen any film by the director (Hua-Tao Teng).
How does it compare to the original source?
I have no clue, I didn't read the novel.
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Shang hai bao lei / Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
image © China Film Group
Analysis of the story - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
I mostly liked the story, I didn't find problems that would have prevented me from enjoying Shanghai Fortress.
Problematic elements
The protagonists are not very developed, and that takes away from the movie, because a lot of scenes lose tension if you don't care about the characters.
Either some explanation was missing, or the characters are suicidal. Characters often kill themselves, sometimes with several of their team mates, with no visible reason.
- When an alien gets into the command centre, after they defeat it, a guy blows up the whole building, with everyone inside.
- When the girl gets surrounded near the shield-generator, she blows up herself, killing the rest of the guards.
- When the plane of the girl gets attacked, the guy drives his own plane into the attacker, instead of shooting at it, causing his plane to get out of action.
- The guy drives his plane into the alien mothership for no reason, just before the mothership gets destroyed by the planetary defence cannon.
The romantic plot between the pilot and the general was weak, and I feel that it took more out of the story than what it added on the emotional level. We also didn't really get how this romance was built up. I get it that the pilot idealised the general, and liked her looks, but beyond that I didn't feel any connection. It felt to me like when teenagers fall in love with movie stars or their teachers, instead of falling for the personality of their targets of affection.
The ending is very long, it feels like the creators didn't really know how to end the story.
Unanswered questions
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Possibilities of improvement
How it could have been better?
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Behind the scenes
Thoughts about the reviews of others
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Shang hai bao lei / Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
image © China Film Group
Uses for the film - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
Plot
- Humanity finds a new source of power, leading to technological advances.
- Enemies find out about a new resource, and they try to take it by force.
- Earth is under siege. Most of the world was defeated and robbed, but there are some pockets of resistance that hold out.
Scenes
- The establishing shots of the city can be used to show a futuristic city under siege.
- The air action scenes are good to show futuristic air battles.
- The ground action scenes are good to show robots or aliens mowing through human defenders, trying to stop them in vain.
Designs
Scenario ideas - Role-playing game scenario ideas
Scenario ideas - Wargame scenario ideas
Planetary siege: The defence shield has a fixed amount of maximum power. There's a grid, and the defending player has to arrange secretly the amount of power he puts into each grid. If there is no power in a grid, he doesn't put a token there, showing that it doesn't have a defence. The attackers have an energy reserve, they can use up in one attack run. They choose a target on the grid to shoot at, spending an amount of energy. If the spent energy is more than the amount of power on the grid, the rest of the energy damages the structures under the grid. Even if the shield holds, there's still some chance that the structures get damaged. If there's a hole in the shield, the attackers can send fighters through it, that can damage structures. The defenders also have fighters to destroy the attacking fighters, and ground forces that have anti-aircraft abilities. The defenders can choose to overload the shield, getting a temporary boost of maximum power, allowing the player to distribute more power on the shield, but the amount of extra power reduces the maximum power after this move. (In the movie this also caused additional structural damage to the city, but I'm not sure this needs to be implemented.) The attackers win if they destroy the central structure of the city. The defenders win if they hold out for a number of turns, when the attackers decide it's not worth the effort.
Planetary defence cannon add-on: The attacking ship moves over the shield grid, taking space over multiple grids. It can only attack grids under the ship. The defenders have a cannon that can shoot the ship. The ship has a fixed amount of energy that it can use to attack and to use for defence. The ship has structure points, if the attacks use up the shield, the rest of the attacks start to use up the structure points. If the structure points reach zero, the ship is destroyed and falls on the grid, causing massive damage. Defence fighters and anti-aircraft ground forces can also attack the ship for minimal damage. The planetary defence cannon can be also overcharged, just like the shield. The cannon causes a random amount of damage for the power spent, so the defending player can't be sure of how successful his attack will be.
Attack the base: There's a force that defends an important facility. An attacking force breaks through, and a single attacker gets into the facility. The defender sets up the playing area, with a base in the middle, and a device in the very centre. The defender sets up their units anywhere on the playing area. These are regular soldier units, without access to heavy weapons. The attacker sets up their units outside of the base, with a single model put inside the building, touching the outer wall from the inside. The attacker can be a lot more powerful than the defenders. The defenders can put up barricades, and with enough lucky shots they can destroy the attacker. The attacker has to get to the centre of the facility. When the attacker touches the device, it can switch the device off with one action, allowing the attackers to get inside the building (it opens a gate / disables the force field). This scenario is good for a last-stand game - if the attackers reach their objective, they win the whole campaign. Or the activation of the device opens up another scenario for the attackers, that was closed for them up to that point.
Big guns: More attacker models break through, but the defenders have heavy weapons.
Reinforcements (easier for the defender): The defenders are able to get reinforcements from the outside if a number of turns passes.
Surprise attack: The attackers find the defenders unaware on a military base. The defender sets up the playing area, with the barracks on one side, and the vehicles / mechas / drone control building on the other side. The defender deploys security guards anywhere on the playing area. The security guards don't have access to heavy armour and heavy weapons. The pilots are deployed in the barracks, they have only light weapons. The pilots need to reach the other side of the playing area to be able to get into their drone pilot seats / mech suits, so they can defeat the attackers. The attackers are deployed on any edge of the playing area. After a pilot reaches the target place, it takes one action to start the vehicle. The attacker wins if they destroy more than half of the vehicles or destroy the control building. The defender wins if they repel the attackers.
Miniatures - 1/50-1/60 (28-32mm scale)
There are actually models by Sembo that can be used to play scenes from the movie.
They are LEGO-like models, but with a little work they can be modeled to look like proper scale models. Although the figures are 40mm scale, the vehicles are clearly oversized for them. The combat vehicle is twice as high as it should be compared to the figures, but it's probably okay for gaming purposes. The drones are probably 2-3 times larger, they could represent some heavy drones. The alien robots (that should be S4) tower over the vehicles. They could be used as some giant variant of the aliens, or walkers used by them.
For the human military, you can use any kind of modern / near future human soldiers.
For the small vehicles, you can use regular jeeps. For the large vehicles, the Goliath Truck from Games Workshop looks close, you'll just need to add a giant gun on top.
The drones can be any kind of small flyers with two wings.
The experimental planes are more tricky, you can substitute them with any kind of planes.
The alien robots are slightly larger than human, have two legs and four arms. Kind of like a headless, robotic Genestealer. If you cut the head and tail of a Genestealer, and paint it in metallic colours, you'll be close.
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Similar stories - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
Novels
Jiang Nan: 上海堡垒 / Shanghai Fortress (2009): In a futuristic setting, aliens attack the Earth, destroying most of the world. Shanghai is the last city standing. The surviving humans fight back, and defeat the alien mothership. The basis of the movie.
Movies
Indepence Day (1996): In a contemporary setting, aliens destroy most of humanity. The surviving humans fight back, and defeat the alien mothership.
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Frequently asked questions - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
Will the Shanghai Fortress movie be available with English audio dub?
Currently (in 2022.02.05) Shanghai Fortress is not available with English audio dub, just English subtitles.
Is the Shanghai Fortress film based on a book or comics?
Yes, Shanghai Fortress is based on the Shanghai Fortress novel from Jiang Nan.
Is the Shanghai Fortress film a remake or reboot?
No, the Shanghai Fortress film is neither a remake nor a reboot.
Is there a post credit scene in Shanghai Fortress? Does Shanghai Fortress have end credit scenes?
Yes, there are two very short mid-credit scenes in Shanghai Fortress.
Where can I see Shanghai Fortress? What is Shanghai Fortress playing on? What streaming service is Shanghai Fortress on? Where can I watch Shanghai Fortress online? Is Shanghai Fortress available on Netflix? Is Shanghai Fortress on Amazon?
As of 2022.02.05, Shanghai Fortress is available on Netflix.
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Resources - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
Official
Netflix: Shanghai Fortress: Official article.
Information
IMDB: Shanghai Fortress (2019): Database article.
WikiPedia: Shanghai Fortress: Database article.
Letterboxd: Shanghai Fortress 2019: Database article.
Rotten Tomatoes: Shanghai Fortress 2019: Database article.
Creation
: Concept art article.¤
Reviews with no spoilers - Shanghai Fortress film (2019)
: Review video about the Shanghai Fortress film with no spoilers.¤
Reviews with spoilers - Shanghai Fortress film (2019)
: Review article of the Shanghai Fortress movie, with spoilers. Includes a very detailed plot summary.¤
Analysis - Shanghai Fortress movie (2019)
: Analysis video, explaining the finale of Shanghai Fortress.¤
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y0XZ4b6BJM
Ruby (for The Ruby Tuesday): Shanghai Fortress 上海堡垒极预 Netflix Film Movie Review: Review video with no spoilers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Diu-rhw95aI
aus741LX: Shanghai Fortress Review: Review video with no spoilers.
https://hu.ign.com/shanghai-fortress/51413/news/shanghai-fortress-gigantikus-leboges-lett-kina-ujabb-sci-fi-szuperprodukciojabol
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Buying the product - Shanghai Fortress, movie (2019)
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Have you seen the Shanghai Fortress film? How do you like the movie? Would you recommend it to others? Do you know reviews or resources you'd like to add? What further thoughts do you have about it? Tell your opinion in the comments!
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