2023-06-10 16:01:27
At the beginning of this year we saw how from China they had advanced Netflix on the right with the adaptation of ‘The problem of the three bodies’, the magnificent science fiction novel by Cixin Liu. The first novel in a trilogy that has soon become one of the great jewels of the genre so far this century.
Neither short nor lazy, in a matter of a couple of months, the platform of the Asian giant WeTV aired all 30 episodes of this indigenous version, titled in our country as ‘Three bodies’. A series that we can see officially, free in 4K, in Chinese and with English subtitles via YouTube. Also can be seen on Rakuten Viki.
It is not, go ahead, the first adaptation of Cixin Liu’s novels. What’s more, there is a unpublished film shot in 2015 and an anime released at the end of the year based on this novel. But the author also has several adapted novels, the most popular perhaps being ‘The Wandering Earth’, which can be seen on Netflix.
the end of physics
I admit I was trying to wait and see what the American version had in store for us. Not in vain is it one of the most ambitious projects on the platformcounting on David Benioff and DB Weiss as its creators in their new fiction after ‘Game of Thrones‘. However, although it is supposed to arrive in the last quarter of the year, I was curious to see what they had done from China. And I’ve got hooked bad thing.
Which is curious because one thinks about it and it is not addictive material per se: we have discussions of particle physics (and nanoparticles) in which an alleged plot is being investigated that has been chaining the suspicious deaths and suicides of prominent scientists with a spooky warning that “physics doesn’t exist”.
Something that puts a physicist named Wang (Luyi Zhang) as a person of interest, who agrees to advise police officer Shi (Hewei Yu) and investigate what is going on. Soon the whole plot seems to be related to a leading scientific societya gigantic radio observatory from the 70s and a mysterious video game.
This way, there’s an unlikely mix of subgenres. Obviously I am not referring to mixing crime fiction with science fiction because there are a handful of examples every year. The most unusual thing is that in what the research advances we get into hard science fictionthe most interested in scientific precision and concepts of astrophysics, quantum and, also, string theory.
And it is that when in one of the first episodes they pose two hypothetical scenarios (a turkey farm and a shooter who shoots on a flat surface), these are not chosen at random, they are the pure center and what is reduced, basically, what is at stake, without knowing it, humanity in this series (and, we hope, in its sequels/following seasons, since it only covers the first book).
A good adaptation with some questionable decision
Having read the book, one notes that there are some decisions in the adaptation that, personally, seem to take away some of its power in the background of characters like Ye Wenjie (Chen Jin and Wang Ziwen) and I think that although having thirty episodes allows a decompressed narrative and put everything you can, sometimes it has somewhat heavy sections.
Heavy, not so much because of a lack of rhythm or because it is noticeable that it stagnates, but rather because of a certain reiteration of circumstances and reasoning of the protagonists and antagonists. In this sense, and taking into account that his episodes are around 45 minutes, in my head I kept thinking how good it would have been for him to get closer to the range of 20 to 24 episodes.
Despite these flaws and the occasional budget issue (which includes obvious suspiciously free stock images), the strength of ‘Three bodies’ is in a story that, as I say again, it is absolutely absorbing. I don’t know how the Netflix version will finally come out, but this one, for now, has set a high bar.
In Espinof | The best science fiction series
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