Shanghai increasingly favored by sci-fi filmmakers

With its curious fusion of a futuristic skyline and oriental culture, Shanghai is becoming an increasingly popular location for shooting science-fiction blockbusters.[Photo/Crienglish.com]

Shanghai, with its curious fusion of a futuristic skyline and oriental culture, is becoming an increasingly popular location for shooting science-fiction blockbusters.

The 17th Shanghai International Film Festival, running from June 14 to 22, has put on display the original script for "Her," the Oscar-winning sci-fi that made extensive use of exteriors shot in Shanghai.

In the movie, the smoggy sky, high-rises and multiculturalism of Shanghai make an ideal background for the imaginative storyline.

Besides "Her," science-fiction films including "Code 46," "Transformers," "The Dark Knight" and "Looper" have all shot scenes in Shanghai.

More than 30 foreign films have selected Shanghai as a place to shoot exteriors, according to Yan Peng, film critic and planning supervisor of Beijing Galloping Horse Film & TV Production Co..

Since the 1950s, the image of Shanghai depicted in Western films has been undergoing gradual changes, Yan said.

Before the 1970s, Shanghai's neon lights and food stalls in the streets were favored scenes for contemporary-set Western flicks, and the city was both bustling and messy in the Western imagination.

From the 1970s to 1990s, foreign science-fiction directors preferred to splice contradictory scenes of modern skyscrapers and the crowded narrow streets of the city in order to combine the sense of modernism and tradition.