Adapted from the popular comic series Moon You, the movie shows Dugu Yue, a spacecraft maintenance man, unintentionally left on the moon after the evacuation of the crew of Lunar Shield, a moon-based project aiming to rescue the Earth from an asteroid strike but ending up in failure due to an unpredicted issue.
Witnessing the catastrophic hit from the moon, Dugu believes the Earth is completely destroyed and he’s the last human in this universe. However, little does he know that the surviving humankind, including the crew's leader, a woman who Dugu has had a secret crush on for many years, are all watching his every move from the Earth.
One of the movie's top draws for Mahua fans is that it reunites Shen Teng and Ma Li, two of Mahua's top comedian stars, respectively as Dugu and Ma Lanxing, the commander of the Lunar Shield project.
The reunion occurred seven years after Goodbye Mr Loser, a dark-horse blockbuster that raked in 1.44 billion yuan to become one of the highest-grossing Chinese movies in 2015. The smash hit has seen Shen and Ma join an elite of the country's most sought-after comedian stars.
Shen has accumulated a huge fan base as he can easily tickle the funny bone of his audience. But his intense schedule has seen him appear in several films just as supporting characters. His appearances in these movies are short, for example, five minutes in Never Say Die, three minutes in Hello, Mrs Money and 10 minutes in Warm Hug. However, the movies casting him all hooked lots of theatergoers, thanks to his popularity.
Starring Shen as the stranded maintenance man, the 122-minute Moon Man marks the longest and even the "loneliest" movie Shen has shot during his career spanning nearly 20 years. He had shot the movie for nearly five months, with most of the time performing alone.
The majority of the film's around 1,800 special effects scenes were made by artists from More VFX, a visual effects company known for The Wandering Earth and A Writer's Odyssey. The shooting was conducted in 15 soundstages which covered an area of 40,000 square meters in Qingdao, Shandong province.
In the movie, Shen's character discovers a grumpy kangaroo when he attempts to get a bottle of medicine from the Lunar Shield project's base on the moon. The kangaroo becomes the only creature that accompanies him on the moon, and even becomes a "friend" that assists him in his efforts to return to the Earth.
The anthropomorphic kangaroo, depicted in the movie as capable of understanding the protagonist's sorrows and joys, is played by Hao Han, a comedian actor also with Mahua Funage. The movie blends digital motion-capture technology and the actor's performance.
The anthropomorphic kangaroo, depicted in the movie as capable of understanding the protagonist's sorrows and joys, is played by Hao Han, a comedian actor also with Mahua Funage. The movie blends digital motion-capture technology and the actor’s performance.
Despite the movie employing advanced cinematic technology, including using virtual cinematography to make the preview scenes for actors and actresses easier to understand their roles' responses and emotions, the director says the core of the movie is "a comedy".
