The latest end-of-the-world movie, 2012, has drawn big audiences worldwide, including in China and the United States.
The movie, released Nov 13, presents a story based on the Mayan prophecy that the world will end on Dec 21, 2012. World leaders discover the Earth's fate at start of the movie and then build several arks to house select people from the destruction, which will save the human race so they can repopulate the earth once the crisis has subsided.
The plot follows an embittered writer, his two children and his former wife as they discover the world's fate and attempt to find the exclusive arks, leading them to China.
Led by disaster-genre director Roland Emmerich, the film is filled with visual effects showing major earthquakes and entire cities being engulfed in water.
The movie, with a $200 million budget, grossed more than $65 million in the US on its opening weekend, held the No 1 position for a week and has so far earned more than $458 million worldwide. In China, the film has grossed more than $10 million.
But regardless of the movie's success across the globe, Americans and Chinese viewers seem to be taking different meanings from the movie.
According to a number of blogs and various responses from Chinese netizens, 2012 has captivated Chinese viewers not only for its China factor but also for its apocalyptic messages.
Chinese netizens have emphasized numerous scenes pointing to China's eminence, for instance when a group of People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers suddenly appear in the sky to offer help to the American main characters stuck in the mountains and when, the US refuses to let the stranded refugees onto the arks and China instead opens the gates.
Moreover, the life-saving arks are constructed in China and a US military officer remarks, as the arks are being completed, that China was put in charge of construction "because the task would be impossible if given to any other nation."
In China, 2012 is also seen by many as the first in some time to portray China in positive light. John Landers, a graduate student at the Ohio State University Chinese Flagship Program, said that because many movies show China negatively, even a slightly positive portrayal is welcomed strongly by Chinese viewers.
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