Tang (Yang Haoyu) has devoted his life to the search for extraterrestrials, both as the editor of a magazine devoted to space exploration and as an explorer himself, following up on leads that take him to remote spots where people claim to have seen aliens. As his efforts to keep the magazine afloat are failing, he hears of a mass sighting in a small village in the mountains, and he recruits three others to help him investigate. Once there, he finds an eccentric young man who appears to be the conduit of alien communication, if only he can find one specific location....
This is billed as a "mockumentary" and serves to send up one of the foundations of Chinese literature, which involves a man traveling to the West to locate and bring home Buddhist teachings; here, the tale seems at first a more pitiable and hollow version of the story, but as it develops it becomes something much more, ending as a meditation on the Universe itself. Be warned, however: as a "mockumentary," the filmmakers chose to use hand-held cameras for filming much of the movie, so if you are subject to motion sickness, this movie might not be for you. While I was at first put off by this, by the end of the film I felt very touched indeed, and I'm very glad I saw it.
