Fei Dao, another young science fiction writer, corroborates Chen, saying it's not difficult to find financers for sci-fi movies in China, nor is technology an obstacle. "As far as I know some Chinese digital studios have earned contracts for special effects of many foreign blockbusters ... (so) the main challenge is how script and screenplay writers and directors will handle a sci-fi story."

But there is a first in every field. Despite doubts about the film production team's competence and the difficulty in adapting a sci-fi work for a film, China's top science fiction writer Liu Cixin announced recently that he has agreed to turn his masterpiece, Three Bodies, perhaps China's best contemporary science fiction work, into a film. Liu will also be the film's producer. So have Chinese sci-fi movies eventually set sail? We have to wait for the answer.

The author is a writer with China Daily.

Related:

'Interstellar' rules China's box office

Director John Woo comes out against criticism of 'The Crossing'