movie review of china moon

China Moon (1994)

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China Moon Reviews

Ed Harris as the fall guy is good and the visuals of this film noir are impressive nut the narrative is severely flawed.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 30, 2011

A welcome return to the classy thrillers of yesteryear

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 3, 2006

Film noir about a person caught in a slow dance with danger and death.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 29, 2003

The film's saving grace is in the emotionally impactful performance by Ed Harris.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Sep 17, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 28, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 43/100 | Jan 15, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 1, 2000

Ed Harris' stellar performance as the fall guy in "China Moon" elevates John Bailey's noir mystery to a cut or two above the usual Hollywood thriller. Despite some plot holes, the thematic mixture of passion and danger and the pleasure of visual style should prove alluring enough to make this genre item (which was shot in 1992) more popular with audiences than the recent slate of Orion films.

By Emanuel Levy

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Ed Harris ‘ stellar performance as the fall guy in “China Moon” elevates John Bailey ‘s noir mystery to a cut or two above the usual Hollywood thriller. Despite some plot holes, the thematic mixture of passion and danger and the pleasure of visual style should prove alluring enough to make this genre item (which was shot in 1992) more popular with audiences than the recent slate of Orion films.

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On the surface, “China Moon” seems too explicitly conscious of its genre’s themes, signs and visual strategy. Set in small-town Florida, it immediately recalls Lawrence Kasdan’s “Body Heat” as well as Victor Nunez’s Florida tale of greed and corruption, “A Flash of Green,” which also starred Harris. And the triangle involving Harris, a lonely homicide detective who falls for Madeleine Stowe , a beautifully seductive married woman, bears resemblance to such noir classics as “Double Indemnity” and “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”

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Here, however, the appealing, mysterious lady is not married to an old or crippled man, but to a young and successful banker (Charles Dance). This is just the first of a number of alterations and twists that cast fresh light on the time-honored genre. Indeed, this version humanizes Stowe’s femme fatale by making her husband physically abusive and engaged in his own adulterous affair.

The tension in Roy Carlson’s efficient, pared-down narrative derives from the complex relationship between Harris and ambitious rookie detective Benicio Del Toro, once Harris gets drawn into a murder scheme.

The well-developed characters, with whom the audience feels an immediate, emphatic connection, are distinctively pungent, the way they were in noir thrillers of the 1940s.

Bailey, a first-rate cinematographer making his fictional feature directorial debut, knows that it’s not plot but characterization that carries viewers through the best thrillers — the bits of personality as filtered through the story’s turns. He therefore takes his time in establishing the specific context of each of the four major figures.

Like other good thrillers, “China Moon” depends on long silent moments and acute observation of physical milieu. To make the story more gripping, Bailey relies on the emotional pull of such forces as psychological obsession and domination rather than graphic violence.

He’s at his best in scenes where the characters reveal some quirks and hide others in an intriguing web of steamy sex and ominous evil. But some viewers may be bothered by the tale’s underlying cynicism, which is reflected in the conduct of its law officers.

Harris brings his customary quiet, focused intensity to a tailor-made role, one that calls for equal measure of virility and vulnerability. Endowed with the glamorous looks of the old movie queens, Stowe is also well cast as a dreamy femme fatale with an active imagination and strong feelings.

There is moody, evocative cinematography by vet French lenser Willy Kurant of the Lakeland-Ocala-Tampa area, aregion that reportedly has not been used in film before. With the expert editing of Carol Littleton and Jill Savitt, “China Moon” moves along smoothly, setting up the situations and delivering the payoffs.

Shrewd viewers may be able to detect at least one major plot development that telegraphs itself well before it arrives. And the final 15 minutes are weak — a concession to the genre’s current requirements for desperate violence and quick resolutions.

Nonetheless, unlike thrillers that target the viscera, “China Moon” avoids slick montage and the cheap thrills of shock cuts and instead aims for the eyes — and heart.

• Production: An Orion Pictures release of a Tig production. Produced by Barrie M. Osborne. Directed by John Bailey. Screenplay, Roy Carlson.
• Crew: Camera (Deluxe color), Willy Kurant; editors, Carol Littleton, Jill Savitt; music, George Fenton; production design, Conrad E. Angone; art direction, Robert W. Henderson; set decoration, Don K. Ivey; costume design, Elizabeth McBride; sound (Dolby), Jim Webb; special effects, Lawrence J. Cavanaugh; associate producers, Roy Carlson, Carol Kim; assistant director, Eric Jewett; casting, Elizabeth Leustig. Reviewed at the Orion screening room, Beverly Hills, Jan. 5, 1994. (In Palm Springs Film Festival.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 99 MIN.
• With: Kyle Bodine ... Ed Harris Rachel Munro ... Madeleine Stowe Lamar Dickey ... Benicio Del Toro Rupert Munro ... Charles Dance Adele ... Patricia Healy Fraker ... Tim Powell Pinola ... Rob Edward Morris

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China Moon Review

01 Jan 1994

Buried under the rubble of collapsing studio Orion, alongside such high calibre fare as Blue Sky and Love Field, this effective sultry thriller, simmering away in the hotbed of the Deep South, has finally crawled into the light of rental opportunity. From the outset it is clearly a revisit to that most whiskered of storylines: the lovers-murder-wealthy husband scenario. As in A Postman Always Knocks Twice and Body Heat. If China Moon never quite musters the body heat of such glam predessors, up its sweaty sleeves are twists to give Miss Marple knots in her knitting.

The first twirl on the clichés is that the lover and obligatory cop are one and the same. Ed Harris, salty and mean looking, is the fastidious detective going weak at the kneecaps for the auburn charms of Madeleine Stowe. True to form she has an abusive, but unbelievably dosh laden, husband — Dance equipped with a grating consonant torturing drawl. Next up is some breathless midnight skinny-dipping in a silvery, moonlit lake, and lots of devotional repartee from the gasping couple. Then one slap too many from snidley Dance and he’s dropping his mortal coil all over the bed room floor. It’s the doe-eyed Stowe left holding a smoking revolver.

From here events twist and turn like a cornered cat. Seeming impossibilities souring the perfect crime; betrayal, yet more murder, and oceans of rain cutting through the pungent atmosphere, concentrating the mood, and readying the ground for the most stunningly un-Hollywood of endings in donkeys. None of it conforming to the glum guessablity of the by-rote erotic thrillers that fill the top shelves of the nation’s video emporia.

China Moon, although short on ambition, has managed to rejig a latent formula. Bailey plays it cool, letting tension build, letting you get to know and care about the characters before they crack. Likewise, the acting is pure class. Stowe wraps her pallid skin, enormous eyes and succulent pout up like a deadly invitation. While her leading man, cool and stolid one moment, flaky and confused the next, is, as ever, excellent. Harris, an unsung hero of the acting battalions, is fast becoming the Gene Hackman of his generation. And China Moon, as shunned by hype and hearsay as it is, is as good an evening’s rental as you could betray a spouse for

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Ed Harris (Kyle Bodine) Madeleine Stowe (Rachel Munro) Charles Dance (Rupert Munro) Patricia Healy (Adele) Benicio Del Toro (Lamar Dickey) Tim Powell (Fraker) Pruitt Taylor Vince (Daryl Jeeters) Larry Shuler (Patrolman at Turner's) Robb Edward Morris (Officer Pinola) Paul Darby (CSU Photographer)

John Bailey

Detective Kyle Bodine falls for Rachel Munro who is trapped in a violent marriage. After shooting her husband, Kyle reluctantly agrees to help hide the body, but Kyle's partner is showing an unusual flair for finding clues.

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China Moon Reviews

• 1 hr 39 mins
• Drama, Suspense
• Watchlist Where to Watch

After unhappily married Rachel kills her husband, her lover, Kyle, helps her cover-up the crime. However, an associate of Kyle's thinks he's discovered the truth, and soon the accomplice finds his life spinning out of control when he's no longer sure who he can trust.

A slick noir thriller that never breaks free of genre conventions, CHINA MOON is entertaining as long as you don't expect too much of it. Unlike THE LAST SEDUCTION, which also came out in 1994 (though CHINA MOON spent three years on the shelf, a victim of Orion's bankruptcy, before its eventual release), CHINA MOON is always predictable, even when the plot takes what are meant to be unpredictable turns. Kyle Bodine (Ed Harris) is a small town cop who thinks he's bigger than little Brayton, a tropical Florida town filled with pretty houses and dark secrets. He thinks he's seen it all, until he catches sight of Rachel Munro (Madeleine Stowe), a sophisticated vision in a low-rent bar. She's beautiful, aloof, and darkly unhappy, the kind of troubled, classy, married dame for whom palookas like Bodine inevitably fall hard. And he does, especially after he learns that her swinish husband Rupert (Charles Dance), a dissolute Southern aristocrat who delights in throwing around his breeding and influence, beats and humiliates her. They fall in love and bemoan their fate, until the dark and stormy night when Rachel kills Rupert, apparently in self defense. A sensible man wouldn't agree to help her dispose of the corpse and conceal all evidence of the crime, but whatever good sense Kyle ever had is long gone. He masterminds the cover-up, helping Rachel conceal the corpse, sending her to Miami to establish an alibi, and cleaning up the crime scene with a detective's practiced attention to detail. If anyone can outwit the police, it ought to be him, and if they can only weather the investigation, he assures her, everything will be all right and they can start their lives together. Naturally, that's not the way things work out. Suspicions are raised and clues surface. Bodine's bright young partner Lamar (Benecio Del Toro) finds himself in the uncomfortable position of suspecting his mentor as the circumstantial evidence mounts, slowly but inexorably. It comes as no real surprise to discover that Bodine isn't the first man on whom Rachel has worked her wiles: she and Lamar have conspired to set him up. CHINA MOON's screenplay (by Roy Carlson, whose credits include the quirky cable thriller THE WRONG MAN, 1993) will deceive no-one familiar with the protocols of noir thrillers, but the movie has several things to recommend it. Cinematographer-turned-director John Bailey (his credits range from THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST and THE BIG CHILL to IN THE LINE OF FIRE) doesn't miss a facet of the noir look: the rain-slicked streets, gloomy little rooms, and garish, sleazy bars all glow darkly with romantic menace. We've seen it all before, but it's always a pleasure to see it done well again. Ed Harris gives Bodine more depth and complexity than one has any right to expect, and Madeleine Stowe is a slender needle of a femme fatale, so secretly wicked that she seems peeled right down to the bone. The sex is steamy, and if the story contains few surprises, it moves along nicely and never fails to linger on the sort of details--what happens to a bullet when you fire it into a sand dune, for example, or the effect of a household humidifier on fingerprints--that can make the sordid world of crime seem like an enticing game of wits. (Profanity, violence, nudity, sexual situations.)

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China Moon (1994) – A Review

A review of the 1994 crime drama China Moon, starring Ed Harris, Madeleine Stowe, Benecio Del Toro and Charles Dance, a forgettable film that was shelved for several years before getting released

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Ed Harris and Benecio Del Toro are homicide detectives working the beat in Florida. Harris is the older, more experienced cop trying to school the more novice Del Toro in how to crack cases. Harris’ motto when it comes to murderers is that they always make a mistake and it’s up to them to spot it. 

On his off hours Harris meets beautiful Madeleine Stowe, who’s in an abusive marriage to rich Charles Dance. Harris and Stowe begin an affair and both try to figure out a way to live happily ever. She becomes convinced to leave Dance in the dust and to leave him for Harris. Before she can manage that she accidentally kills Dance. Her committing murder has really messed up Harris’ hoped for sunny future with her. 

No worries. Harris helps to cover up the murder and being a cop on the case he should be able to steer any suspicion away from Stowe and the pair could get out from under this. However, Del Toro starts to piece this case together and suspicion begins to fall towards Harris. Then to his surprise, Harris discovers evidence popping up that points to him as the killer and questions everything Stowe has told him. Could it be he was meant to been set up to take the fall for this premeditated murder from the start?

China Moon was a small film that was made in 1991 and ended up sitting on the shelf for several years when studio Orion filed for bankruptcy. It finally got released a few years later, but didn’t make a ripple and has since become a forgotten film.

Watching it, I thought it seemed like they were trying to go for a Body Heat and Double Indemnity vibe, but it’s nowhere near as erotic or gripping than either. It’s like a poor man’s version of them both.

The story is a standard noir tale – a murder committed, covering it up, an investigation commences, faux pas’ made, partners in crime question whether they can trust one another as the police close in finding them out, a poor sap potentially being used by a beautiful woman. It’s fine, but the fun of that tale is the execution of the story. With China Moon it’s so by the numbers and doesn’t offer any suspense I found myself drifting off quite easily.

It’s almost like they forgot to add any unique florishes and they filmed the basics of this type of story. There’s really no meat on the bone to sink your teeth into with this noir tale.

Even when the point arrives where the police start looking towards Harris as a culprit and the heat starts to rain on him, there’s very little drama or tension that comes from it. 

It’s a shame, I like all these actors and would’ve loved to have seen them play in an entertaining crime drama. They’re all fine with what they’re given, although not one character stands out and there’s no real notable moments for any of them. I’m sure the cast could have handled being given so much more, but it’s just not here for them.

The story they were given wasn’t worth their talents. The most notable thing is the central Florida setting that helps creates more of a mood than anything else. There’s no style to the film, no memorable lines, no interesting twists and the ending feels like a rushed conclusion to a pretty cookie cutter crime story that will probably leave you saying to yourself, “So, that was it?” . 

China Moon might work better for more casual audiences, but film fans who’ve experienced the heights of great film noir tales and seen how entertaining and rich similar stories like this has been done will probably be unimpressed with anything in this and easily put it back into the forgotten crack where they stumbled onto it – exactly like I’ve done. 

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(H, LL, NNN, SSS, VVV) Humanism; 11 obscenities & 2 profanities; upper female nudity; adultery & deviant sexual immorality; and, murder & cover-up of murder.

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Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy, girl is married, girl murders husband to be with boy–that about sums up CHINA MOON. The film begins with an adulterous bang as an unmarried couple engage in deviant behavior in a sleazy motel scene. The, a homicide detective, Kyle, meets a beautiful woman, Rachel, in a run-down bar. Before long, they meet again and soon begin an adulterous relationship. Rachel plans and carries out the murder of her husband, and Kyle tries to cover up for her. In the end, we find that Rachel and Kyle’s partner, Lamar, had an elaborate plan to set up the murder to take advantage of Rachel’s six-million-dollar inheritance. Eventually, they are caught, and Kyle has been corrupted by Rachel.

CHINA MOON takes what appears to be a hard-working policeman and corrupts him. Kyle starts with adultery, then moves to being an accomplice in murder. In the end, he not only is indicted, his heart is broken as he is shot by fellow police officers. CHINA MOON, a film noir mystery, has it all: adultery, murder, violence, and a plot anyone can figure out, but finally, it exposes a disturbing and morally lacking story set in the trendy casings of a sexual thriller.

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

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• Post published: August 5, 2019
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CHINA MOON (director: John Bailey; screenwriter: Roy Carlson; cinematographer: Willy Kurant; editors: Carol Littleton/Jill Savitt; music: George Fenton; cast: Ed Harris (Kyle Bodine), Madeleine Stowe (Rachel Munro), Charles Dance (Rupert Monro), Patricia Healy (Adele), Benicio Del Toro (Lamar Dickey), Roger Aaron Brown (Police Captain), Tim Powell (Fraker); Runtime: 99; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Barrie M. Osborne; Orion Pictures; 1991) “The film’s saving grace is in the emotionally impactful performance by Ed Harris.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

China Moon is cinematographer John Bailey’s directorial debut film. The film was made in 1991 but not released until 1994. It’s an imitative neo-noir film modeled after Double Indemnity, The Postman Rings Twice, and Kasdan’s Body Heat (81). It’s a fairly routine thriller, set in a Florida small-town. But, it picks up steam in its heated payoff. The film’s saving grace is in the emotionally impactful performance by Ed Harris. Also, Benicio Del Toro effectively makes for a creepy homicide detective.

The film’s title is derived from the saying a China moon (full moon) makes one do strange things. The soft-spoken Kyle Bodine (Ed Harris) is a top-notch detective, in his small-town he’s known as the best cop on the force. Kyle’s new partner is a grumpy and bored young detective, Lamar Dickey (Benicio Del Toro), who can’t see things clearly because he’s so bored.

The lonely and unassuming bachelor Kyle lusts after an unhappily married woman, Rachel Munro (Madeleine Stowe), he meets in a bar. The beautiful femme fatale is married to an adulteress, ruthless multi-millionaire, Rupert (Dance), who abuses her. Rupert’s a one-dimensional bad guy. He has 12 million dollars that his wife loves to get her hands on. So she lures Kyle into a romance, and executes her husband with an unregistered gun she bought on the black-market. Kyle is surprised that she would kill her hubby even if he were detestable. But he still forgets about being a law officer and helps her bury the bullet-riddled body in the moonlit lake where they once went skinny dipping. The plot twists follow and the film in the last half-hour starts to get exciting. It’s all about Kyle’s libido and Rachel’s need for money and love.

It’s a B-film, with the overall effect of the film being better than Roy Carlson’s script and Bailey’s flat direction. Though Madeline Stowe’s performance is more stiff than steamy, which is too bad since Ed Harris’s performance was lethal. Yet it’s still an easy film to take on its own merits–it sets a sultry mood.

REVIEWED ON 9/26/2002 GRADE: C+

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ

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O.C. MOVIE REVIEW : ‘China Moon’ Doesn’t Quite Gel but Keeps You Guessing

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It’s been a while since we’ve had a murder mystery where the lead character talks about the strange things people do under a full moon.

“China Moon,” starring Ed Harris as a homicide detective who becomes involved in a crime of passion with a sulky, abused millionaire’s wife in Central Florida, played by Madeleine Stowe, is full of portentous mumbo-jumbo.

It’s also full of hard-boiled attitudes out of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler. The combo doesn’t quite gel: when Harris’ Kyle Bodine announces that he’s an “orphan of destiny,” you begin to long for Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff to step in and set him straight.

John Bailey, the celebrated cinematographer (“American Gigolo,” “Ordinary People”) making his directorial debut, doesn’t try to shoot the works. His direction is a lot less florid than Ron Carlson’s script. (Carlson, according to the press notes, “wrote counterintelligence manuals for the defense industry and the federal government before turning to screenplays.”) Bailey’s straight-ahead craftsmanship is an honest approach to all the crime-thriller shenanigans and switcheroos; he hews to the characters and this pays off when the surprises come. (When the big plot twist finally kicked in, a woman at the preview screening shouted, “ Now we have a movie.)

The characters don’t have much depth--just enough to elevate them from cardboard to poster board. Without the presence of Harris and Stowe, “China Moon” might have been ridiculous, but they both seem entranced by each other’s moody, fixated stares. (On the heels of “Blink,” Stowe seems to be making a specialty of ravaged, neurasthenic waifs.)

Perhaps they are playing out an actor’s fantasy of enveloping oneself in film-noir fatalism. This may be the fantasy of the filmmakers too, which is why “China Moon” (countywide) never quite seems real. It’s a play-act thriller that retraces all the familiar paces without a wink of wit or irony.

Charles Dance, as the rich rotter of a husband, fits into the scummy pageant with a vengeance, and so does Kyle’s partner, Lamar, played with a slippery strangeness by the highly gifted Benicio Del Toro. (He played Rosie Perez’s husband in “Fearless.”) They all deserve to be in a richer and twistier thriller, but at least “China Moon” keeps you guessing.

‘CHINA MOON’

Madeleine Stowe: Rachel

Ed Harris Kyle: Bodine

Benicio Del Toro: Lamar

Charles Dance: Rupert

An Orion Pictures release of a Tig production. Director John Bailey. Producer Barrie M. Osborne. Screenplay by Roy Carlson. Cinematographer Willy Kurant. Editors Carol Littleton, Jill Savitt. Costumes Elizabeth McBride. Music George Fenton. Production design Conrad E. Angone. Art director Robert W. Henderson. Set decorator Don K. Ivie. Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes.

MPAA rating: R. Times guidelines: It includes a violent murder, as well as scenes of bloodstains and nudity.

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Detective Kyle Bodine falls for Rachel Munro who is trapped in a violent marriage. After shooting her husband, Kyle relucantly agrees to help hide the body, but Kyle's partner is showing an unusual flair for finding clues.

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Review | Phases of the Moon movie review: Japanese reincarnation drama is an unabashedly romantic tear-jerker

• Starring Yo Oizumi, Kasumi Arimura and Ko Shibasaki, Phases of the Moon suggests reincarnation occurs every day and might affect everyone who has ever lived
• Director Ryuichi Hiroki steers well clear of any scientific or theological justification, instead focusing on the message that ‘love conquers all’

Phases of the Moon , the new film from director Ryuichi Hiroki, posits that reincarnation is absolutely real. Not only that, but it is ubiquitous.

The film does not appear to have any specific religious inclinations, but nevertheless suggests reincarnation occurs every single day and might very well affect everyone who has ever lived.

Just as the moon itself waxes and wanes each month, dying and being reborn anew, in Phases of the Moon , so too does the human consciousness return inside a new host once a person has shuffled off their mortal coil.

Needless to say, this is a concept that ordinary businessman Kei Osanai (Yo Oizumi) struggles to accept, even as the evidence steadily mounts in its favour.

Kei’s life is thrown through a loop when his wife, Kozue (Ko Shibasaki), and teenage daughter, Ruri (Kikuchi Hinako), are killed in a car accident.

Almost a decade later, he is approached by Ruri’s best friend from high school, Yui (Ito Sairi), who is now the mother to her own eight-year-old girl. Yui reveals to Kei a secret that Ruri shared with her many years earlier, that she believed she was not all that she appeared to be, or more accurately, who she appeared to be.

The story jumps back a few decades – specifically to December 8, 1980, the day John Lennon was murdered – as it charts Kei’s marriage to Kozue, his former college classmate, and the subsequent birth of their daughter.

Simultaneously, the film also tracks a seemingly unrelated romance between record store worker Akihiko (Ren Meguro) and an aloof young beauty named Ruri (Kasumi Arimura).

From here the film slowly uncoils a meticulously constructed narrative, as different experiences from different decades seem to echo one another in ways only a few certain individuals would ever notice.

The more Kei is able to piece together – from his own memory, Yui’s revelations, and the portrait of a mysterious young man his daughter painted – the more logic and rational explanations seem unable to fully explain what has happened.

The narrative possibilities of such a premise, in which the reincarnated retain all of their memories from their previous lives and are compelled to act upon them, might have been better suited to a more spectacular and sensationalist setting.

Nevertheless, Hiroki’s choices prove equally valid, directing with an engaging lucidity that steers well clear of any scientific or theological justification. If his “love conquers all” explanation is ultimately a little quaint, it very much fits the tone of this unabashedly romantic tear-jerker.

China lands on far side of the moon

June 2 (UPI) -- After a month-long journey, a Chinese spacecraft has landed on the far side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said.

Chinese space administration officials have said they intend to collect rock and soil from this notoriously difficult-to-reach region of the lunar surface for the first time in history, the CNSA said . Advertisement

• China launches probe set to probe dark side of moon
• China sets 2030 deadline to send astronauts to the moon
• China rejects 'concern' by NASA chief about Beijing militarizing the moon

Chinese space scientists landed the Chang'e 6 craft in a crater known as the Apollo Basin. "The choice was made for the Apollo Basin's potential value of scientific exploration, as well as the conditions of the landing area, including communication and telemetry conditions and the flatness of the terrain," said Huang Hao, a space expert from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. Advertisement

Huang said rugged terrain on the far side of the moon makes it harder to navigate than the front, or near, side, and has fewer flat surfaces that lend themselves to a successful landing. It also reduces the windows to communicate with the uncrewed craft.

The craft hovered about 300 feet above the moon's surface, scanning it with 3D technology before landing. Chinese space officials called the touchdown an "historic moment."

Chang'e 6 will now begin a three-day exploration of the lunar surface, gathering material as part of a mission that the CNSA said would include "many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty."

Most prominently, the Chang'e 6 will seek to extract some of the oldest known rocks to exist on the lunar south pole.

Pernet-Fisher said the chance to analyze rocks and other objects from a completely different part of the moon could answer fundamental questions about how planets form.

Most of the rocks collected so far are volcanic, similar to what we might find in Iceland or Hawaii, he said. But the material on the far side would have a different chemistry.

"It would help us answer those really big questions, like how are planets formed, why do crusts form, what is the origin of water in the solar system?" Pernet-Fisher said. Advertisement

China is the only country to have ever landed a module on the back side of the moon, having done so the first time with its Chang'e 4 spacecraft in 2019.

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China's historic moon mission is just the start of its plans to dominate space

• China's lunar probe returned to Earth with the first-ever samples from the moon's far side. 
• The samples could answer crucial questions about how planets form.
• China is gearing up its bid to be the new dominant power in space. 

China just took a huge leap forward in its plans to dominate space.

On Tuesday, its Chang'e-6 lunar probe successfully returned to Earth carrying the first-ever samples from the moon's far side. 

A video showed an official triumphantly planting a Chinese flag near the capsule in Mongolia after it glided back to our planet by parachute.

The samples, which include 2.5 million-year-old volcanic rock, could answer crucial questions about how planets form, as well as the moon's history.

But they are significant for another reason too.

They signify China's growing prowess in orbit, as well as its potential to someday leapfrog the US in the race to dominate space.

The moon's far side

The moon's far side is considered particularly challenging to explore because of its craters and the difficulty of maintaining communications with vehicles landing there.

China is the only country to have landed in this tricky terrain and returned with samples. The latest mission, which launched on May 3, is China's second successful landing on the moon's far side, with the first launched in 2019.

Overall, it has soft-landed on the moon four times.

The US, meanwhile, has had less luck. In January , Astrobiotic launched a lander into space, with the aim of it being the first American spacecraft to soft land on the moon since the Apollo era.

But its hopes were quickly dashed after a fuel leak caused a failure in the spacecraft's propellant system.

Related stories

In February, Intuitive Machines, in collaboration with NASA, achieved a first: landing a US commercial spacecraft on the moon without crashing .

But that had complications. As previously reported by Business Insider, when the spacecraft touched down on the moon, it stopped communicating with mission control.

The recent moon-landing scoreboard is "4 to 0.5" in favor of China, Simone Dell'Agnello, a researcher who collaborated with Chang'e 6, told The Wall Street Journal. "The first difference is that China has missions landing on the fucking moon."

The space race heats up

China is now rivaling the US and Russia as a leading space power. It has its own manned space station, Tiangong, and in 2022 became the second country after the US to land a robotic vehicle on the surface of Mars.

Analysts believe that China's leader, Xi Jinping, sees huge economic and military opportunities in space. China is planning to send a crewed flight to the moon by 2030 and build a base at the lunar south pole.

The US is gearing up for its own space exploration missions and has rival plans to land a crewed flight on the moon and build a base.

The head of NASA, Bill Nelson, has said that the US and China are involved in a new "space race" and that China's research missions are being used for covert military activity.

He said that China seems to be accelerating its plans to send a crewed flight to the moon.

"It is incumbent on us to get there first," told Congress in April.

At stake are water supplies scientists believe may be on the moon's far side , which China could claim. These supplies would be vital for establishing a moon base or for further space exploration.

Pentagon officials have warned that China is seeking to potentially disable US satellites if a war breaks out between them.

China has insisted its space program is for the benefit of humanity.

But it's also a race for control of economic resources and military power in the intensifying rivalry between the US and China.

Watch: Why China launched military drills during Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan

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With its latest moon mission success, China's space program has the US in its sights

by Simonetta Di Pippo, The Conversation

June 25 2024 marked a new "first" in the history of spaceflight. China's robotic Chang'e 6 spacecraft delivered samples of rock back to Earth from a huge feature on the moon called the south pole–Aitken basin. After touching down on the moon's "far side," on the southern rim of the Apollo crater , Chang'e 6 came back with around 1.9kg of rock and soil, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

The moon's south pole is designated as the location for the future China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). This truly international endeavor has partners including Russia, Venezuela, South Africa and Egypt, and is being coordinated by an ad hoc kind of international space agency.

China has a strategic plan to build a space economy and become the world leader in this field. It intends to explore and extract minerals from asteroids and bodies such as the moon, and to use water ice and any other useful space resources available in our solar system.

China aims to explore the moon first, then the asteroids known as near-Earth objects (NEOs). It will then move on to Mars, the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter (known as the main belt asteroids), and Jupiter's moons, using the stable gravitational points in space known as Lagrange points for its space stations.

One of China's next steps in this strategy, the robotic Chang'e 7 mission, is expected to launch in 2026. It will land on the illuminated rim of the moon's Shackleton crater , very close to the lunar south pole. The rim of this large crater has a point that is constantly illuminated, in a region where the angle of the sun casts long shadows that obscure much of the landscape.

As a landing site , it is particularly attractive—not only because of the illumination, but the easy access it offers to the interiors of the crater. These shadowed craters hold vast reserves of water ice , which will be indispensable in building and operating the ILRS, as the water can be used for drinking water, oxygen and rocket fuel.

It is a bold move, as the US also has ambitions to establish bases at the moon's south pole—the Shackleton crater is prime real estate.

A later Chinese mission, Chang'e 8 (currently planned for no earlier than 2028), will aim to extract ice and other resources and demonstrate that it's possible to use them to support a human outpost. Both Chang'e 7 and 8 are considered part of ILRS and will set the scene for an impressive Chinese exploration program.

NASA is currently seeking further partners for the international agreement known as the Artemis Accords , established in 2020. These set out how resources on the moon should be used and to date, 43 countries have signed up.

However, the US Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon this decade, has been hit with delays due to technical issues .

It is normal to experience some delays in any complex new space program. The next mission, Artemis II, will carry astronauts around the moon without landing on it, but has been delayed until September 2025. Artemis III , which is due to ferry the first humans to the lunar surface since the Apollo era, is planned for no earlier than September 2026.

While this Artemis timeline could slip back further, China may deliver on its plans to land humans on the moon by 2030. Indeed, some commentators have wondered whether the Asian superpower could beat the US back to the moon .

Geopolitics in space

Will the US land humans on the the moon before the decade is out? I think so. Can China do the same before 2030? I am doubtful—but this is not the point. China's space program is systematically growing in a consistent and integrated way. Its missions appear not to have experienced the serious technical issues that other ventures have encountered—or perhaps we are just not being told about them.

What we know for sure is that China's current space station, Tiangong —which translates as "Heavenly Palace"—is operational at an average altitude of 400km.

There is a plan to have it permanently inhabited by a minimum of three taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) by the end of the decade. By the time this happens, the International Space Station, orbiting at the same altitude, will be decommissioned and sent on a fiery descent into the Pacific ocean.

Geopolitics is back as a force in space exploration in a way we perhaps haven't seen since the space race of the 1950s and '60s. It's quite possible that the US Artemis III mission and China's Chang'e 7 and Chang'e 8 missions will all want to land at the same location close to the Shackleton crater.

Only the crater rims can feasibly act as good landing sites, so there may be no choice but for China and the US to exchange plans, and to use this renewed phase of space exploration as a new era in diplomacy. While maintaining national priorities, the two superpowers, together with their partners, may have to agree on common principles when it comes to exploring the moon.

China has come a long way since its first satellite, DongFangHong 1, was launched on April 24 1970. China was not a player during the original space race to the moon in the 1960s and '70s. It certainly is now.

Provided by The Conversation

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China Becomes First Country to Retrieve Rocks From the Moon’s Far Side

The Chang’e-6 mission’s sample, which might hold clues about the origins of the moon and Earth, is the latest achievement of China’s lunar exploration program.

By Katrina Miller

Katrina Miller reported on China’s launch of the Chang’e-6 mission in May.

June 28, 2024: This article was updated to add details about the lunar sample that were announced after its original publication date.

China brought a capsule full of lunar soil from the far side of the moon down to Earth on Tuesday, achieving the latest success in an ambitious schedule to explore the moon and other parts of the solar system.

The sample, retrieved by the China National Space Administration’s Chang’e-6 lander after a 53-day mission, highlights China’s growing capabilities in space and notches another win in a series of lunar missions that started in 2007 and have so far been executed almost without flaw.

“Chang’e-6 is the first mission in human history to return samples from the far side of the moon,” Long Xiao, a planetary geologist at China University of Geosciences, wrote in an email. “This is a major event for scientists worldwide,” he added, and “a cause for celebration for all humanity.”

Such sentiments and the prospects of international lunar sample exchanges highlighted the hope that China’s robotic missions to the moon and Mars will serve to advance scientific understanding of the solar system. Those possibilities are contrasted by views in Washington and elsewhere that Tuesday’s achievement is the latest milestone in a 21st-century space race with geopolitical overtones.

In February, a privately operated American spacecraft landed on the moon . NASA is also pursuing the Artemis campaign to return Americans to the lunar surface, although its next mission, a flight by astronauts around the moon, has been delayed because of technical issues .

China, too, is looking to expand its presence on the moon, landing more robots there, and eventually human astronauts, in the years to come.

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