(updated September 26, 2022)

I got sent to this link by a comment on a reddit post. This is the short clip from the Tudum video and has some shots of sets for the show. It looks really great. No surprises on the cast, only people previously included in the tracker below!

(updated September 25, 2022)

There are new updates on Three Body Problem from both Netflix and Tencent.

Tencent has indicated it will release its series in September or October on their app and on Youtube with the release comprised of 24 one-hour episodes!!! Furthermore, it is expected that all episodes will be released at once, allowing for some pretty satisfying binge watching. For those of us still learning mandarin, lets hope the subtitles are solid! The article also mentioned Lin Yongjian was joining the cast which I hadn’t seen before.

Here is a link to the Tencent youtube, lets hope it comes soon!! Once it is out, I’ll start updating the casting table below!

At Netflix’s Tudum conference this week they confirmed that the Three Body Problem series would be released in 2023. They also released a behind the scenes clip which is summarized in a video here. The video has no real new information and no good video from the actual show so probably not really worth reading. Again, the best thing is that they confirmed the 2023 release date. I defeinitely couldn’t find any additional information about the casting.

(Original below – September 4, 2022)

If you’re on this page, you probably already know about 3 Body Problem. If not, a short version of the plot follows. This page is not to discuss the book, but to keep an update on the movie and TV adaptations. 

Why is this relevant for a Mr. NiHao page? The author of the novels is Liu Cixin (刘慈欣), a Chinese Author! His trilogy called Rememberance of Earth’s Past has three books, the first and most famous is the three body problem. This book is great, the other books in the trilogy are OK but not as good. He has written some other books including Supernova Era which is really a terrible sci-fi book and not worth reading. 

here is the short version of the trilogy: 

The Three Body Problem -> someone in China sends a message that gets received by aliens who  plan to come to earth because their planet is not very good (I mean, with 3 suns and destined to be ripped to shreds, any planet looks good)

The Dark Forest -> While the aliens are en-route to earth they send some advanced technology to make sure earth doesn’t invent any means of preventing their arrival. Earth responds by determining that there are other intelligent life forms whose main goal is to destroy potentially competing life. This brings the aliens and humans to a truce

Death’s End -> Earth plans to communicate with the aliens by sending a human brain to meet them on their voyage, but it gets lost. The aliens betray earth which causes someone to send the coordinates of earth into the universe, creating the certainty the planet will be destroyed in the coming years. When the attack on earth does come it turns out to be the collapsing of higher dimensional space, which sounds pretty complicated. 

Anyway, the books are fantastic! But what’s more, there is even a “fan fiction” sequel written by Bao Shu:

Redemption of Time -> I don’t even remember this book that well, other than it isn’t very good! Don’t bother

What you want to know though is: will this be a tv show or a movie? The answer is YES!

The best thing here is that you will get multiple options. One chinese and one English. Lets discuss.

Chinese Version 

  • Produced by Tencent
  • Definitely set in China
  • Casting appears to be 100% Chinese with one non-Chinese person
  • Casting appears to indicate it will take place during the origina 3 Body Problem book period
  • It appears to be coming relatively soon, they seem to want to beat Netflix
  • There are a couple trailers available, both linked below, unfortunately, they don’t look very good

English subbed version of the trailer that came out November 2021:

English subbed version of the trailer that came out June 2022:

English version

  • Produced by Netflix
  • Filming supposed to wrap up in August of 2022
  • Not likely to be out for some time
  • Casing is about half people who appear to be non-Chinese which raises the question of whether Netflix has either a) poorly cast the show or b) perhaps is setting it in a different period. In the first book of the trilogy, its largely set in China and there are limited non-Chinese characters which wouldn’t be justified with Netflix’s casting decision. However, if they started the book in the Dark Forest period, there would be lots more room for international cooperation and I think I can count 10+ non-Chinese Characters

The table below indicates my estimate of the characters in 3Body and the casting which has been made public to-date. Netflix has cast some really big name characters. A great thing to look forward to for anyone interested in Chinese and/or science fiction!

CharacterAppears InNetFlixTencent
Ye Zhetai3Body
Shao Lin3Body
Ye Wenxue3Body
Lei Zhichent3Body
Yang Weining3BodyTu Songyan (26/09/22)
Wang Miao3BodyZhang Luyi
Shen Yufei3BodyLi Xiaoran
Wei Cheng3BodyZhao Jian
Pan Han3BodyZhang Junning
Sha Ruishan3Body
Colonel Stanton3Body
Ye Wenjie3Body / DarkFChen Jin / Wang Ziwen
Mike Evans3Body / DarkFKenan Heppe
Ding Yi3Body / DarkFWang Chuan-jun
Shi Qiang3Body / DarkFYu Hewei
Chang Weisi3Body / DarkF
Yang Dong3Body / DEndHe Dujuan
Wu YueDarkF
Zhang BeihaiDarkF
George FitzroyDarkF
Albert RingierDarkF
Yang JinwenDarkF
Miao FuqianDarkF
Zhang YuanchaoDarkF
Shi XiaomingDarkF
KentDarkF
Secretary General SayDarkF
Keiko YamasukiDarkF
GaraninDarkF
Zhuang YanDarkF
Ben JonathanDarkF
Dongfang YanxuDarkF
Major XiziDarkF
Frederick TylerDarkF
Manuel Rey DiazDarkF
Bill HinesDarkF
Luo JiDarkF / DEnd
Cheng XinDEnd
Yun TianmingDEnd
Thomas WadeDEnd
Ai AADEnd
Neil ScottDEnd
Sebastian SchneiderDEnd
Captain MorovichDEnd
Chu YanDEnd
SophonDEnd
Guan YifanDEnd
FraisseDEnd
SingerDEnd
ThelmaStacy Abalogun
Emperor ZhouRussell Yuen
Not announcedJonathan Pryce
Not announcedRosalind Chao
Not announcedBen Schnetzer
Not announcedEve Ridley
Not announcedEiza Gonzalez
Not announcedJovan Adepo
Not announcedJohn Bradley
Not announcedTsai Chin
Not announcedLiam Cunningham
Not announcedJess Hong
Not announcedMarlo Kelly
Not announcedAlex Sharp
Not announcedSea Shimooka
Not announcedZine Tseng
Not announcedSaamer Usmani
Not announcedBenedict Wong
Not announcedJames Chu
Not announcedLin Yongjian