Coors Field…in a Sci-fi Film?
Photo by: wellesenterprises (Getty Images)
In a way, this article is a dream come true for me. It’s rare I’ve had the chance to connect these two subjects I love: MLB baseball and Hong Kong entertainment in one place, especially to a wider audience. If I overload on the “I’s” and personal opinions for your liking, I apologize in advance.
The Denver skyline and Coors Field made an appearance in an unexpected place, in the groundbreaking Hong Kong sci-fi film, Warriors of Future (2022). Coors Field has one of the best ballpark backdrops in the MLB, particularly on a picture-esque sunny day.
To set the stage for this movie shot spot, it stems from a combination of two main things. Combine year after year of broadcasts showing aerial footage of ballparks before dissolving back to action on the field with having visited all the NL West ballparks. Now that I think about it, Coors was the last ballpark I visited before Covid; it’s a historical marker in my sports fandom in that sense.
Photo by: Associated Press
Photo by: Arin L, from my visit to Coors Field in 2019
When Warriors of Future came out on Netflix last December, I knew that was my chance to watch it. So I did. I have a habit of watching the movie’s behind-the-scenes and production videos after I’ve watched the whole thing, usually finding them on YouTube. In one of them, there was a shot with a ballpark in it. I thought, “A ballpark? Where’s this?” Obviously, with it being a sci-fi film, there’s a lot of computer-generated imagery (CGI) work done throughout, so initially, I was skeptical, “Maybe they pieced the shot of the city together. How much CGI did they use?” To get a better context for the shot and a better-quality picture, I switched over to the full movie. I began to piece together features of the ballpark I recognized and compared them to interior pictures from my trip. The brick exterior matches the rest of the “older district” feel, there aren’t too many parks that have a bleacher section in center field, and the scoreboard in left has what looks like the Rockies logo, it must be Coors!
Photo by: Arin L
I was fascinated with figuring out why Denver was chosen and took my curiosity to social media, posing the question to One Cool Film’s (the production company with the largest stake in Warriors of Future) social media team to test my luck. Got a view from them, but didn’t get anything back regarding it. The movie context for the shot is that the air quality everywhere is terrible. Therefore, governments across the globe created nets in the sky that help clean the air and make it more breathable for people. Since it’s one of many shots in the movie, it could have little significance or tons of meaning, depending on your school of thought. I believe there is meaning behind choosing Denver and Coors Field because of their location in the Rocky Mountains, it’s famous for high air quality. If the world’s air quality gets to the point where Denver is deeply affected, it’s an extremely dire situation.
Courtesy of: IMDb
As previously mentioned, Warriors of Future (2022) is available on Netflix. Some of my all-time favorites: Louis Koo, Sean Lau, Carina Lau, Philip Keung, and Nick Cheung will lead you through a mission like no other. Not sure this is the most accurate comparison, but Warriors of Future is a little like a Wes Anderson film in that it’s an ensemble of friends and old partners off-screen. If you look at One Cool’s previous releases, of course, Louis, the boss, and owner, is everywhere. But throughout the page, the rest of the Warriors of Future cast have their individual films too. You can scroll by and say, “Hi Sean, hey Philip, hello Carina, hey that’s Nick.”
Courtesy of: IMDb
They also have a short list of other movies on various online streaming platforms if you’re looking for some titles to mix up your movie consumption this summer:
A variety of other titles will be premiering at the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) in less than a month (July 14th-30th). If interested, go check them out here.