Twisted Flicks: Cyberpunk

Showing posts with label Cyberpunk. Show all posts

The Gene Generation

USA, 2008

Director: Pearry Teo
Starring: Bai Ling, Alec Newman, Parry Shen
IMDB: 4.6

It's not easy being a fan of futuristic science fiction movies as they're so rarely done well. But as its one of my favourite genres, I can't help but be excited when something interesting is on the horizon. And this one has been on the horizon for a long time!

The trailers have been doing the rounds for well over a year now, featuring a grimy dystopian aesthetic, a story involving genetic manipulation, a pumping hard rock soundtrack, and not least a leather-clad ass-kicking Bai Ling in the title role. Expectations were high.

Michelle (Bai Ling) is a contract killer, eliminating DNA Hackers who the government wants rid of. Handy with a wide range of weapons, she's also a formidable martial artist, which is even the more amazing considering she's dressed in tight leather most of the time. Not that this guy is complaining. At all.

Unfortunately she's saddled with a shithook of a brother whose gambling problems and general lack of smarts gets them into trouble with the wrong people. When burglarising a neighbour he unwittingly steals a one-of-a-kind genetic manipulation device - and this lands them in the middle of a bad situation.

Despite the interesting cyberpunk premise of the film, the movie pretty much plays out like an action movie. Which is a lost opportunity in my opinion, because the cyberpunk genre has a lot of interesting ideas to draw upon. The Gene Generation is basically an action movie with a razor thin veneer of science to support the plot.

First time director Pearry Teo definitely has his heart in the right place, but maybe not quite the experience or the budget to pull such an ambitious idea off. The dialogue, acting, and special effects are at times pretty darn woeful, and at others surprisingly good.

A consistently good performance was given by the inimitable Bai Ling (who always brings something special to her roles), and Alec Newman was good as the genetic scientist Christian. However Parry Shen as Michelle's brother and pretty much all of the support characters really dragged the film down, not helped by some fairly inane dialogue. Giving a few of them cheap and nasty effects on their voices does nothing except add a C-movie vibe. Bad idea.

What really holds the movie together is the presence of Bai Ling. She features prominently on the cover art, and I'd say most people checking this out will be there for the ass-kicking hot asian chick factor. Well, I was anyway. And she fills that role perfectly with her tall, lithe figure and edgy looks. She has some great kill scenes, gets covered in blood (and has to take a shower to clean it off), and kicks multiple bad-guy ass with her martial arts moves.

In summary, the movie has some great scenes and ideas but also a number of factors that drag it firmly down into B-movie territory (in the bad sense of the word) and spoil what could've been a really great movie. I still enjoyed it though, and fans of Bai Ling should definitely check it out. Hopefully Mr Teo's next project will have a better budget to more fully realise some great ideas.

Rating: 5.5/10

Screenshots - click to enlarge

Trailer

I.K.U

Japan, 2000
Director: Shu Lea Cheang
Starring: Maria Yumeno, Aja, Akira, Miho Ariga, Mash
IMDB: 3.9

Watching this movie, I was in two minds about whether it was porn masquerading as art, or art with a big dose of porn. The truth is that it defies description... its both ... lets call it cyberporn/art.

And that really is the whole idea.

As the movie explains;

"Established in 2016, Genom Corporation started out in the business of recycling retired replicants that worked in outer space. The replicants were recycled as nursing robots at first. But when replicants with cosmetic surgery appeared as porn actresses in a 24-hour live porn show on Internet TV, it created a mega-hit, which lead the company to become the world's greatest digital enterprise for sexual pleasure."

Note the word replicant is not coincidental ... the opening scene features an origami unicorn - an obvious reference to Bladerunner. In fact, director Shu Lea Cheang explains that IKU takes up where Bladerunner left off. But where Bladerunner features no sex, only love... IKU features no love, only sex.

Righto. The basic premise is that Genom corp are creating an IKU System - a system facilitating sexual pleasure by providing audio/visual data directly to the brain, allowing customers to reach orgasm without actual genital contact. However, this requires a vast amount of sexual data to be collected, and special replicants are tasked with this job.

Specifically Reiko, who has the ability to assume 7 different bodies (and I guess a cunning idea to introduce 7 different actresses to the story, as each gets a sex scene). Also Tokyo Rose, who is a virus, and so gets to infect a few different people (read: multiple sex scenes).

Like I said ... its porn AND its art. While the movie sure feels like a porn movie with a story wrapped around it, the story is anything but flimsy. In fact, there are many companies who have been working to create an IKU type system for quite some time. Sex is one of the most popular uses of any new technology, so the ideas involved are valid science fiction/cyberpunk.

Also, the director is actually a woman. Not that that precludes her from making porn, far from it - but it does go some way to explaining the aesthetic. What's more, the film is obviously artistic. The director gathered a hip, creative crowd of Japanese performers, artists, and pornstars in making this movie.

Which brings us to the sex ... mostly its softcore, although there were a few explicit moments, and there was a lot of oral sex that may or may not have been real. We also get all manner of sexual combinations and fetishes ... orgies, bondage, lesbians, gays, transgenders, threesomes ... even one scene where a couple is having sex in a room full of headless sex dolls. There's probably some symbolism in that!

Anyway, its all presented in multi-hued interesting locations, often with psychedelic lighting and camera movements. It's all quite trippy actually.

And while its not porn in the traditional sense, it is certainly erotic and the actresses are very attractive.

In summary, I liked it. After all, I love sex AND cyberpunk AND art. Where it falls down is that you wouldn't watch it as a porn movie, and you wouldn't watch it as a cyberpunk movie. It slips uncomfortably between genres, and can only be appreciated as a unique, erotic performance-art experience on film.

Twisted rating: 6.5/10

If you want to know more, there is a full back-story and futher information on the film's website, remarkably still online, at www.i-k-u.com.

Click any image to enlarge