Independent Aussie sci-fi films are quite the rarity, which is quite a shame as an Australian filmgoer who loves sci-fi and also loves supporting (good) local product. As such, respect is due for this film existing in the first place, as a lack of budget and, in a lot of cases, a lack of production ambition often get in the way of such things. But when looking at this film specifically, again with that minimum respect in mind, there’s a fair amount that I like about this, and just as much, if not more, that I have questions about.
The subtitles, for instance. The story is set in futuristic Hong Kong, so subtitles being here as is isn’t the issue; rather, it’s that this has the most perplexing use of English-subtitles-for-English-speaking-actors I have ever seen. Whenever Ryan Kwanten’s assassin Jack or Hugo Weaving’s Dr. Bergman have inner monologues (of which there are a lot to be heard here), they’re all subtitled, whereas all the spoken dialogue (in English, at least) isn’t. With how social alienation and isolation plays into the narrative, I guess this has a similar alienating effect, but it’s a very odd way of going about it. It’s like director Ivan Sen took only two things away from watching Blade Runner: The rainy, Asia-centric neo-noir setting was cool, but the theatrical cut’s opening narration was even cooler.
And yeah, that’s not the only comparison to be made here with the cyberpunk classic, although the story admittedly takes more cues from 2049 than the original. Now, while I didn’t care much for the former when I initially reviewed it, I have since come around on it after rewatching it (much like the original, it took more than one sitting to take full effect), and I can safely say that this is a rather poor imitation of its central theme: Love in a society where man and machine are identical to each other.
Here, that takes place within the relationship between Jack and April (Jillian Nguyen), as their respective lack of prior emotional connection makes them apprehensive about their current situations. While some of the specifics are downright corny (we later learn that the love Jack is feeling towards April is literally killing him because his body isn’t used to the hormones), it touches on some interesting ideas to do with affection and immortality, which thankfully mesh well together rather than just stacking on top of each other. It basically puts Jack in the position of having to choose either a stunted life of happiness, or living potentially forever but at a distance from those around him. Not much of a choice, frankly, but still an interesting idea, given the pre-existing social distance.
But in that lies the main problem with the aforementioned subtitling, and indeed a lot of the writing here: It’s a story all about mood and feeling that keeps insists on spelling everything out for the audience, sometimes literally. It keeps aiming for hardboiled to fit the sub-genre, but mostly comes out just overcooked, up to including just explaining the frictions between man and android without showing it to any substantial degree. And even when it zeroes in on the emotional states of the characters, it never finds a suitable warmth to give the impression that the love being experienced is actually affecting the people involved. 2049 got that across between an android and a hologram, and emphasised that artificiality didn’t matter in any regard because joy always matters, whereas this is unable to commit to anything other than its prevailing atmosphere of dread. And with the note it ends on, it doesn’t exactly warrant that much coldness.
As a technical production, what Ivan Sen has put together here is impressive to a degree, seeing as he handled the directing, writing, soundtrack, cinematography, and editing on his own, and there’s enough raw material here to show that he might have been onto something with his take on real feelings in an artificial world. But it’s just way too fiddly, and includes some truly bewildering creative decisions, for me to get as much out of that material as I would have liked. It's another example of an independent Aussie film with damn good production values, but lacking a firm enough grip on its own writing to make full use of it.
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