Saturday, July 08, 2006

Yet Another Cyberpunk Movie: "The Gene Generation"


The Gene Generation is apparently the first Hollywood film to be directed by a Singaporean.

Kudos to Pearry Reginald Teo (a.k.a. Zhang Pingli), but did it really have to be yet another cyberpunk film? It wasn't long ago that we had to endure Kuo Jian Hong's Avatar. At least the distributors spared us a commercial run.

Is this a trend we're starting to see here? Singapore = cyberpunk? It's too easy - fun, even - to invent similarities between the current state of affairs here and the dystopic, high-tech urban environments jammed with alienated people that are cyberpunk cliché.

Ok, maybe I'm pre-judging. Maybe I'm too cynical. It's not out yet, so maybe this will be a great film. Maybe this is The One to pump new life into a flaccid genre that saw its epitome in Mamoru Oshii's sublime Ghost in the Shell.

I'm not hopeful, but maybe there'll be nice shots of Bai Ling at least.

The Gene Generation official site.

The director's got her own blog.

Wikipedia entry.

Combichrist's music video for "Get Your Body Beat", for The Gene Generation. Combichrist is a techno-industrial rock band. (Yes, another cyberpunk cliché.) Watch out for the usual profanities and lots of people with painted faces and bad haircuts trying really, really hard to look angry.

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