Michelle, an assassin to a new breed of killers (DNA Hackers), finds she has greater obstacles in her life… Family. In a futuristic world, Michelle lives everyday battling with DNA Hackers who use their skills to hack into people's bodies and kill them. She is an assassin, battling her past demons and trying to keep her younger and extroverted brother, Jackie, out of trouble. When Jackie gets involved in a petty crime of robbery, he propels himself into the world of DNA Hackers, Shylocks (Loan Sharks) and Gang Fights. Wanting the respect that the world has never given to him only makes it harder for Jackie to peel himself away from the underground trades, against the hopes of his sister, Michelle. Michelle always wanted to leave the city and lead a calm and quiet lifestyle. As emotions and gunfire get into the way, Michelle and Jackie soon find themselves battling between their lives and finding out that in an immoral world, love can still survive. Blood is thicker than water. Why a mixed bag? I'll try to explain. On the one hand, you have an interesting production design that manages to creatively overcome a probably limited budget (though some of the CGI is sub-par). You also have the leggy Bai Ling as the lead: delivering (English) dialogue is not her strong suit, but delivering sex appeal is, and she seems to be a natural for action roles; her (only 2) fight scenes are pretty kickass. On the other hand, the story and especially the background of this futuristic world are sketchy at best (the director himself admits that 45 minutes were cut out of his original version), and the pace is numbingly slow (as I indicated above, there are really only 2 action scenes in the whole film). You can tell that a lot of effort went into the creation of "The Gene Generation", but ultimately it's not something that I would watch again in its entirety without the use of the fast-forward button. ** out of 4. The plot: A beautiful, female assassin fights against DNA hackers, who kill people by hacking into their body.<br/><br/>I think that Pearry Teo and I would get along really well. We seem to have the same taste in books, movies, and music. We both like dark, surreal fantasy/horror and gritty cyberpunk. His movies are filled with references to all the things that I like. The problem is that The Gene Generation is a rather shallow pastiche of gothy cyberpunk themes, with no real attempt at cohesion. While full of creative ideas, visually striking scenes, and attractive people in cool poses, it's also a jumbled mess. The pacing is just terrible, making the movie sometimes feel like it's three hours long.<br/><br/>I love everything about The Gene Generation, except the actual movie itself. This leaves me at a loss as to how to rate the movie. With some faster pacing, less exploitation, and tighter writing, this could have been amazing. But, then again, couldn't you say that about any movie? "If only it had been better, it would have been good!" I liked Necromentia better than The Gene Generation, so I think that he's improving. As far as a debut goes, I think this isn't bad… but it's still a bit of a rough watch. In the end, I recommend The Gene Generation only to genre fans, who are more likely to forgive its faults.
Chrsherr replied
295 weeks ago