Escape from the 21st Century (2024)
Chinese fantasy action comedy by Li Yang. On a planet much like earth, a trio of teenagers are exposed to some chemicals that cause their consciousnesses to travel 20 years into the future and back whenever they sneeze. There, they are not only confronted with their own failures and regrets but also a world threatening conspiracy. They have to use their newfound power to save themselves and the world.
If this sounds really zany, believe me, the actual movie is much zanier. Escape is one of those "everything and the kitchen sink" mixed media pop culture hodgepodge movies where basically every single scene is shot for maximum impact, utilizing some kind of out there animation, CGI effects, music video editing or video game or anime tropes to make it stand out. It feels quite a bit like Everything, Everywhere all at Once if instead of being made by corny middle aged hipsters, it was made by fun millennial nerds. Or if Suda51 directed directed Hot Tub Time Machine.
I think there are two ways for movies to feel longer than they are, one is being so slow paced that they take forever to get to the point and the other one being so dense and fast paced that you can barely keep up with them. Escape certainly is the latter, feeling like it's serving up 3 hours worth of movie in 100 minutes. It's a movie busting at the seams with ideas. Many of them are purely stylistic and done purely for the sake of being funny, of course. Straight up, about two thirds through the movie it reveals the villain's evil plan and it has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. A copy of Street Fighter 2 becomes a pivotal plot point. And let's not even get into some of the choices for its soundtrack.
It probably sounds like Escape from the 21st Century is not much more than a wacky asian curiosity but I do think that that behind all of its cartoony antics, self consciously zany, overly conceptual premise and fast paced barrage of references and stylistic shenanigans there's a heart. I would argue it's a lot like the 00's anime FLCL in that behind all of its improvisational tomfoolery it's a silly but heartfelt treatise on adolescence. On looking forward to adulthood as a kid and looking back at childhood as an adult. About nostalgia and about facing an uncertain future. Somewhere under all the audiovisual insanity, subtle but noticeable, is an undercurrent of sentimentality, even melancholy, that honestly, I found way more effective than the more overt family melodrama of Everything, Everywhere all at Once. Which, I concede, might be in part because Escape clearly engages with the experience of my generation (and, y'know, there is something to be said about that a movie made in a culture as foreign as China manages to feel relatable to me) where Everything tried to appeal to that of a more middle aged demographic but there is some poignancy to lines like "I hate everything about the adult world... except you." or "The greatest lie we tell ourselves is that things will get better when we grow up." that hits you precisely because they are dropped in the middle of something that otherwise feels like a very elaborate shitpost.
What I'm saying is, I liked this movie quite a bit. What it does isn't new anymore, not exactly. We had Speed Racer and we had Scott Pilgrim and we had Everything Everywhere all at Once and the Lego Movie and two Spiderverses and, hell, let's just throw just about everything Baz Luhrman made in there. I mean, we have a live action adaptation of One Piece now. This specific brand of rainbow colored, hyperactive, breathless, super stylized pop art fever dream can't be considered a novelty anymore. But I will say that this is one of the better ones. It's a new cinematic language and Li Yang has demonstrated that he speaks it quite well. This is pretty much doomed to be underappreciated, simply on the virtue of not being made in English and I hope I've done my part in bringing some awareness to it.
Chinese fantasy action comedy by Li Yang. On a planet much like earth, a trio of teenagers are exposed to some chemicals that cause their consciousnesses to travel 20 years into the future and back whenever they sneeze. There, they are not only confronted with their own failures and regrets but also a world threatening conspiracy. They have to use their newfound power to save themselves and the world.
If this sounds really zany, believe me, the actual movie is much zanier. Escape is one of those "everything and the kitchen sink" mixed media pop culture hodgepodge movies where basically every single scene is shot for maximum impact, utilizing some kind of out there animation, CGI effects, music video editing or video game or anime tropes to make it stand out. It feels quite a bit like Everything, Everywhere all at Once if instead of being made by corny middle aged hipsters, it was made by fun millennial nerds. Or if Suda51 directed directed Hot Tub Time Machine.
I think there are two ways for movies to feel longer than they are, one is being so slow paced that they take forever to get to the point and the other one being so dense and fast paced that you can barely keep up with them. Escape certainly is the latter, feeling like it's serving up 3 hours worth of movie in 100 minutes. It's a movie busting at the seams with ideas. Many of them are purely stylistic and done purely for the sake of being funny, of course. Straight up, about two thirds through the movie it reveals the villain's evil plan and it has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. A copy of Street Fighter 2 becomes a pivotal plot point. And let's not even get into some of the choices for its soundtrack.
It probably sounds like Escape from the 21st Century is not much more than a wacky asian curiosity but I do think that that behind all of its cartoony antics, self consciously zany, overly conceptual premise and fast paced barrage of references and stylistic shenanigans there's a heart. I would argue it's a lot like the 00's anime FLCL in that behind all of its improvisational tomfoolery it's a silly but heartfelt treatise on adolescence. On looking forward to adulthood as a kid and looking back at childhood as an adult. About nostalgia and about facing an uncertain future. Somewhere under all the audiovisual insanity, subtle but noticeable, is an undercurrent of sentimentality, even melancholy, that honestly, I found way more effective than the more overt family melodrama of Everything, Everywhere all at Once. Which, I concede, might be in part because Escape clearly engages with the experience of my generation (and, y'know, there is something to be said about that a movie made in a culture as foreign as China manages to feel relatable to me) where Everything tried to appeal to that of a more middle aged demographic but there is some poignancy to lines like "I hate everything about the adult world... except you." or "The greatest lie we tell ourselves is that things will get better when we grow up." that hits you precisely because they are dropped in the middle of something that otherwise feels like a very elaborate shitpost.
What I'm saying is, I liked this movie quite a bit. What it does isn't new anymore, not exactly. We had Speed Racer and we had Scott Pilgrim and we had Everything Everywhere all at Once and the Lego Movie and two Spiderverses and, hell, let's just throw just about everything Baz Luhrman made in there. I mean, we have a live action adaptation of One Piece now. This specific brand of rainbow colored, hyperactive, breathless, super stylized pop art fever dream can't be considered a novelty anymore. But I will say that this is one of the better ones. It's a new cinematic language and Li Yang has demonstrated that he speaks it quite well. This is pretty much doomed to be underappreciated, simply on the virtue of not being made in English and I hope I've done my part in bringing some awareness to it.
