" Gene Generation"
"As Reported by Dollyforme"
I actually really liked this low budget cyberpunk movie. Why? Here's a three-word phrase that'll get anybody’s blood pumping: 'Starring Bai Ling.' As an actress who's usually deployed to amp up a film's quotient of exotica and erotica, her presence, sad to say, usually indicates that questionable quality lies ahead. The Gene Generation puts Ling into the tightest leather imaginable, but she still has enough flexibility to do as much machine gun shooting and karate kicking as is required to save a future world from destruction by DNA tampering.
In the dark, Blade Runny dystopia in which Michelle (Ling) lives with her no-good younger brother Jackie (Parry Shen), scientists are toying with a glove-like device that can recombine DNA. In virtuous hands it could cure diseases for good, but in evil hands, it could be weaponized and destroy the world. That's how these things usually go. Let the chase begin.
When good guy scientist Christian (Alec Newman) gets the device out of the hands of the evil scientists he used to work for, his former boss Dr. Hayden (an unrecognizable Faye Dunaway... what the heck happened?) sends her goon squad out to recapture it. She can't go herself because her DNA has been rejiggered to turn her into a pile of writhing snakes. Yucky.
Christian hides the gadget in his house, which is right across the hall from Michelle and Jackie's place. Compulsive gambler/drinker Jackie needs cash, so he ransacks Christian's pad and steals the DNA glove, not knowing what he's got. Soon the goons are after him, and so is the local loan shark/mob boss Randall (Daniel Zacapa), who wouldn't mind having the glove himself. Can Michelle straighten all this out and find her way to a quieter, more serene world where she won't feel the social pressure to squeeze into a shiny rubber corset and put artful patches of red and blue makeup on her face every day? Well, she's a pretty tough cookie. If anyone can do it, she can. Oh, she also finds time to have sex with Christian. It's Bai Ling, after all.
Somewhere under the layers and layers of fuzzy CGI is a metaphor/parable/fable/allegory about the role of technology in a harmonious society, but there are too many distractions for it to become clear. More rewarding is the brother/sister interplay between Ling and Shen (he deserves better parts in better movies). She'll try to make the world better, but he'll screw up time and time again and make her job nearly impossible.
Blade Runner fans, dive in and enjoy. A very fun little movie.
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