Escape From the twenty-first Centuryis the gorgeous , gumptious , and completely irregular love kid ofScott Pilgrim , The Terminator , and a John Hughes movie . typeset on an ground - like planet way out in the galaxy , three teenagers larn the ability to time travel 20 class into the hereafter . But this is n’t your traditional type of sentence travel . When they jump , their teenage bodies go limp in 1999 and that awareness goes into their older self in 2019 . Hence the title .
At first , Escapeis play for humor . It leans into how it ’s weird that these 40 - twelvemonth - erstwhile men now do n’t know what ’s going on and act like clueless teen . promptly , though , things get a minute more serious . The trio , full friends at one time , no longer keep in touch in the future . Even so , their lives are link up in very important ways , so the teenage versions of their older self explore that , finally uncover a plot of land that puts both timelines in peril .
Because it ’s set in a not - quite - our reality , everything aboutEscape From the 21st Centuryis sharpen . Everyone is an fantabulous martial creative person . People stand out in slow motion . drug have different effects . It creates a globe we ’re desperate to learn more about , but also altogether cool with almost anything happen in .
This is a very boring still from a very fun movie, Escape from the 21st Century.Fantastic Fest
The friends also have a fantastic moral force . Chengyong ( played by Yang Song and Zhuozhao Li ) , is the leader while Zha ( Ruoyun Zhang and Yichen Chen ) , and Paopao ( Leon Lee and Quixuan Kang ) are just happy to be in his presence . At least in 1999 , that is . That dynamic transformation drastically in 2019 and , again , make stress and questions for everyone to answer . Plus , as tends to be the example with young boys , there ’s a girl in the middle of it all , Yang Yi ( Yanmanzi Zhu and Fanding Ma ) .
Visually , writer - director Yang Li use lots of high contrasts interspersed with bright colors to keep the motion picture lively . He even throw some animation into the live - action action to showcase the power of the characters . The video gameStreet Fighter IIplays an of import part in the floor and the game ’s classic flavor , style , and calculate permeate pockets of the film .
The most bewitching thing aboutEscape from the 21st Centurythough is that the thing that ’s kind of bad about it is also what ’s amazing about it . In many mode , it ’s a tonic mussiness . thing go from goofy and playful at one point , to intense and grim in another . But Li lento finds a perfect Libra the Balance between the two , almost like a person on a balance beam who loses their footing but rights themselves before hitting the footing . The result is a movie that you do n’t think is going to be in particular emotional or powerful beyond its fun idea , but in the destruction , really deliver .
Escape from the 21st Centuryis a blast . It ’s messy and it ’s unearthly , but it ’s so solemn and well - made that it merge in a really endearing way . The film late played at Fantastic Fest 2024 . It has U.S. dispersion , but not a discharge day of the month .
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