While escaping a neighbourhood gang, three friends plunge into a multi-coloured lake, little realising the effect this unusual water will have on each of them. The first realisation comes when one of them sneezes and finds their consciousness catapulted twenty years into the future. A further sneeze returns them to 1999 and after the others try the same trick, they find that they have the same ability. Unfortunately, life twenty years into the future doesn’t seem as bright as they had hoped and the girl they all love has fallen into a wayward lifestyle. There is also the small matter of a government agency who are using the consciousness-jumping ability to flit between times and affect events.
It might seem lazy to compare this to ‘Everything, Everywhere All At Once’ – it is often cited as a similarly inventive piece of mind-bending action – but a few minutes into ‘Escape from the 21st Century’ and the feeling quickly takes root. Not that this is in any way merely mimicking the Michelle Yeoh hit, yet it’s hard to think of too many movies that have assaulted the senses with quite the brio as Li Yang’s effort. It’s an avalanche of colours, sounds, animations and surreal cuts, and the onslaught doesn’t really let up.
Like ‘Everything, Everywhere All At Once’, you have to sit back and admire the visual insanity on offer and the directorial chutzpah to put it all on the big screen. It makes for a film that you certainly can’t ignore and one that is often dazzling. And yet it suffers from the same problem that ‘Everything, Everywhere All At Once’ had, namely crossing the line from absurdist wonder to self-indulgence – throwing everything onto the screen knowing enough of it will stick to distract you from the copious amounts that don’t. It also means that the emotional core that should anchor the viewer to the story is lacking; the three childhood friends element starts off as a fun element, but it quickly goes into a love quadrangle that saps the joy from the beginning. The main story that occurs thereafter doesn’t have the excitement or weight you would hope it has.
For all its faults, ‘Escape from the 21st Century’ is Chinese cinema probing into a different direction and that, in itself, is quite refreshing. It’s bold, bombastic and not entirely successful, but it’s never dull.
