'Escape from the 21st Century' Review: A Wild Ride with a Purpose [TIFF 2024]
In 1999, on a planet that almost perfectly resembles our own, three teenage boys named Pao Pao (Qixuan Kang), Chengyong (Zhuozhao Li) and Wang Zha (Yichen Chen) are imbued with an extraordinary ability. Whenever they sneeze, they leap forward twenty years into their futures, and none of the boys end up where they ever could have predicted. Thus begins the film Escape from the 21st Century.
As a youth, Chengyong is idolised by his friends as the leader of their band. He is not only the coolest, the smartest, and the most accomplished, he also has a beautiful girlfriend named Yang Yi (Fanding Ma). He is the first one to travel forward to the future (where he is played by Yang Song). Much to his shock, he finds himself in a dystopian 2019. His friends and girlfriend are gone, replaced with a ruthless partner (Xiaoliang Wu), and a crime empire for whom they both work.
Wang Zha (who narrates much of the film) is considered the klutz of the group, to the extent that his undersized brain is brought up many times. When it’s his turn to travel forward (and thus turning into Ruoyun Zhang), he is on the other side of the crime empire, spying on it alongside a determined journalist named Liu Lianzhi (Elane Zhong).
Finally, there is Pao Pao. He is insecure about his looks, about his weight, and about living in the shadow of his two friends. Therefore, it is a shock to him when he travels forward and discovers himself in a rugged and handsome new body (Leon Lee). Not only that, it turns out that he is in a relationship with an adult Yang Yi (Yanmanzi Zhu)
Written and directed by Yang Li, the film is both absurdist and maximalist in nature. While some might be reminded of such films as Everything Everywhere All at Once or 12 Monkeys, they might also be reminded of films by Stephen Chow, Edgar Wright, or even Oliver Stone. Thanks to the cinematography by Saba Mazloum, Escape from the 21st Century boasts a maelstrom of cutaways, cartoon effects, and fast cuts. All of them are put together to dizzying effect, assisted by an incredibly on-the-nose soundtrack. If you haven’t embraced that spirit by the time that Wang Zha and Liu are making a grand exit to the music of Joan Baez, or when the characters are having a massive fight while Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” is blasting on the soundtrack, then you might be watching the wrong film.
If this film was just trying to be a wacky action flick with some zany comedy thrown in, that would be one thing. But for a film which looks like the love child of Back to the Future and Kung Fu Hustle, it’s clear the the story is grappling serious issues. The three friends’ desperate quest to fix the future speaks to a universal fear that the world is getting worse. Each one of the three protagonists must struggle with the fear of losing their families, losing their friends, losing their loves, and/or losing themselves. As a unit and as individuals, the men grapple with their ideas of who they are and with the reality of who they’ve become. While the action and the comedy is as silly as you can imagine (take, for example, the boys’ ridiculous attempts to change their futures by going back in time and buying lottery tickets) the film is wise to treat these fears and challenges with all the seriousness that they deserve. Moreover, these fears are shared by the film’s villains. They, too, are motivated by nostalgia for the past, and it drives their desperate attempt to reshape the future to their own liking. The film also allows itself a few moments to thoughtfully reflect on the preciousness of life, regardless of what the future holds. It is the journey, not the destination, which proves most important.
It could have been so easy for Li to make a film which was only interested in providing a ridiculous amount of action and hijinks with a bit of screwball comedy thrown in. But he made sure that his characters were allowed some genuine depth, and that anchors the film enough to allow its audience to identify with what they’re watching. That’s not to say that Escape from the 21st Century isn’t clumsy at times. It doesn’t even try to make sense of how the time travel works, and its messages can be quite heavy-handed at times. Despite any flaws, though, this film is far from brainless, and is certainly worth watching.