Escape From the 21st Century is the gorgeous, energetic, and completely unpredictable love child of Scott Pilgrim, The Terminator, and a John Hughes movie. Set on an Earth-like planet way out in the galaxy, three teenagers acquire the ability to time travel 20 years into the future. But this isn’t your traditional type of time travel. When they jump, their teenage bodies go limp in 1999 and that consciousness goes into their older selves in 2019. Hence the title.
At first, Escape is played for humor. It leans into how it’s weird that these 40-year-old men now don’t know what’s going on and act like clueless teenagers. Quickly, though, things get a bit more serious. The trio, best friends at one time, no longer keep in touch in the future. Even so, their lives are linked in very important ways, so the teenage versions of their older selves explore that, eventually uncovering a plot that puts both timelines in danger.
Because it’s set in a not-quite-our reality, everything about Escape From the 21st Century is heightened. Everyone is an excellent martial artist. People jump in slow motion. Drugs have different effects. It creates a world we’re desperate to learn more about, but also completely cool with almost anything happening in.
The friends also have a fantastic dynamic. 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 shifts drastically in 2019 and, again, creates tensions and questions for everyone to answer. Plus, as tends to be the case 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 uses lots of high contrasts interspersed with bright colors to keep the film lively. He even throws some animation into the live-action action to showcase the powers of the characters. The video game Street Fighter II plays an important part in the story and the game’s classic tone, style, and look permeate pockets of the movie.
The most fascinating thing about Escape from the 21st Century though is that the thing that’s kind of bad about it is also what’s amazing about it. In many ways, it’s a tonal mess. Things go from goofy and playful at one point, to intense and dark in another. But Li slowly finds a perfect balance between the two, almost like a person on a balance beam who loses their footing but rights themselves before hitting the ground. The result is a movie that you don’t think is going to be particularly emotional or powerful beyond its fun idea, but in the end, really delivers.
Escape from the 21st Century is a blast. It’s messy and it’s weird, but it’s so earnest and well-made that it coalesces in a truly lovely way. The film recently played at Fantastic Fest 2024. It has U.S. distribution, but not a release date.
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