THE STORY – Once upon the year 1999, on a planet very much like our own — only 3,000 light years away — three teenagers find themselves plunging into chemical waste that imbues them with a unique ability: when they sneeze their consciousness travels 20 years into the future. With their sinuses now propelling them to and fro in time, they are burdened with two precepts: the future sucks, and they have power to change it.
THE CAST – Ruoyun Zhang, Chuxi Zhong, Yang Song, Xiaoliang Wu & Chenhao Li
THE TEAM – Yang Li (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 98 Minutes
A great concept is never enough to sustain a full-length feature film on its own, but it can hook an audience enough to suck them into getting what you think they need, in addition to what they want. Witness Yang Li’s “Escape From the 21st Century,” which has a killer concept – a group of teenagers develop the ability to sneeze themselves back and forth in time by 20 years – that is only a small part of the whole of its vision. Taking a sci-fi-flavored martial arts comedy and wrapping it around a coming-of-age story, Li’s film is so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s a blast of midnight movie madness with surprising emotional resonance.
Planet K is just like Earth, except that there are only 12 hours in a day, meaning there’s not much time for best friends Paopao (Qixuan Kang), Wang (Yichen Chen), and Chengyon (Zhouzhao Li) to spend together outside of school. One day in 1999, the boys ended up swimming in a chemical spill that gave them the ability to sneeze themselves backward for 20 years and come back when they sneeze again. In the future, Paopao (Leon Lee) is no longer the fat one, Chengyong (Yang Song) is a badass enforcer for a large company, and Wang (Ruoyun Zhang) is a photographer working with investigative journalist Liu Lianzhi (Elane Zhong). Together, they try to meet up in the future and save each other from the terrible fate of not becoming what they expected to be when they were younger, only to learn that their adult lives are more complicated than they seem. Trapped as teenagers in their adult bodies, they must save each other as their poor decisions catch up with them, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
There’s plenty of fun to be had with the concept of time traveling by sneezing, and director Li comes up with clever visuals. The fight scenes have a comic book sensibility to them, which adds to the film’s zany energy, and Li exerts strong control over the film’s tone, ensuring it never becomes too much. It’s a lot – with almost always something visually interesting happening – but it never feels overwhelming. Li ensures the film always remains focused on its emotional core: The relationship between the three protagonists.
Both sets of actors have great chemistry and match the performance style of their counterparts with ease. As the film continues and the plot gets wackier, the actors give increasingly physical performances, and watching them transform into more powerful, competent fighters is both fun and dramatically satisfying. Very little here is done with a straight face, but the audience is always laughing along with the characters, never at them. As the boys grow and learn more about the adult world, they also learn what’s most important to them, resulting in a genuinely sweet, emotionally resonant narrative. The fact that this occurs in the middle of so much visual exuberance and silliness is an impressive testament to Li’s strength as a director.
Despite the care taken with the story on a thematic level, the plot itself is so dense with incidents that it can become difficult to track. Bouncing back and forth between timelines and actors gives the audience a lot to keep track of, and even though it’s done well, the film can feel like a whirlwind, sucking you up and spinning you around for long stretches before giving you a lull in which to catch your breath. “Escape From the 21st Century” is a lot of fun, but it requires a great deal of investment to get the most out of it. If you can do that, you’ll be treated to one of the most maximalist midnight movie experiences you could ask for.