Claudio Carvalho In the early 21st Century, society is connected through the Cyberlink. All communication and monetary transactions occur within its sphere. The Cyberlink records the identities of all legalized citizens. Simplants provide criminal with alternative identities. Ident police and private headhunters track them down. In Entropolis, the efficient bounty hunter Dash MacKenzie (Genevieve O'Reilly) is hired by the big corporation boss Joseph Lau (David Warner) and his henchman Davinder Sandhu (Michael De Mesa) to hunt down his former employee Edward Chan (Gerald Chew). Edward has vanished after submitting to the state-of-art procedure neuromorphing. While seeking Edward out, Dash stumbles with Ident Detective Victor Huang (Luoyong Wang) and he warns her that someone might want to kill Edward, but she does not pay attention to him. Dash finds Edward but he is assassinated before telling her why he is hunted down. However his mistress Sylvia escapes from the killer. Soon Dash finds a clip and her biotech guru Julius Kui (Kay Siu Lim) stumbles with the truth and finds why Edward was murdered. Dash brings Victor to meet Julius and he shows Megacorp transactions in Sintawan to them. He explains that these five companies make up the total infrastructure and have total control over Cyberlink. They form a powerful consortium and play a game based on the ancient Chinese game Wei Chi. Sintawan is the playing field where they wage corporate war in accordance with the strategies of the five companies, manipulating the course of the society and everyone living here. Therefore the place is an illusion and nothing is what it seems and there is no distinction between the game and reality. Then Dash finds that they are all avatars. What will they do?"Cyber Wars" is an interesting film with a complex story. The plot has flaws and gives too much new information to the viewer; therefore the best to do is to watch the film again on the next day to understand better the details. Dash is an unpleasant character and Genevieve O'Reilly and Luoyong Wang are histrionic in certain moments and do not show any chemistry, but this combination of Matrix and Blade Runner entertains. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): Not available on Blu-Ray or DVD.

misbegotten Heavily influenced by the novels of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson, AVATAR (2004) is set in a near-future where 'the Cyberlink' - a next-generation version of the internet - dominates everything. People's DNA sequences are recorded onto the Cyberlink as soon as they're born, meaning that the system monitors where they are and what they're doing every second of every day for their entire lives. Money only exists electronically, linked to people's unique DNA profiles, so nobody carries cash or credit cards anymore - all transactions are conducted by swiping a hand over a scanner. All this means that crime is only possible if you possess a false identity, and therefore those who create, sell and buy such identities are cracked down on hard by the newly-formed Ident Police and private contractors. Amongst the latter group is female 'headhunter' Dash MacKenzie, who operates out of an Asian city-state. When she's employed by a major international corporation to find a missing person, the search eventually leads her to a worldwide conspiracy that affects all of humanity. AVATAR goes a highly effective job of introducing us to MacKenzie's complex, technology-heavy world, and the script is brimming over with clever ideas. I especially liked the trenchcoat with an in-built coolant system that Dash wears to cope with the city's sweltering heat, and the five-star hotel that is actually a rundown flea-pit hidden under a holographic makeover. Unfortunately, after a strong first hour, AVATAR descends during it's final thirty minutes into the kind of idiotic VR silliness that was common in the various Hollywood films that jumped on the LAWNMOWER MAN bandwagon in the mid-Nineties. It's a real pity, as until it's messy and unimaginative last half-hour, AVATAR was shaping up to be something very special indeed.

zzz05 Not bad, not bad at all. I gather this is Australian, at least in part, and it seems of a piece with the generally good quality of Australian films, at least those imported to the US compared with the US domestic product.As my title suggests, it combines general plot elements of Domino, The Matrix, and the general concept of Blade Runner; it doesn't try to outdo any of them, but instead is a somewhat stripped down, sleek SF action film, more in the spirit of Domino than the somewhat ponderous senses of The Matrix and Blade Runner, which had to set up the cyberpunk world that this movie can now take for granted.What's nice about it is a general lack of crap or cheesiness; actors are all good, including Joan Chen and William Sanderson, apparently a permanent fixture of the cyberpunk world since Blade Runner; dialogue is good; no cheesy effects, performances, dialogue, etc. I find this compares favorably with something like Freejack, which had the faint whiff of fromage floating about it, as well as Mad Max (the original) which was sort of obviously cartoonish.

hmsgroop Despite the fact that the film has been made very neatly, it is absolutely impossible to say what the film-makers wanted to say by this work. None of the characters arouses interest. Neither do they arouse compassion. Even in cyberpunk there MUST be vivid antagonists and protagonists. I strongly doubt that the film will enjoy box office success with the audience, as it appeals neither to the emotions, nor to the intellect. The film can boast of many special effects, but they contribute little to the atmosphere and the 'charm' of the film. The special effects are also a bit too common for the recent couple of years. There is a lot of rush and bustle, but it is not action. 2 out of 10 only because the crew DID work over it. Labour must be rewarded, anyway.