Killer Hacker

The film is not all bad, it has it's charm but the good parts are too few and far between. The acting is generally very unconvincing, still Bai Ling and Alec Newman are more or less OK most of the time. Parry Shen is awful and overacts all the time, a shame since he has a big role in the movie.

The story is weak with terrible plot holes. The emotional development is rushed and very hard to relate to. Bai Lings hard core assassin with a yearning for romance feels like two characters pushed into the same person.

The CGI is very sub-par for a movie made in 2007, I've seen Xbox 360 games with more realistic graphics.

The movie seems to rely entirely on Bai Lings push-up costumes and she is heavily exploited throughout the movie.

The worst part, however, is the pretentious artsy cuts and slow scenes that wants to make this movie into a cult classic, all of which feels embarrassing considering the apparent weaknesses of the narration, pacing, acting and CGI.

Watch it if you're a sucker for the genre, like I am. But keep your fast forward button handy.

I'm a fan of sci-fi and I love both the steam punk and cyberpunk/cybergoth sense of aesthetics. As such I should love this film, right? I guess I should, but unfortunately "The Gene Generation" is much too sub-par for me to remotely like it.

The plot is an incohesive and boring mess, the editing is clumsy, the characters are undeveloped and uninteresting, the special effects are laughable, the acting is not worth mentioning, the action scenes are worthless, etc. I didn't expect much from a film this obscure, but "The Gene Generation" really blew away any expectations I had to leave only continuous nay-shaking behind.

The only reason why I'm not giving this film a bottom rating of 1/10 is because the soundtrack was somewhat enjoyable and matched the intended cyberpunk/cybergoth atmosphere and the outfits matched the soundtrack. Watch this film only if you're a hardcore fan of either EBM or cyberpunk/cybergoth and you don't give a damn about this film having any quality at all.

The plot: A beautiful, female assassin fights against DNA hackers, who kill people by hacking into their body.

I think that Pearry Teo and I would get along really well. We seem to have the same taste in books, movies, and music. We both like dark, surreal fantasy/horror and gritty cyberpunk. His movies are filled with references to all the things that I like. The problem is that The Gene Generation is a rather shallow pastiche of gothy cyberpunk themes, with no real attempt at cohesion. While full of creative ideas, visually striking scenes, and attractive people in cool poses, it's also a jumbled mess. The pacing is just terrible, making the movie sometimes feel like it's three hours long.

I love everything about The Gene Generation, except the actual movie itself. This leaves me at a loss as to how to rate the movie. With some faster pacing, less exploitation, and tighter writing, this could have been amazing. But, then again, couldn't you say that about any movie? "If only it had been better, it would have been good!" I liked Necromentia better than The Gene Generation, so I think that he's improving. As far as a debut goes, I think this isn't bad... but it's still a bit of a rough watch. In the end, I recommend The Gene Generation only to genre fans, who are more likely to forgive its faults.

A cheap cyberpunk thriller with very little to recommend it, THE GENE GENERATION is for all intents and purposes an amateur film. It features the ever-glamorous Bai Ling (DUMPLINGS) as a female assassin/fighter whose appearance and style is clearly indebted to characters like Milla Jovovich in the RESIDENT EVIL series.

Ling goes around dispatching various goons who threaten the wellbeing of her geeky brother. There's not much more plot to it than that, although the inclusion of some goofy CGI tentacle effects was a poor choice on the part of the filmmakers because they're lamentable. As you can guess, I wasn't a huge fan of THE GENE GENERATION, which is so poorly achieved as to be difficult to watch.

The whole film is far too dark which renders any action sequences rather pointless as you can't see what's meant to be going on. Ling's presence in the film is merely an excuse for her to fit into as many form-fitting and revealing costumes as is humanly possible. As for the random Faye Dunaway cameo, your guess is as good as mine...

It's really a shame, that the movie does not live up to what you might expect it to be. That is generally speaking of course and I'm also talking about the general view of it, here on IMDb. I wouldn't go as far as another reviewer went on here, but to be quite honest, there are too many flaws to overlook here.

Bai Ling might be the best thing here ... on second thoughts, maybe the daring approach to the visual style might be the best thing. Bai Ling is either having problems with the language or the script. Maybe both. But she never convinces in her role, which is very pivotal, especially because she is trying to give that character back-story and emotions. Which quite frankly, never works.

So visually quite nice, but on every other level, really not so good. As tastes go, you never know though, but I couldn't recommend this