Escape From the 21st Century is certainly a sight to behold; an unrelentingly wacky and stylized Chinese sci-fi comedy that owes its existence to the same Stephen Chow classics that, along with other Hong Kong legends, were lovingly referenced in 2022's Everything Everywhere All At Once. People aren't unjustified in comparing Escape From the 21st Century (whose wacky captions and animated emphases have also yielded comparison to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) to EEAAO, though I would urge them to check out the Chow titles that inspired both works.
In this film, we meet three friends who discover that sneezing -- yes, sneezing -- causes their consciousnesses to travel 20 years into the future, where they remain until they sneeze once again and return to their young bodies. They decide to meet up in their future bodies and discover what sort of lives they lead, and all manner of cartoonish hilarity and high-speed action ensue, especially when our heroes start trying to influence fate. And yes, in EEAAO fashion, it winds up being a sincerely poignant tale about life, destiny, and what-could-have-been that escalates in one humdinger of a climax.
The film does get a bit exhausting at points, and it probably throws too much at us, not just in terms of style (the aforementioned captions, the cartoon physics, the random animations, the aspect ratio shifts that sometimes denote a jump through time but other times seem haphazard), but also in terms of its sci-fi premise.
I haven't yet mentioned that the film actually takes place on another planet, which adds little save for lore about the various pop culture figures and wildlife our heroes are familiar with. It mostly looks like Earth, so what's the point, you may wonder? Was this done because audiences wouldn't buy that a magical frog, whose toxins are what imbue the heroes with their time-travel powers, and killer androids could exist on our planet? Well, as it turns out, it was done to circumvent censorship from the Chinese government, as the film doesn't really depict modern China, but rather Planet K.
The set pieces and presentation choices are ambitious, but sometimes awkwardly executed/edited. Often things move too quickly, especially by the start. Regardless, this is the sort of filmmaking we ought to cherish. To quote a Letterboxd review: "Genres, frame shapes, effects, styles, pacing. All played with. It's a breakneck bombardment of hodgepodge ideas and stimulation. And you know what, it kind of works. And even when it doesn't, it's fun to still see them try."
