Tag: Cyberpunk

Fists, Fangs, and Fantasia: God Skin Delivers an Insane Take on AR Fighting

MMA collides with augmented reality in God Skin, a Thai action film where underground fighters unleash animal-based abilities inside a technologically enhanced arena.

God Skin Movie PosterWhen a movie such as God Skin (หมัดเทวา ท้าเดิมพัน) gets to make its world premiere at Fantasia Film Festival ahead of its own native release in Thailand, I hope what’s presented is more closer to what director Paween Purijitpanya wanted than the workprint I examined ahead of time. And for a proper North American distribution, I can’t wait to see what the final print will look like. That kind of stuff can’t be rushed, especially when the homage to many fighting games are key to this film.

There’s a lot to pack into this action-video game cum MMA movie, so expectations are high. And although there’s a story behind why people are participating in this combat sport, what I was more attracted to is what this movie delivers as theories on how augmented reality fighting games should really look when the right technology is available.

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Junk World Trades Junk Head’s Mystery for a Cybertech Nightmare

Takahide Hori’s Junk Head trades solo obsession for a bigger crew and a wilder, messier mythology — worms, cults, time loops, and all. As a prequel, some viewers will appreciate how it sedges into Junk World, but perhaps its best to see the two back to back.

Junk World Movie PosterFor those new to Takahide Hori‘s surreal stop-motion science fiction masterpiece, Junk World is the prequel to Junk Head. Even if you haven’t seen the middle film of the trilogy, thankfully there isn’t much you need to know going in. What gets explained about the Mulligans, robots made by humans to serve as slave labour droids who eventually rebelled, covers the basics, and as for why one droid has declared himself god at the start of the film, well, that’s the mystery.

It seems one of them didn’t fully evolve beyond its programming. His name is Robin (Souko Matsuoka) and he’s loyal to Captain Torys (Atsuko Miyake), who leads a team of humans to a summit to negotiate new terms. That’s how the moment felt to me, anyway. The rest of the film goes through the motions of showing just how fragile that peace is, while introducing new threats along the way. And the timeline gets muddled fast, with time-travel jumps back and forth that had me feeling lost more than once.
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Cosmic Princess Kaguya: Far Too Genki For My Tastes

But if you like J-pop anyways, Cosmic Princess Kaguya features all the teen angst needed to reimagine the classic tale for a cyber-generation.

Cosmic Princess KaguyaNetflix

In a not too distant future, there’s a musical avatar known as Cosmic Princess Kaguya who wants freedom from where she came from. This digital figure isn’t just data. Instead, this individual is sentient, and bears no semblance to the figure and version of the story I loved more. Studio Ghibli holds all the cards here, and tried as I did to watch this lengthy film written by Saeri Natsuo and directed by Shingo Yamashita, the vibe leans more on being hyperactive.

Here, shades of Cyberpunk: Edgerunner exists when Iroha (Anna Nagase) finds a program she wasn’t meant to discover. Enter Kaguya (Yuko Natsuyoshi), a program developed to monitor the Lunar base’s oxygen and power grids. After The Lunar Corporate Council realizes this code is missing, they’re out to get her back, and in the meantime, Kags hopes to find a body she can inhabit so she can be free.

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Altered Turns Cyberpunk Eugenics Into a Quiet, Uneasy Family Drama

Director Timo Vuorensola trades spectacle for restraint in Altered, a mutant-versus-normal sci-fi drama led by a committed Tom Felton performance that keeps the film emotionally afloat.

Altered (2025) Starring Tom FeltonWell GO USA
Spoiler Alert

Tom Felton gives it his all in a cyberpunk eugenics drama about a fractured society where mutants and normals exist in constant tension. Altered marks a shift from what Timo Vuorensola, best known for Iron Sky, usually delivers. Instead of pulpy action excess, this film leans into a youth-focused formula, with Felton firmly at its centre. He plays Leon, a paraplegic mechanic who moonlights as a cat burglar while acting as a father figure to Chloe, played by Liza Bugulova.

Their bond is established quickly through necessity. She distracts, he sneaks, hacks systems, and steals crystalline energy sources that power advanced technology. Living outside the city, they survive by relying on each other in a world where people either fend for themselves or form uneasy alliances. The dynamic is effective, and their mutual dependence carries the film from beginning to end.

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Tron Ares and the Digital Prometheus — Where Power, Instinct, and Life Converge.

Beneath the neon hum of TRON Ares, a digital weapon awakens to consciousness and compassion. This essay traces Ares’s journey from code to empathy, blending film lore, philosophy, and speculative science to ask who has the right to play god—and what a “soul” means in a wired world.

Tron Ares Teaser PosterBeneath the neon hum of The Grid, TRON Ares pulses with something ancient—the spark of creation itself. What begins as a digital showdown becomes a parable about consciousness and compassion. There’s a self-awareness that develops as the cold, mechanical Ares slowly becomes more human while learning about the physical world. From purpose to the meaning of life, these are the same questions explored in Frankenstein and Terminator 2.

This film is not merely a story of machines rebelling against their creators—it’s a meditation on what happens when human-made creations begin to question existence itself. Julian Dillinger’s reference to Pinocchio when Ares changes sides should not be dismissed.

Parallel Code: TRON Meets Terminator

Ares’s humanity doesn’t emerge until he enters the Encom servers and glimpses Eve’s life unfold. The data he retrieves has an unintended effect on the Master Control program. When advanced AIs are coded to learn from their environments—maliciously or not—who’s to say a glitch won’t form? Even the recent games, Tron: Identity and Catalyst, consider problems occuring within the Grid. They are not essential for the franchise, but for enthusiasts wanting to embrace every bit of lore offered, they are worth checking out.

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TRON Ares. Is It An Epic Return to the Grid in Disney’s Long Delayed Revival?

After years in development, TRON Ares finally hits the Grid. This third film doesn’t reboot the system, but honours the legacy of the original with stunning visuals, a soulful digital antihero, and echoes of Frankenstein in a world learning how to dream.

Poster for TRON AresSpoiler Alert

Despite the long wait and troubled production history, TRON Ares is finally here. What this third film (fifth in the narrative timeline) honours is the franchise’s beginings through some fun Easter Eggs. As this tale continues more from of the 1982 original, rather than the second film, TRON Legacy, some fans will be disappointed. However, as long as this side story does well in the box office, the chances to explore where Sam and Quorra went might get answered!

Although this entry trades philosophy for spectacle ala Terminator 2 through much of its runtime, what it offers is still respectful in what the franchise is about. At its core, it still invites us to imagine what life might be like inside the Grid—or, if you prefer, The Matrix, since the parallels are undeniable.

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