Significantly and obviously inspired by anime, White Wall is a low-budget mix of martial arts, western and post-apocalyptic sci-fi. The latter is the genre it captures the best, as it cribs liberally from the standard apocalypse scenarios. Dystopian cities under military rule, the last arks for human civilization; all that's left after a deadly virus has turned most into the infected.
It's a decent time-tested premise. Combined with western kitsch and some kung fu fighting, it reads like a solid recipe for a fun flick. But this is one of those dishes that would increase, not sate, the appetite. In other words, when the credits roll, you're going to want to watch this movie again. Just maybe not this one.
Giving new meaning to "white wall," the film opens with several walls of text explaining the film's backstory. After human civilization is ruined by the virus VXII, a white wall is erected to seal off the three cities from the infected wasteland beyond it. The four remaining cities are controlled by a ruling militia, and people are as poor as ever.
That's not all. Child survivors of the VXII are put in the militia's internment camp for orphaned children and are forced to engage in death matches. Only five children survived this ordeal, and they are called Drifters. They are known to be incredible fighters.
But wait, there's more. Years pass, and no one knows where the Drifters are now, except one of them. Jude Black is now the leader of a terrorist group rebelling against the totalitarian military, and he is a very wanted man. And so our story begins.
Later, when we first meet our heroic drifter Shawn Kors (played by the movie's director/producer/editor James Boss), he's walking in slow-motion through an alley, while his voiceover tells us about his dark past... which we just read in the opening text. It's a hefty past that he has to tell us, so he takes his time walking through this alley, and lucky us, we get to see him make his way, from one end to the other, in its entirety.
That's the kind of directorial missteps that infests White Wall like a virus, weakening its strengths and making its flaws look worse. Despite the slick lensing (courtesy of Harris Charalambous, who also photographed one of my favorites from 2008, Deadgirl) and effective low-budget dressing (the streets of Burma double as futuristic slums), the film is simply all over the place and the script often stagnant, with a severe case of telling and not showing. It's more interested in having lengthy conversations that grind the film to a halt, often without any payoff.
Dense background aside, the actual plot itself is in the revenge mold. Shawn Kors, one of the Drifters, is now Good Will Hunting, working as a janitor at a medic center while trying to devise a cure for VXII; but a chance meeting with bounty hunter Dryden informs him that Jude Black's gang has killed one of the Drifters, and now they must go stop Jude Black's reign of terror. So much information for what's essentially little more than an excuse to get people to exchange blows (since that's the extent of the film's thrills).
And yet the fights manage to be as ill-paced as the story. James Boss embraces his editing skills more than his martial arts (I can't really tell if he's had training or not from the fight scenes). He does show plenty of knife juggling, though. Such close-combat is cool in its pragmatic efficiency, but keep it lasting too long and it ceases to be memorable. Compare it to the brevity of Equilibrium's fight choreography, and White Wall's just seems like it wants to show off more than it has.
Tumbling past the Mad Max-es and Doomsdays, White Wall reminds me most of another genrebending indie, Six-String Samurai, which was equally haphazard and cheese-laden, but has humor and originality to charm its way to the finish line. White Wall, with its grim disposition and generic nightmare scenario, has only its fight scenes to give it legs, but even those are all but atrophied in delivery.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The only extra aside from a trailer is an exhaustive 40-minute "Making of" documentary that interviews all the key members of the crew and shows off all the sketches and designs that went into the conception of the futuristic world. One thing that's touched upon is how the project came together under James Boss' insistence and first materialized as a short mock-trailer shot with a consumer camera around the LA area, which was made to secure enthusiasm for the feature project. It feels like an oversight that this original trailer is not included as a bonus feature.
What these guys did, risking their own money and valuable resources to actualize an implausible dream, is commendable and deserve praise. I just wish they have a good movie to show for all that work.
"White Wall" is on sale May 25, 2010 and is not rated. Action, Sci-Fi. Directed by James Boss. Written by Vivian Kyinn. Starring Aurelie Kyinn, Gary Kohn, James Boss, Michael Teh.
