I was lucky to see this in the theater in Japan. The title it was given was Kaze no Wakusei, which means Planet of the Wind. This was very interesting to me because I was very interested in Dune which was titled Suna no Wakusei in Japan, which means the Planet of the Sand. Since this was also a science fiction film, I thought it was some how related just a tiny bit. So I was very excited sitting in the theater waiting for it to start, expecting an unofficial sequel to Dune. This film was nothing like Dune, instead we basically get a film where the main characters are being chased by two ruthless bounty hunters. There were many memorable scenes in this film that still swarm in my imagination, perhaps because it's like a story I would expect to read in Heavy Metal magazine. The main character is like a fast talking con man, and it made me angry to see him flirt with the female bounty hunter. Mark Hamill does a great job as the ruthless male bounty hunter and the poison dart guns and use of antidotes was brilliant. The aircraft is very memorable, the kite scene was really bizarre but cool, the scene where a whole family is in the giant hot tub scene was a bit disturbing but once again another memorable scene. I really liked the scenes where they were flying through the valleys, for some reason I kept associating this film with the Orinoco Flow song from Enya, maybe in Japan they had the trailer with that song and it fit like a glove for me. The story kind of drastically changes when they arrive to the underground society, and then it comes to a rather abrupt ending which is definitely not the normal Hollywood formula. I like that this film isn't super violent, filled with gore. Seems to have a nomadic feel to it, I think the way it does it's cinema story telling is a success, and very underrated. Because the main character isn't the toughest guy in the film, I kind of see parallels to Ralph Fiennes character in Strange Days. I have to say that I enjoyed this film more than Strange Days, which is another very interesting sci-fi film.
Review of Slipstream
