"Genome Hazard"

Ishigami (played byHidetoshi Nishijima) is having a bad day...huh, those names are pretty Japanese aren't they? "Genome Hazard" is another international co-production. The film is directed byKim Seong-suand the female lead is played byKim Hyo-jin. Other than those two central crew members and a plot arc that takes place in South Korea, this is predominantly a movie about Japanese people doing Japanese things like speaking in Japanese.

Anyway, everybody has bad days and Ishigami's is particularly weird. He discovers that his house is a crime scene then receives an impossible phone call then the authorities come to visit and nothing's making any sense. Through and through "Genome Hazard" is a mystery thriller, and like all in that genre its success depends on the answer to one essential question- does the ending make any sense at all?

Actually the ending makes quite a bit of sense. Almost too much sense, really, given the deliberate energy put into the basic story elements. A particularly imaginative person might see the inexplicable opening sequences and a mysterious title like "Genome Hazard" and start wondering, is Ishigami moving into a new reality? Is he changing reality? Is reality changing around him? What is real? Is reality itself even real?

Well, minor spoilers- it turns out everything in reality is still real. If you're the kind of person who insists on the craziest possible explanation for an already crazy series of events, "Genome Hazard" will probably be a disappointment. The background behind Ishigami's apparent mental instability actually turns out to be fairly coherent. The only reason he doesn't notice the weird stuff happening sooner is because of perfectly understandable behind the scenes machinations by very human interlopers.

Hey, if that sounds like a disappointment to you, imagine how Ishigami feels. All those thrilling escapes, that crazy chemistry, those endless interrogations for useful information- and all this for a revelation that doesn't even destroy the world as we know it? "Genome Hazard" takes a very oddly cynical view of science. It turns out that in the end all that crazy research wasn't really worth it after all. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but nope, looks like the best we humans can hope for in the end are mildly evil practical outcomes.

Overall "Genome Hazard" is a fine example of technically disappointing science fiction. It takes a crazy set-up and crazy science and manages to turn it into something boring and stupid. But I have a soft spot for this kind of storytelling because you know what? Life itself is boring and stupid most of the time. We're about as disappointed in the ending as Ishigami is at discovering the total sum of his life work was, well, pretty counterproductive. There's a dry humor to these revelations that's bittersweet as it is cathartic. While that might be a bit of a strange taste, there's always room in the film world for more strange novelties. And as strange novelties go, "Genome Hazard" is a pretty decent one.

Review by William Schwartz

"Genome Hazard" is directed byKim Seong-suand featuresHidetoshi NishijimaandKim Hyo-jin.