David and Ian Purchase are commercial directors out of Toronto. Last year, the duo started working on a web series which they adapted from one of the best games of the last few years, “Half Life”. I’m not overly familiar with the game other than to know that it was one that kept hubby up for endless hours of on-line play but watching this 5 minute film, video games are the last thing on my mind.
The project started as a testing ground for post production techniques and a spec commercial to shop around their talents but it seems to have gotten out of hand and expanded into a full blown web series. The first two episodes were apparently filmed with “no money, no time, no crew, no script” and a budget of $500. I guess when you know what you’re doing, $500 goes an awful long way because this thing is bloody impressive!
The duo is apparently working on their first full feature but you don’t have to wait to see their work in action. To stay up to date on future episodes of “Escape from City 17” and to check out some of their other work (I particularly love the “Coke Babies”), subscribe to their YouTube channel.
In the depths of Hong Kong, where cramped quarters are a given and American Government control seems slightly thwarted, reside a number of individuals who are running from a government organization simply referred to as “Division”. You see, these folks have super powers and they’re hiding to avoid being recruited into the folds of the secret agency and being turned into guinea pigs. With the help of a few other specially powered folks, Nick (a “Mover”) and Cassie (a “Watcher”) try to find a woman (a “Pusher”), the only individual ever to have escaped from the grasps of Division, and a drug she’s carrying; a drug that will somehow lead to salvation.
The story is simple enough: man robs train inadvertently stealing a map to hidden treasure. Said map is being hunted by a group of bad ass bandits while the thief is being tracked by a bounty hunter. The result is a comedy of errors where everyone is tracking the same guy for different reasons. It sound convoluted but Ji-woon Kim and Min-suk Kim’s script is anything but, making excellent use of the pre-conceived expectations that audiences have going in and using them to their full advantage. You already know the plot, it’s how it unfolds that matters. The resulting film is a wild ride of genre mixing which goes well beyond Takashi Miike’s 
