Turbo

Hard to believe this is a film school short as the production values are pretty damn high. This film is a genre fusion of augmented reality computer gaming, martial arts and old school classic fight tournaments with some pretty decent performances. Set in a near future, the story features an underground tournament where contestants compete in an augmented reality martial arts game called Turbo. Those of you who are gamers, imagine an augmented reality version of Virtual Fighter (or Streetfighter) with your own life-like avatar, using your whole body as the controls, then throw in a Karate Kid storyline of a bullied boy trying to prove himself and a brother mentor that trains him to fight, and you have a predictable but highly enjoyable short flick. Why its so enjoyable is the movie knows its clichéd like hell but delivers it with style and a little self mocking wink.

Non gamers would enjoy this too for its kinetic energy, slick visuals, martial arts, cool soundtrack and good old boo the bad guy, cheer the good guy feel.

Being a film school production, I cant really say much bad things about it but I do agree with another reviewer on how fights are edited. Its a pity, the old school pan out long takes are not adopted these days. Having said that, the fights were were still enjoyable despite the fast edits.

To top it off the film ends with a superb end credit sequence that most Hollywood movies would envy.