Jeorge McChang's Rislow is the type of completely fictitious technopunk thriller that gives you cheap thrills after the first time you watch it, then a few days later, you start to feel awkward and uncomfortable upon contemplating some of its deeper messages. If you can motivate yourself to go for a second round — especially with a loved one — it subsequently leads to nervous brooding, a euphoria like the last day of school before summer break, and even a more level, reflective calm — although not necessarily in that order. But taken as a whole, it's a memorable, rewarding experience.

The meat isn't one we're altogether unfamiliar with: Rislow Rebon (Tomass Kwerk) arrives in Egniria, the bustling dockside town which is the thematic conjoined twin of Rindell, the home of all technopunk clichés. It's like the filmmakers figure, "Why strive for originality when you can mix everything this genre's experienced before as a blender, and puke it out as one glorious, Acticolor mix?" and that's exactly what happens. From the flying submarines with phantomic overdrive to the software liberators (aka pirates, arrr!) of Noon Song to the briefcase with superspace storage which I found really over the top, McChang & Co. pile on the tropes, archetypes, and outright rip-offs in one gloriously obese overdose of an alternate virtual reality.

To put the cherry on that digital sundae, we even get the mysterious babe-with-brains, Lynnix (Jhen I. Pher), who takes Rislow on a whirlwind tour of many exotic locations and the second chance at life that accompanies it. Let's not get sidetracked: this is, after all, first and foremost meant to be entertainment. But amidst all the nanoswordplay (there's surprisingly few guns in the flick), Rislow delivers the XKO on numerous counts.

Rislow's a single father who's moved to Egniria and is looking for work. He becomes what's dubbed as a "Gridsplorer", tasked with mapping out hotspots and not just cataloguing them, but giving his own unique interpretations of their possibilities in 6 months time. Much of the time, he's uncannily on-the-mark, so much that the leaders of the regionally dominant social powers, Community, want to elevate and kingmake Rislow into a mascot, a homegrown hero who breathes vibrancy into the populace and inspires them to greater heights. Sounds good, right? Not so much as you'd think — it turns out the big brass of Community are manipulating Rislow's talents, positioning him to take the brunt of the punishment from the oncoming onslaught of Rindell's Re:Search, popularly portrayed within Egniria as a stock "evil megacorp".

Fortunately, that's where Rislow starts to really shine: you would've thought someone did it earlier, but no — a massive company as the good guys, with the underdogs turning out to be foul, stinking, decrepit lowlifes? C'mon now. Well, that's exactly what happens here, and save some inconsistencies in characterization and moments that make less sense as head towards them and more sense as you get further into the narrative, it works really tightly on film. And why make that distinction? Because Rislow is loosely based on a subplot from Kern Turning, the technopunk novel and related short stories that popularized lifestyles based around "ambient suffering". In case you're wondering why the film is credited to McChang instead of the book's author, James Fletcher, it's because they're brothers, with the former having taken his wife's maiden name.

Plot twists which make sense in hindsight, sub chases, and a cascading string of mini-climaxes lead to a subtle-yet-mindblowing drencher of an endgame scene, filmed in Re:Search's HQ by way of New Cornwall's Tri-Towers. Your psychic energy is well-spent pondering over both the broad strokes and finer subtleties of each moment, with allusions to an oeuvre of technopunk heritage being earnestly placed. What's especially impressive is how each superficial, showy quip appears to be ballasted by a more down-to-earth, sober quote. Take Rislow's stock-and-clock barking of:

"… if I could have all the fatherf@#$ing keys to the kingdom, there'd still be doors I wouldn't open!"

and contrast that with his later observation that:

"I look up at every arch I walk through, in case it falls down on me."

And true to the spirit of essential technopunk films, Rislow boasts an effusive, emotive, electronic soundtrack, primarily scored by Goth-Bohemian Rizzer Salò and the Damned Souls. The music is bombastic where it needs to be, appropriately mellifluous to fill in the action, and absent at times, to let space tell the story. In tandem with cinematographer Jiffrey Redgio's (Coffeeandcreamsi) time-lapse skies framing the characters, you can't but feel good about watching this, even during the more painful moments of Rislow's own perverted variant on the hero's journey.

If you're going to see one movie this summer, make it Rislow. And yes, you can quote me on that.