True Skin may have come out a few years ago, but it’s lasting impact on me is always somewhere when I watch other cyberpunk films. It takes place in the distant future where it is said that people no longer want to be “organic, grow sick, grow old, and die”. It follows a man who is in Bangkok because he has come into possession of some classified files that the government is desperately searching for and will do anything to get it. Pretty simple, right?

For the next six minutes you’ll probably be more impressed with the visuals than you will the basic plot. They are as amazing by any standard and while some of them are probably fairly simple to create, there are moments they seem better than movies I watch that have billions of dollars at their disposal. It’s rather unfortunate that we haven’t heard more news after Warner Brothers picked it up to create a full length feature. To my knowledge they still have it under their ownership and maybe one day, like the Raven, we’ll see something more come from it. What is impressive is the visual field and scope we’re given when it comes to seeing human augmentation. If you’re a fan of the Ghost in the Shell series, you’ll recognize a lot of items including augmented eyes, limbs, even entire facial reconstruction including a few that are no longer recognizable as being human. There is also the fun little things such as animated gif like covers for magazines. A lot of little details that clearly defined what it was to be a human in this future opposed to being “organic” which was also used as a metaphor for economic class. The complete facial reconstruction of the protagonist set to a fun beat is something that I still look back upon as simple and easily memorable years later.

There isn’t necessarily a lot of meat to chew on other than the scenery and imagery, but it is still worth roughly seven minutes of your viewing time to take a look at a unique view of a bionic future. Encapsulated within it is a deeper web of electronic surveillance, which by this time has become passé but still integrated well into the story. There is also an interesting use of internet spam ads at the end. You can find out more about the short film at trueskinfilm.com.