现代白蛇艳潭

　　年轻貌美的美国科学家琳达（布丽·拉尔森 饰），被公司总裁葛根（唐纳·苏德兰 饰）派往印度销售她所培育的“9号稻米”。初次来到印度的琳达饱受文化冲击，还好有当地年轻官僚威廉的协助，让她可以在那边安心地边研究边销售。此时，她遇到一位因为缴不出学费而辍学的大学生罗杰（乌特卡什·安邦德卡尔 饰），两人在研究与争执过程当中陷入热恋，罗杰也帮她发现被派往印度的丑陋内幕……原来她想要帮助印度农民的研究成果，竟不知不觉地被无良的葛根滥用，即将对农民造成毁灭性的伤害…琳达该要如何阻止这场灾难？而她与罗杰的异国恋又将会开花结果吗？

　　这部灾难影片背景以现代日本为中心，主要描写东京突然被一股莫名的浓雾所笼罩，整个都会好像一下子消失了似的，各地政府及科研人员因此极为震惊，急忙组织起来研究对策。但是人们却无法穿越浓雾进入东京首都圈。这场浓雾形成了一个无法穿越的电磁屏障。而圈外的科学家们则在受损严重的军用侦察机上得到灵感，利用即将到来的台风和雷暴雨，加上人工大功率电磁干扰机，终于化解了这场戏剧般的非自然危机。　　这原本该是一个不错的富有戏剧张力的构思，但拍出来的片子却教人不敢叫好，剧中女记者的角色刻划不具感染力，而她和男记者之间时好时坏的关系描写也让人感觉莫名其妙，确是让观众感觉象一场雾。

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.