Is Super Me (超级的我) a dissertation on the human ego? Or is it just one messy film that has no clue what it’s going for?
Super Me (超级的我) Synopsis
Sang Yu is a down-and-out scriptwriter, driven to suicide too because whenever he sleeps, he suffers nightmares in which he dies gruesomely. His sad life, however, undergoes a drastic change when he learns how to snap out of the nightmares, in the process, also bringing the treasures in those dreams into the real world. Suddenly rich beyond belief, Sang Yu next goes about pursuing the love of his life. Little does he realise, though, that a new set of horrors awaits him down the road. The clueless man is hardly free of his nightly torments.
Snappy Review
Allow me to brag. I seldom have to google for …. ending explained write-ups after watching a movie.
Oh, I do search for clarifications now and then after watching a show; for example, after Tenet. But in all cases, it’s to confirm whether my interpretations are correct. Or should I say, alongside the mainstream understandings.
Super Me is the first movie in a long time for which I had to google for an actual explanation because I just couldn’t make head or tails of WTH was going on in the last leg. The final chapter was akin to a dream atop a nightmare, with another nightmare floating above. It’s rather Inception-like, so to speak, but without any elucidation or intelligence involved. It’s just gory horror and meaningless mysteries in one stretch.
Which is a thick disappointment because this Netflix C-movie begins as a good-looking one, full of glossy, poster-worthy moments in the first half. While I wouldn’t say lead Darren Wang was anywhere near exemplary with his performance, he did put across the impression of a clueless man just floating with the supernatural mishaps in his life. Some of the supporting cast, for example, Cao Bing Kun, occasionally shine with their respective greasiness, or nastiness, too.
All very disappointing, to repeat. And borderline turn-off in the final moments when the script flashily throws in Freudian concepts about the Id and Ego. (Thus why my one-liner above)
Completely inexplicable too because nowhere in the movies is there any hint as to why Sang Yu is being tormented this way. Or what on earth that dream world is. (A world which Sang Yu could eventually manipulate, even determine the setting of)
One suspects that the producers were trying their hand at some sort of Nolan story with this. But baffled themselves silly before halfway through.
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 review. This glossy Chinese movie on Netflix is like a well-plated dish. But one with nothing tasting the way it should.){kind=link}