Film Review | 'Upgrade': How should I live with my body?

Upgrade is a film that is ostensibly about a man who gets caught up in a conspiracy to avenge his wife with the help of a smart brain chip, but it is really about how to live with your body.
The thing about getting along with one's own body is that it is something that individuals can do well. We are born with the ability to tap our fingers on a keyboard, pedal a bicycle, dart under a basketball hoop, carry a strong defender and put the ball in the basket. It is a human instinct to be friendly with one's body.
But this is limited to normal circumstances. In films, there are often protagonists whose bodies become unusual because of some abnormal situation. Take, for example, Golda (Jason) Statham in Fury Road, who keeps his adrenaline at a high level because of poison. Then there's the cop in RoboCop, who gets a cool steel suit of armour out of thin air because of technology. In addition to this, Iron Man, Batman and many other heroes in the Marvel Universe have also gained extraordinary abilities in their bodies for various reasons.
When the body has a certain ability, it becomes a question of how to accept it. There is a process by which people go about accepting their superpowers. Generally speaking, this process is divided into three stages. They first doubt it, for example in Spider-Man, the first thing the hero does after being bitten by a spider and gaining superpowers is to go to the rooftop and try out his spider's silk. Then there is acceptance, for example in Superman, made by Christopher Reeve in 1978, when Carl, the farmer's son, runs happily above a field and then overtakes a train after he discovers he is Superman. Finally, there is application, such as in the film to be discussed today - 'Upgrade' - when the protagonist Gray's first thought is to avenge his dead wife after he discovers that a wise brain not only restores his body but also enhances his powers in certain ways.
After Carl discovers that he is Superman, he runs happily through a field and then overtakes a train
Once one has accepted one's abilities, the next question is how to live with them. This question is like that of man and the external temptations of money and power; it is a fraught dialectical process. Does the person use the ability, or does the ability enslave the person?
With superpowers, dark thoughts inside that would otherwise be impossible to realise have the chance to come true. The human being is a complex creature, complex in the sense that there is a Pandora's Box inside each person, a subconscious ego that lurks in the subconscious, an animalistic self.
To restrain this instinctive force, there are laws, police, prisons. Punishments are used to keep this instinct locked up in the subconscious so that no one dares to cross the line. But when one has superpowers, this restraint from society becomes weak. Like Wolverine, he could easily take down a helicopter with just a pair of steel claws.
When social constraints fail, the only thing that supers can rely on is self-restraint. After having superpowers, they usually choose one of two paths. One is the path of a comic book hero, who is well in control of his powers and uses them to save the world and be a hero. The other path is to be enslaved by the ability, like Venom in the Marvel Universe, corrupted by an alien host, or like the protagonist of this film, who, while avenging his wife, is controlled by the Homunculus and gradually gets caught up in its machinations.
The protagonist of this film, in revenge for his wife, is controlled by the Homunculus and gradually falls into its machinations
The theme discussed in this film is how to live with a body that has superpowers of its own. This is by no means just empty talk like Wei Jin's famous scholar, but has great practical relevance, as the 21st century is a biological century.
In 2012, the first gene therapy drug Glybera was approved for marketing in the EU.
in 2016, a medical team used gene therapy to inject Eliza O'Neill, a young American girl, with a harmless virus called AVV, thereby controlling the symptoms of a rare genetic disease she suffers from, Schaeferlippo syndrome type IIIA
In 2017, Patrick Paumen, a Dutch hacker who came to the China Internet Security Conference, sparked attention by having fourteen chips implanted in his body, using which he could interact with various electronic devices such as access control systems and smartphones.
Gene therapy, biohacking, these biology-based technologies are increasingly coming into our view. It is possible to envisage that in the future there will be super technologies that can transform the human body, such as the implantation of firearms in the arms and the extraction of visual information from the pupils, as described in the movie "Upgrade". But when these super-technologies do appear and are implanted in the human body, are humans really ready to live with their own super-powered bodies? This is the question that the film raises.
Of course, apart from telling a story about how to get along with your body, the film, too, goes into great detail about the future. For example, voice control, virtual reality, the gap between rich and poor, the anti-technology party ...... The director doesn't point the camera specifically at these things, they're all flashes of light, but it's through this slapdash nod to detail that it gives us a comprehensive, believable and stable future, and that's what makes this film outstanding.