NEMESIS

   Film (1993). Shah/Jensen and Imperial Entertainment. Prod Ash R. Shah, Eric Karson and Tom Karnowski; dir Albert Pyun; screenplay Rebecca Charles; starring Olivier Gruner, Tim Thomerson, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Merle Kennedy. 96 mins. Colour.

   This very violent, low-budget, straight-to-video, exploitation action-adventure movie, directed by straight-to-video specialist Pyun, has one element of sf interest. At a time when, despite all the publicity given to them, CYBERPUNK themes are barely impinging on the "respectable" end of the film business, parts of poverty row are embracing them. In N, bio-enhanced gangsters, anti- CYBORG terrorist groups, machine cops, a lovely dead woman encoded on a data chip, and third world police forces take part in an almost unfathomable series of shoot-outs in the information-saturated world of 2027, where the largest information cartel consists of US/Japan. Hawaii is passed off as Java, and ethnic Chinese unconvincingly represent Indonesians. Though theacting is below par, the dialogue is largely four-letter words and nothing in the plot goes beyond cyberpunk stereotypes, at least the attempt was made.

   PN