Taglines: The danger is all in his head.
Johnny Mnemonic movie storyline. In 2021, the whole world is connected by the gigantic Internet, and almost a half of the population is suffering from the Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS). Johnny with an inplanted memory chip in his brain was ordered to transport the over loaded information from Beijing to Newark. While Pharmakom Industries supported by yakuza tries to capture him to get the informaiton back, the Low-tech group led by J-Bone tries to break the missing code to download the cure of NAS which Johnny carries.
Johnny Mnemonic is a 1995 Canadian-American cyberpunk action thriller film directed by Robert Longo in his directorial debut. The film stars Keanu Reeves and Dolph Lundgren. The film is based on the story of the same name by William Gibson. Keanu Reeves plays the title character, a man with a cybernetic brain implant designed to store information. The film portrays Gibson’s dystopian view of the future with the world dominated by megacorporations and with strong East Asian influences. This was Dolph Lundgren’s last theatrically released film until 2010’s The Expendables.
The film was shot on location in Canada, with Toronto and Montreal filling in for the film’s Newark and Beijing settings. A number of local sites, including Toronto’s Union Station and Montreal’s skyline and Jacques Cartier Bridge, feature prominently. The film premiered in Japan on April 15, 1995, in a longer version (103 mins) that is closer to the director’s cut, featuring a score by Mychael Danna and different editing. The film was released in the United States on May 26, 1995.
About the Story
In 2021, Johnny is a “mnemonic courier” with a data storage device implanted in his brain, allowing him to discreetly carry information too sensitive to transfer across the Net, the virtual-reality equivalent of the Internet. While lucrative, the implant has cost Johnny his childhood memories, and he seeks to have the implant removed to regain his memories back; his handler, Ralfi assigns him one more job that would cover the costs of the operation (which are extremely expensive), sending Johnny to Beijing to deliver the latest information.
On the way to the job, in the elevator he uses a Pemex Memory Doubler to upgrade his memory capacity from 80 gigabytes to 160 gigabytes. At the designated place, he finds a group of frantic scientists watching anime who have the data he is to carry, but at 320 GB it far exceeds Johnny’s storage capacity, even with the use of compression folders to decrease the size of the information, and if he tries to upload the data in, the remaining amount of data will be uploaded directly in his brain, causing severe psychological damage and potentially, death. Johnny accepts anyway, in need of the money. After uploading their data, the group is massacred by Yakuza, but Johnny manages to escape with a portion of the encryption password.
After contacting Ralfi, Johnny returns to Newark and soon finds that two groups are after the data he carries. One is the international pharmacological company, Pharmakom, led by its United States executive, Takahashi, who believes the data to be critical to the company’s interests. The other is the Yakuza guided by Shinji, who wishes to deny this information to Takahashi and claim it for themselves. Johnny soon learns that Ralfi is in the Yakuza’s employ, and ready to kill Johnny to extract the data storage hardware. Jane, a cybernetically-enhanced bodyguard, helps Johnny to escape, and aided by the Lo-Teks, an anti-establishment group led by J-Bone, they elude their pursuers.
Jane takes Johnny to meet her friend and street doctor Spider who had installed Jane’s implants. In discussions, Spider reveals he and his allies at a local clinic were to be the recipients of Johnny’s data, supposedly Pharmakom’s unpublished cure for “nerve attenuation syndrome”, a plague ravaging mankind, due to the over-reliance on technology, and causing political strife.
Though Spider could remove Johnny’s implant, this may cause both the loss of this invaluable data as well as Johnny’s life; instead, Spider directs Johnny to Jones, who resides at Heaven, the Lo-Tek base built on the underside of a bridge. The clinic is soon invaded by the assassin Karl, the Street Preacher hired by Takahashi to retrieve Johnny’s head before Shinji can; Spider is killed while Johnny and Jane escape.
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Directed by: Robert Longo
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Dina Meyer, Barbara Sukowa, Henry Rollins, Ice-T, Udo Kier, Tracy Tweed, Falconer Abraham, Don Francks, Sherry Miller
Screenplay by: William Gibson
Production Design by: Nilo Rodis-Jamero
Cinematography by: François Protat
Film Editing by: Ronald Sanders
Costume Design by: Olga Dimitrov
Set Decoration by: Enrico Campana
Art Direction by: Dennis Davenport
Music by: Brad Fiedel
MPAA Rating: R for strong sci-fi violence, and for language.
Distributed by: TriStar Pictures
Release Date: May 26, 1995
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