Take a Strange Moment

Let’s just take a brief moment to enjoy the beautiful strangeness, that is the work of animator Peter Chung.

The Iconic Æon Flux title image

I discovered the work of Peter Chung in the early 90’s, with a serialised short animation, as part of the experimental anthology series Liquid Television. Each original chapter an exercise in surreal action/sci-fi that teased out a story that was compelling, exciting and a little weird.

A leather clad spy makes her way through an oppressive, vaguely eastern bloc complex to take out a stereotypical looking dictator. On her way to his lair at the top of a tower, she leaves mountains of bodies in her a wake. Escaping extreme situation after next, courtesy of a machine-gun and her preternatural athleticism.

The mysterious spy

With each segment the viewer is given a glimpse of a rapidly changing narrative, extreme violence is shown opposite sexualised, lightly kink flavoured scenarios. The faceless storm troopers, gunned down at the opening are unexpectedly humanised and the story concludes with the main character falling to her death by way of a stray nail in her boot heel. Her body and home remotely detonated and destroyed by a distant operator. The evil dictator is revealed to be dead and an additional character we’ve had teased throughout the segments, a rakish blonde man, cures an insect spread plague (but not before getting intimate with his assistant and a nurse).

The story doesn’t just end there, the blonde man becomes the leader of his nation and the spy is revealed to have gone to heaven, where a blue man indulges her foot fetish needs.

Yeah, you read that right.

This was Æon Flux and I was hooked.

World building and innovative story telling at its finest, the series told an expansive story through the agent’s journey, setting up two opposing sides, a dictator and a killer virus, kinky character back stories and all without one word of dialogue. It’s an impressive feat and more memorable for the stylistic approach that became a hallmark of Chung’s work.

An example of the over the top violence of War

To keep things interesting the following 5 episodes of the fetishised character consisted of more surrealistic adventures. Each one ending with her death by different means. Such as gunshot, hanging, being eaten by an alien and head injury.This became something of a trademark of the show.

Getting weird in the episode Leisure

The as yet unnamed blonde man in a compromising situation

The set ups changed but the uniquely coifed, leather clad agent and the rakish blonde man were a constant, but their rivalry subtly changing. With the final episode in what was dubbed season 2 titled ** War ** the main character was dispatched in under a minute and a sprawling battle unfolded, focusing on a series of new characters that ultimately died as the story progresed. Imagery of stylised soldiers engaging in bloody battle was a constant and sandwiched in-between were the mild doses of kink. Creating something strange yet wonderful.

The swordsman from War

The shorts always left me wanting more, so I was overjoyed to find the follow up 10 episode series, now with dialogue and 22 minute episodes. It was just as weird as the shorts but a little less risqué. Our secret agent was confirmed as the titular character and her ongoing adversary, the rakish blonde man was dubbed Trevor Goodchild. They were from opposing countries, one side a totalitarian state the other an anarchistic force.

Trevor Goodchild

Each episode stood alone but featured the love/hate relationship between Æon and Trevor, with supporting casts of agents, aliens, monsters, a demigod and assorted weirdos. From a story telling perspective, what made the show special was the moral ambiguity of the characters. There were no good or bad sides, they just inhabited a world where launching the head of a blue god into space by rocket was normal. It was genuinely fresh.

The head of the Demiurge

The art style was a combination of crisp industrial backdrops butted against organic abstract spaces, while long languid characters interacted before them. It was often surreal, sinister and a little dark.

Entrance to a secret room in the episode Utopia or Deuteranopia

Overall, I’d recommend it to somebody wanting something completely different, and it’s a must for any animator as a source of inspiration, setting high bar for independent quality in animated storytelling.

There was a live action movie and a couple failed console games but they weren’t particularly good

At the same time as the series was being produced, Chung also created an MTV promo and a Pepsi commercial that featured Malcolm McDowell and Cindy Crawford.

Chung followed with an anime series titled Arekusandā Senki or Reign: The Conqueror, a Korean / Japanese co-production that retold the historical epic of Alexander the Great in a fantasy/sci-fi setting (it’s not remotely historically accurate, but it’s pretty fun), complete with a man eating horse, flying ninja assassins who happen to be working for a cult based around the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras and a snake witch.

The cast of heroes

Alexander’s mother, Olympias the snake witch

While not as artful as his previous production, it is fun and features some amazing battle scenes. The trademark sinuous characters and artfully surreal backgrounds abound, this time with a lurid colour palette. As it’s a mid to low budget anime title it can be a little slow but it’s still fun and a great reference for unique character designs, surrealist backgrounds and vibrant colour usage.

Character art of Alexander

Chung directed a short piece for the Diablo III game release. Entitled Wrath, angels battle demons in this great example of his signature visual style.

A still from the animation

Diablo III:Wrath

Watch on YouTube Here - it’s age restricted so it can’t be embedded here

His last major release titled Matriculated, one of the segments in the Animatrix anthology feature. Combining both 3D and 2D animation, the languid free human characters were pitted against some very unique Sentinel designs of the machine world from the Matrix.

Contrasted against the scenes set in the ‘real world’ the simulated world of Matriculated is a lurid acid trip

The heroine of Matriculated

A captured sentinel

Interestingly enough, the story spends more time on the surface than most of the movies do.

Equally surreal and dark as his previous work, it’s a great short piece that taps into the philosophy of the Warchowski’s Matrix world and delivers a suspenseful and action packed story.

Peter Chung’s segment from the Animatrix behind the scenes featurette.

Chung now teaches a master class in animation at the Division of Animation and Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. While it’s unfortunate that we’re not seeing any new animated series being created by him, his body of work is beyond impressive and still provides entertainment and inspiration nearly 30 years after a leather clad spy crept across our television screens in 1991.