Technological Institute of the Philippines

363 P. Casal St., Quiapo, Manila Philippines

PURGANAN, Jerilly B. Understanding the Self

CH11FA2 July 3, 2018

MOVIE ANALYSIS
BLEEDING STEEL
Summary of the Film
Bleeding Steel is a science fiction and a cyberpunk action film that was produced in China
in the year 2017. The film starts as the main protagonist, Lin Dong (Jackie Chan), drives in a hurry
as he goes to the hospital for his child, Xixi, who is in a critical condition. As he speeds over on
his way, his co-worker called, sending him a serious message that their witness is in a prodigious
danger. This reveals that Lin Dong was a special agent, who was torn between his job and his
dying daughter. However, Agent Lin chose to turn back and to do his job to protect their main
witness, Dr. James, a geneticist.
Following scenes reveal Dr. James, a reclusive geneticist who has been working for the
region’s biggest arms dealer for five years. He was in-charge of the bioroid massacre, for his
creation killed everyone working in the lab. As the police and groups of Lin Dong escort him away,
a group of men wearing a steel black suit, headed by Andre, ambushed them, leaving almost all of
them dead. The other side of the story shows that Xixi died in the hospital.

13 years later, Rick Rogers published a book “Bleeding Steel”, where the plot revolves
around the story of a girl who was turned into a bioroid with a mechanical heart. Stated in the
book, “She is a mission herself. Her blood contains all his memories. One day, she will find her
memories back again.” The story then revealed the presence of Leeson. He disguised as a
prostitute and when he got the chance to a pay a visit to Rick’s hotel, he downloaded the book’s
manuscript and information in Rick’s computer. Simultaneously, a black armored woman together
with her two comrades enter the scene and they tortured Rick as he reveals the source of his
information about his book. Lin Dong, who was then wearing a mask also tries to ask the same
question, aiming to find the same answer.

Leeson identified that the story behind Bleeding Steel is inspired from a story of a girl
named Nancy – a young girl who is plagued by strange nightmares where doctors and laboratory
settings were pictured and showed. She always pays a visit to a spiritualist and a hypnotist as well,
who served as an instrument for Rick to create his manuscript.

Subsequently, it was revealed that Xixi is the younger Nancy, revived by the efforts of Dr.
James, who was previously introduced as a geneticist that enhance the genetic properties of human
beings, creating immortal bioroid and soldiers. James fitted Xixi with a mechanical heart and a
biogenetic blood which enhanced her regenerative abilities. However, the bad side of this is that
Xixi will remain amnesic. On the other hand, Andre, the devil, was identified as one of Dr. James
“lab rat”. He is a former special forces soldier who has the first-generation mechanical heart.
However, the artificial genome failed to succeed on Andre, slowly consuming him from within.

Nancy then recovered her memory, but she was kidnapped by the men of Andre. On the
other side, Lin Dong, Leeson, and Susan are willing to save Nancy in the hands of the Devil.
Proceeding, Nancy, while still in the hands of Andre, is in danger for her blood is the main thing
that Andre need to revive his ideal body. He extricates Nancy’s blood and injects it into himself.
Before the purification and transfusion process is completed, the disguised group of Lin Dong
arrived who came to fight with the villains. Nancy was able to escape as Andre tries to help his
co-villains fight the group Lin Dong. Fast forward, Susan, Nancy, and Lin Dong was able to get
out of the aircraft when it exploded.

Aftermath of the story shows how Lin Dong, Nancy, and Susan celebrated and enjoy life
as a family. Lin learned that Leeson’s aim is to take revenge on Andre for he is the main reason of
his parents’ death thirteen years ago. He also learned that Leeson and Nancy are of the same
orphanage, arriving into a conclusion that the guy somehow shows an affection to Nancy. At the
same time, it was showed in the ending that Leeson survived in the explosion scenes.

Connection of the Film to Consciousness, Identity, and Memory

The film shows us a glimpse of science fiction, as well as the actors enthusiasm in thrilling
the audiences (specifically, Jackie Chan). The film really does have a lot characteristic, good and
even bad. However, taking that aside, let us see the correlation of the film on to different
perspectives and philosophies in life. This section tries to connect the story of the film into these
three notions; Identity, Memory, and Consciousness.

Identity. For the past years, scholars have been working in different arrays of social science
and humanities. One of the main concerns that piques their interests is to answer the question,
“What is identity?”. The concept of “identity” has been in a lot of debates in every major subfield.
There are certain theories about this matter, causing certain arguments about gender, culture,
ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality to continuously emerge.

Fearon (1999) defined what really identity is in his book “What is Identity? (As we now
use the word)”. According to him, the word “identity” is linked in two major senses – social and
personal. It refers at the same time to social categories and to the sources of an individual’s self-
respect or dignity. In an ordinary context, “identity” refers to a personal characteristics or attributes
that cannot naturally be expressed in terms of a social category. And in some context, identity is
defined as some distinguishing characteristic that a person takes a special pride in or views as
socially consequential and is usually unchangeable.
Cited in Fearon’s study are these following people who gave their personal definition about
the word “identity”;

1. “Identity is people’s concept of who they are, of what sort of people they are, and
how they relate to others.” (Hogg and Abrams, 1998, 2)
2. “Identity is described as the way individuals and groups define themselves and are
defined by others on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, language, and culture.”
(Deng, 1995, 1)
3. “Identity refers to the ways in which individuals and collectives are distinguished
in their social relations with other individuals and collectives” (Jenkins, 1996, 4)
4. “Identity are relatively stable, role-specific understandings and expectations about
self.” (Wendth, 1992, 397)
In the case of the film Bleeding Steel, the identity of these following characters, Lin Dong,
Nancy, and Leeson was quite concealed due to different cases. It was reasonable for Nancy’s
position to forget her identity since she was subjected to a scene about the mechanical heart and
the regenerated blood of Dr. James. This lead her to a memory loss, that’s why she grew up in an
orphanage not as Xixi, but as Nancy. Nancy’s uniqueness was also exposed in the film, for she is
also described as a bioroid that can regenerate rapidly. Since Nancy’s version lost the memory of
his father, Lin Dong, on the other hand, tries to enter weird job to guide and observe his daughter
Nancy secretly. Meanwhile, Leeson’s main objective in his hide-thy-true-identity game is for him
to take revenge for his parents’ death thirteen years ago.

Each of the characters in the film has their own identity and uniqueness based on the
atmosphere that they portray in the movie. Andre is seen as an immortal villain who has some
extraordinary skills and abilities, which makes him more devil in the story. Dr. James is known
for his genius and intelligent invention, the mechanical heart and the regenerative stuff, which I
guess the central idea of the whole film. Next is Lin Dong, who was then a special agent with a
nice skill and experience in martial arts. In addition, he is also a loving father to Nancy. Susan, on
the other hand, is a beautiful and a genius lady who served as Lin Dong’s partner and assistant in
the whole duration of the film. Lastly, Leeson was a charming man, who has a secret affection to
Nancy. He has a great experience in stealing and hacking certain information which I guess the
main reason why he and Lin Dong became great comrades.

Memory. In an article, the term “memory” is defined as the ability to encode, restore, and
to retain information and details of the past in the human brain. It is also described as the sum of
what we remember, giving us the capability to learn and to adapt from previous experiences as
well as to build relationships.

In physiological context, memory is, at its simplest, a set of encoded neural connections in
the brain. It is the reconstruction of the past details by synchronous firing of neurons that were
involved in the original experience. Hence, memory is better thought of as a kind of collage or
jigsaw puzzle. Our memories are stored in a scattered manner throughout the various areas of our
brains, and not just like those books stored in the library.

This part is obviously more relatable to Nancy. It was stated above that Nancy lost her
memory as Xixi because of the operation and surgery performed to her. As a result, she forgets
memories of her past, including memories and experiences she had with his father. However, what
she has in her life as Nancy is the memories of Dr. James that she visualizes through her dreams.

One of the major plot twists that can be seen in the film is the truth that Nancy and Xixi is
just the same person. Hence, we can’t truly hide the fact that Nancy can also picture memories of
Xixi because they are still the identical, they are still similar.

Consciousness. According to some, defining consciousness is somewhat ambiguous.

Originally, it was derived from the Latin word con (with) and scire (to know). However, the most
commonly used notion of consciousness is captured by Nagel’s famous “what it is like” sense.
Meaning, being in a conscious state, there is something that is like for you to be in that state from
the subjective or first-person point of view. Apparently, consciousness can be connected to
thinking. In a simpler context, consciousness can be also acquainted to memory.

Again, let us take Nancy’s major role in the film Bleeding Steel. Since Nancy lost her
memory, her consciousness is somewhat interrupted, losing sight of her past self. However, when
she got the chance to gain her memory back again, she was then able to extend and persists
memories and experiences she had when she was a kid, when she was with her father.

The Lockean Theory of Personal Identity

I won’t deny the fact that I did some research about different topics related to the film, and
it really piques my interest when this task leads me to Locke’s Theory; The Lockean Theory of
Personal Identity. The connection of memory and consciousness was studied, making him
conclude that “One’s personal identity extends only as far as one’s consciousness”.
 In his theory, Locke suggests that self is a “thinking intelligent being, that has reason and
reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places”.
He also identifies personal identity simply as “the sameness of a rational being”, meaning as one
is the same self, the same rational being, one has the same personal identity.

In addition, one of his claim is that “as far as a consciousness can be extended backwards
to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now as
it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it that that action
was done.” Locke says that if one can remember some experience, then that one had that
experience. Vice versa, if one cannot remember some experience, then one did not have that
experience. There are times when we raised doubts about ourselves, thinking if we are still the
same person as before. And in that, Locke claims that in those cases, our consciousness is
interrupted, and we lose sight of our past selves.

Connecting Locke’s theory to the film, I can say that those character who concealed their
identity is still the same person in the past since memories and experiences they’d had before still
extends in their lives. Nancy, somehow, forget some memories about herself, her consciousness
being intermittent, letting her doubt her personal self. However, the film reveals that in the end,
she still got the chance to recover her memory. And in that I can say and therefore conclude that
their actions, names, personality, or characteristics had change, but not their personal identity.

Comments in the Film

I’ve watched some Jackie Chan films before, and I guess, this one doesn’t really impress
me. I guess some of the characters’ personality and tv appearance were based from other sci-fi
movies or films. In addition, Jackie Chan’s martial art skills was not given a good highlight unlike
his past films. I guess I’m being bad when I say that the film is a “trying-hard-sci-fi-film”, but that
is what I really observe. There are a lot of extras that is not significant in the flow of the story,
some scenes do not really justify its purpose. I am not satisfied with the stunts made by the
characters because I don’t consider the fight scenes as intense scenes, knowing Jackie, he likes to
amuse and to thrill audiences. However, I can say that some of the scenes made me cry, especially
the scene where Nancy already recover her memories with his dad. I guess that is one of the central
objective of the film, to touch the hearts of dads and daughters. Viewers can still gather information
and lessons from the film, and I would rate the film a score of three over five.