A Greatly Misunderstood Film

If I could sum up what I know about William Gibson's stories, it's that he romanticizes the fusion of urban culture with high tech corporate warfare. And in that sense, New Rose Hotel is one of the most Gibson-esque stories that has been adapted thusfar.

It's odd that they seem to have populated the cast and extras from King of New York and Ghost Dog. More importantly, they get by showing the characters planning the kidnapping of Hiroshi and Sandy's role, but show next to nothing when it comes to the on-screen action.

I honestly think that the last 10-15 minutes of the film when X checks into the New Rose Hotel is really intriguing. The operation is already botched, everyone is dead and he's been betrayed. He's in a Japanese hotel capsule and just scanning his memories. It's a small whisper from X himself that sets Sandy free in the very last shot. "If you want to, you can just walk away."

This is one case where less is not more, in my opinion. Action scenes like the lab in Morocco should have played out on screen. It needs a very different cast in age and ethnicity. Korean and Chinese MegaCorps would be much more appropriate than Japanese corporations in the current economy. I think you really get short-changed not being able to see Sandy's seduction of Hiroshi. With the nature of surveillance, it seems like X would be spying on them the whole time at his own peril.