Los Tenpurcos is a Canadian-American 1993 science fiction animated film directed by Victor Yearts and produced and co-written by Oren Wright. It follows a young girl who sneaks onto a ship to an industrial dystopian city by the name of Los Tenpurcos.
Plot[]
The year is 2046. The world has changed since then. Some cities have become mystical utopias while some have been reduced to dystopian wastelands. Los Tenpurcos falls in the latter.
Meanwhile in a different city up north, we're introduced to one of out main characters, Alina, who is first shown shopping in a local convenience store. After purchasing her items and leaving, she is immediately targeted by a group of asian gangsters, who she seems to have stolen from.
She is chased after them, going through tunnels, eventually arriving at a harbor. She loses them temporarily, but is still worried they may find her again, looking to get away from the gangsters, she takes notice of a tanker ship, still with an open gangway, seeing this as a way to escape the gangsters, she runs to ship and enters.
After some exploring, she heads into a storage closet and heads off to sleep. We then cut to the titular city, we follow a heavily clothed man heading back to their home after a shopping trip. We get to their apartment, located in a dark alleyway. Before entering the apartment, they become suspicious of sounds they hear, and then someone jumps out, with knife in hand and ready to attack this man. The man however, manages to apprehend him before any damage can be done, the man asks this attacker his motive, but doesn't get a response in time, so in return he silences him with the attacker's knife.
The man enters his apartment, and takes his heavy amount of clothing off, and we are shown the true appearance of this man, whose name is Eddie Burbick. We are also presented another character, a woman by the name of Evelyn Boardward, who has been watching Eddie's encounter. Eddie talks about how he'll get his revenge on a certain person who wronged him.
Back to Alina, sleeping in the boat, she wakes up to see the closet door open. She peeks her head out, and eventually steps out of the closet. She walks down the ship's hallway, and hears steps, frightened, hides behind a wall, she then peeks around the corner and is greeted by the source of the steps, which turns out to be a fennec fox of all things.
Amused by what seemed scary at first, she picks up the fennec and adopts it on the spot. Now with her new friend, she walks around the ship once more and comes across a staircase, seeming to lead to the outside. She goes up the staircase and opens a door, and finally comes in contact with the outside. Walking around the ship, she goes to the stern of the ship, and is greeted with the sight of a city, a city covered in smog and skyscrapers, the one and only Los Tenpurcos.
Entranced in the sight of the city, someone calls out to her, she turns around to be greeted by a guard, who seems to have malicious intentions. With either the option of jumping off the boat or fighting the guard, she makes the more easy choice of jumping off the ship. Despite not having the best swimming skills, Alina manages to get a set of docks by a nearby port.
Inside the port now, Alina sneaks through it, looking for escape into the city. Trying to escape, she attracts the interest of two workers, who start to search for her, during the search, one of the workers head off in a different direction to look for Alina, still looking, the worker hears some sounds from one of the many tractor trailers and goes to investigate, then, Alina emerges and hits the worker on the head with a large rock, knocking them out.
Now out of the port, she explores the city, it's a dark, brooding city covered in filth and littered with mostly depraved citizens.
Back to Eddie and Evelyn, Eddie starts questioning himself, wondering whats the point in existing anymore, but Evelyn assures him he'll find the person who wronged him. Evelyn then goes to her fridge and sees she's out of some things, she asks Eddie to head off to get some food for her, he obliges.
Back to Alina exploring the city, she is called by a group of men, they are wearing black suits and are by a white van, they beckon her over, they promise to take her out of Los Tenpurcos and give her a better life, in reality, they're sex traffickers wanting to take Alina with them.
We go back to Eddie, who's on the exact same street where Alina is being asked by the suited men, he sees this, and he knows exactly who they are. Back to Alina, her fennec jumps out of her arms and runs off, scared senseless. She chases after the fennec, to which the men chase after Alina, Eddie takes this chance to enter the van and surprise attack them.
The men come back to the van, Alina and her fennec are being held by the men, they force her into the van and it close it's doors, inside the van, a scared Alina watches on as the men get into the van, but then she notices Eddie, who is calmly waiting to make the right move, he quietly asks her to look away. Just as one of the men gets ready to drive, Eddie pulls out a gun and points it at the driver, with no hesitation he pulls the trigger on the man, and aims it to the other, and pulls the trigger on them as well, Eddie then opens the van and gets Alina and her fennec out.
Eddie quickly brings her back to his apartment, where she is introduced to Evelyn, Evelyn shows some shock at the sudden addition of Alina to her and Eddie's lives, but Eddie justifies his reasons for bringing Alina with him. Evelyn then proceeds to inform Eddie that she has been in contact with someone who may give them information on the whereabouts of the special someone Eddie has been looking for, she offers him to meet this person now, but he declines, wanting to get to know Alina more after saving her.
Evelyn leaves the room, leaving Eddie and Alina by themselves, Eddie what she was doing all by herself, we finally hear Alina speak for the first time, she explains what had happened to her before meeting Eddie, he then acknowledges the fennec, asking if it has a name, it doesn't, but Eddie comes up with a name for it, Cinnamon. He then talks about the men that tried to abduct her, he tells her they were part of sex ring connected to the Russian mafia. He talks about how we once had a connection to a woman who he was in a relationship with who was part of them, and how many years before, he was betrayed by her and had to go into hiding. The two look out the window, into the Los Tenpurcos sunset.
The next morning, Eddie and Evelyn receive a knock at the door, it's a cyborg, his name is Maurice, the person Evelyn mention earlier. With a wicked scar on his face, he comes into the apartment, a pile of papers in his arms, he sets them down on the table. They detail about a man who is highly ranked in the mafia and is known to frequent a local dance club. Maurice also gives some notes about Eddie's sweetheart, adding that she may be living on an abandoned bridge just outside of the city.
Eddie is brought to the dance club by Maurice, where they look over the club, Maurice discusses how they could potentially follow the man to the bridge, Eddie then asks to be brought home.
Later in the night, as Maurice drives through the city, he just so happens to stop by a red light next to the club Eddie and him analyzed. In an alleyway, three people come out of the darkness and approach Maurice's car, they pull out a gun at him. They ask him to get out of the car, Maurice complies, not caring, thinking it's just a typical grand theft auto. Instead, the people bring Maurice to the alleyway, where he brought to someone, it is Eddie's special someone. She reveals herself, her name is Galina, and she's tells Maurice how impressed she is with his research on her, and adds "that'd he be perfect for us". They take him away to the abandoned bridge, to reprogram him to make him follow their commands.
At the apartment, Eddie looks over the notes and photos Maurice gave him, he looks at a picture of a bridge that Galina may be in, and eventually comes to the conclusion that she may be residing at Kashima Bridge, a suspension bridge abandoned in the 2020s in favor of another bridge that never came along. As he heads off to another room, there is a knock at the door, Evelyn goes to it and opens it, we cut to Eddie as we hear a gunshot, he runs out of the room and is greeted to the sight of Evelyn, on the ground, a gunshot in her abdomen and Alina missing.
He immediately patches her up with bandages and waits for her to heal, the next morning, Eddie goes to Evelyn, now in a more stable condition, asking her what happened the other night. She recounts the events, she opened the door, and immediately a gunshot hits her, she falls to the ground, and nothing else. She thinks the Russians have gotten onto them. Eddie can't believe this information, he asks for where Maurice lives, Evelyn tells him he lives in an apartment on the other side of town.
Eddie goes to the apartment, he knocks on the door, but no answers, even after repeated knocking. He busts the door open, to see the corpse of Maurice, most likely killed by the Russians, he's served his purpose. Eddie heads back home, where he starts to prepare to take on the mafia with all the info he has.
He first heads off to the dance club he was told about, he enters it, immediately being blinded by the strobe lights. He struggles to get through the club as he looks around, seeing dancers dancing and even businessmen with younger women. He goes to a clubber, where he asks about the man who frequents it. He is told that he is there, but is in a private room, not wanting to be disturbed. Eddie head there of course, and enters the man's private room.
The man tells Eddie to go away, but Eddie stays, he asks about Galina, painting himself as a buyer of whatever the mafia sells. He asks where they're located, and as Eddie predicted, they're located at the Kashima Bridge. He then asks about their sex rings, asking what they do to their victims. The man describes some of the most vile and repulsive info Eddie has ever heard, and an appalled Eddie looks at him for a moment, until he pulls an Uzi on them, ending their life.
Eddie leaves the club and heads to the Koshima Bridge. He gets there, a large kingdom has been made on it, populated by mafia members. He realizes that he may be gunned down before he even gets in, so he has to come up with a different way to get in, after some brainstorming, he decides the only way is to climb under the bridge through it's suspension cables. As he climbs through it, he looks down, the only view being the deep ocean.
He successfully manages to get onto the bridge, and even better, there's not many mafia members around, despite this, he let's his presence be known, as he guns down all the members he sees. We cut to Galina, as she discusses with other high ranking members what to do with their newest catch for their rings, that catch being Alina. Another member comes in, telling them about gunshots being heard. Galina and her crew immediately start to equip themselves for what's gonna hit them.
Back to Eddie, he's gunned down a good amount of members, and now he's at the entrance of a building, clearly not having much structural integrity, he enters it, and is greeted to more mafia, he shoots what moves, and he gets into a room full of cages, containing many young children, he gazes at it, horrified, but that is short lived after he finds Alina in one of those cages. He looks at the other kids, and then shoots the locks, letting the children free. The kids run out, and Eddie picks Alina up, and he gets back to shooting, entering hallways and taking down men.
After some hallways, he spots Galina, in the process of entering a hallway, Eddie fires some shots, they do manage to hit her as she gets inside, Eddie runs to the door, he kicks it open, and sees Galina, laying across the wall, injured by Eddie's gunshots, Eddie takes a few steps towards her, Uzi pointed at her, he gives a monologue, explaining the pain and bitterness she caused him, and how he vowed to get her one day.
He asks Alina to close her eyes, and Eddie then fires a multitude of shots into Galina, and as he looks at her corpse, Eddie looks back, and walks away from this site. Now raining, as he walks away from the bridge, he looks back at it, a gives a smirk, and gets back to walking.
We cut to a shot of the bridge as the credits roll.
Transcript[]
Main article: Los Tenpurcos/Transcript
Video game[]
In 2003, a video game, Los Tenpurcos: LTPD, was released, it acts as a prequel to this film. It was developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games.
Trivia[]
- Script was written in 1989.
- Production lasted from 1990 to 1993.
- The city of Los Tenpurcos takes influence from San Francisco and New York City.
- Victor Yearts called this a spiritual sequel to Dreamstate.