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Face/Off, For Real
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Monday June 19, 2006 in: Facial Plastic Surgery
Tag(s): Cosmetic Surgery
In 1997, we were treated to a movie that required a great deal of suspension of disbelief to enjoy. In the John Woo-helmed Face/Off, super FBI agent Sean Archer and archvillain Castor Troy, played by John Travolta and Nicolas Cage respectively, were both drawn into a situation where they had to have their faces swapped. Literally. Hence, the film's title.Over-the-top action sequences notwithstanding, the movie drew more than just a few hoots of derision for its preposterous premise: that a person can have somebody else's face surgically transplanted onto theirs. And the conceit that the characters also had their voices and body types exchanged further contributed to the ridiculousness of the movie's plot.
It's been nine years since Face/Off was shown in theaters. And boy, what a difference almost a decade of advancements in science and plastic surgery technology makes. What we deemed a ridiculous idea in 1997 is now almost a reality, with news of British doctors preparing to conduct the world's first full face transplant.
It's true: a team of medics at north London's Royal Free Hospital are on the verge of making movie fiction a medical fact. According to the Scotsman.com report, 29 disfigured volunteers willing to undergo the operation have already contacted the team's leader, plastic surgeon Peter Butler. The doctor, it is understood, has already identified four potential candidates. All he's waiting for now, says the article, is for his hospital's ethics committee to give the pioneering procedure the greenlight.
Actually, a partial face transplant has already been performed in November last year in France, where a 39-year old woman facially savaged by a dog had her chin, lips and nose replaced in a 15-hour operation conducted by a team of eight surgeons. Surgeons of a hospital in China were also reported to have performed the world's second partial face transplant in April.
The groundbreaking procedure has its share of critics, who question the ethics of carrying out an operation as extensive as a full face transplant. Personally, I am crossing my fingers that the full face transplant, should it finally be performed, will be a success, as it would help hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who have been disfigured by fire, accident or savage animal attacks.
Unfortunately, spies, terrorists and criminals will also probably fall over themselves trying to do a "face/off" too, but that's an entirely different story.