Director: Michael Winnick
A pickup-line spy story spirals into something far stranger in Dark Asset, a 2023 American science-fiction thriller about implanted technology and the people hunting to reclaim it.
What is Dark Asset about?
The plot opens in a bar, where a smooth-talking stranger tries to impress a woman with an outlandish story of espionage, a hidden microchip, and a ruthless military scientist on his trail. What begins as a flirtatious tall tale gradually blurs into reality, pulling both characters into a chase involving classified experiments and shadowy operatives who will stop at nothing to recover what was taken. The film plays with the line between seduction and survival, letting its central mystery unfold through overlapping conversations rather than straightforward exposition.
Cast & crew
Byron Mann and Robert Patrick anchor the cast as figures on opposite sides of the chase, with Helena Mattsson, Sabina Gadecki, Truong Ngoc Anh, Marc Winnick, Shani Rigsbee, and Erica Munoz filling out the ensemble. Patrick's presence brings a familiar hardened-authority energy to the military-scientist thread, while Mann carries much of the film's tonal balance between comedy and menace.
Context & significance
Directed by Michael Winnick and released in 2023, Dark Asset blends science-fiction premise with a lower-budget thriller structure, favoring dialogue-driven scenes over large action set pieces. At 90 minutes, the film moves briskly through its twin timelines, and its IMDb score of roughly 4.1 places it among modest independent genre releases rather than blockbuster science fiction. The bar-conversation framing device gives the film a distinct structure compared to typical spy thrillers.
Where & how to watch
Dark Asset can be streamed on K-Time after logging into a free account, while the film's page remains free to read for anyone browsing before signing in. K-Time carries the title with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, giving Farsi-speaking audiences a fully localized way to follow its spy-versus-scientist plot within a streaming experience built for the Iranian diaspora.