These double-dating yuppies are among the few characters featured in the film who are neither gang members nor police officers. They function as a reminder that an even larger rival “gang” dominates the city: the wealthy, putting the focus on class antagonism and urban gentrification.

War uses AI classifiers to profile visitors’ faces based on demographic, economic and occupational markers, and then uses a customized version of the notorious Deepfakes algorithm to switch visitors’ faces into the film, in place of the original characters. Faces swap at a variety of speeds and resolutions, and do not attempt to be seamless in all cases. AI classifiers such as ImageNet are well-known for their inherent bias in the assignment of class markers such as profession, economic status and culture. These biases are drawn out in War, as certain visitors find themselves swapped with The Warriors gang, others with the affluent couples on the opposite side of the subway car.