DVD Hong Kong Mei Ah Region 0 98 minutes Directed by Jeff Lau Written by Jeff Lau With Ekin Cheng Cecilia Cheung Jonathan Ke Quan Available to purchase at HKFlix.com 
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Home | Upcoming | Reviews | In Cinemas | Links | Features | Editorials | Search R E V I E W Second Time Around (2002) Jeff Lau Chun-Wai began his career as a director with 1987's The Haunted Cop Shop. Notable efforts since then include The Eagle Shooting Heroes, Treasure Hunt, and the Chinese Odyssey films. This film played briefly in Hong Kong cinemas at the beginning of January 2002. It was produced by Johnny To Kei-Fung for Milkyway Image Productions. MOVIE Plot: Casino dealer Ren is on a lucky streak, so he persuades his friend Sing to "borrow" a million dollars from the casino's bank over the holidays so he can hit it big in Las Vegas. Things go terribly wrong, but Ren is given a second chance to set things right, thanks to parallel universes, time travel, and the unlikely assistance of police officer Tina. Performances: Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin (as Ren) and Cecilia Cheung Pak-Chi (as Tina) do very well as the lead romantic couple. The surprise here was Jonathan Ke Quan as Sing. The former child actor (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies) turns in a fine performance in the often thankless 'best friend' role of Sing. Annamaria Ambera is stuck with much of the exposition of the parallel universes theory, but acquits herself admirably. Oliver Tan Tsung-Wai and Lynne Langdon play Ren and Tina's respective love partners. Production: Seriously weird. Time travel stories always involve a number of paradoxes and leaps of faith. This one in particular requires the viewer to ignore many lapses of logic and difficult-to-comprehend behavior on the part of the characters. If one can brush away all these imperfections, a fairly decent entertainment lies beneath. Director Lau keeps things motoring along, tosses in a few life lessons, and captures the essense of deja vu via a lot of confusing visual tricks. The film looks great (courtesy of cinematographer Johnny Koo Kwok-Wah), the principals are attractive, the music (by Chiu Tsang-Hei and Chu Chun Tung) is varied and tart, and it's a pleasant departure to see wide open desert locales (Las Vegas, Nevada, and Kingman, Arizona) used as the backdrop for a tale of fate and second chances. That being said, other viewers have intensely disliked this film, finding it boring and much less than compelling. Your mileage may vary. Rating: Category IIB for brief partial nudity and some profanity. DVD Look: Marvelous. Black levels are quite deep, colors are well saturated, and flesh tones look natural. The source print displays just a little wear and tear. Sound: Excellent. The DTS Cantonese audio track (which includes quite a lot of English dialogue) sounded natural with an expansive sound field. Also included are DD 5.1 Cantonese and Mandarin tracks. Subtitles: Aggravating to the extreme. The white removable English subtitles are easy enough to read. The problem is that any time the subtitles take up more than one line on the screen -- which is to say 65-75% of the time -- the top line has been left off! Obviously, that renders much of the dialogue incomprehensible. Be warned -- if you are not willing to put up with this problem, and concentrate mostly on the visuals, don't buy the disk. Also included are traditional and simplified Chinese subtitles. Features: Six chapters can be selected from a still-frame menu. Trailers are included for this film, Love Undercover, and Running Out of Time 2. A synopsis and a laughably abbreviated cast and crew listing are included. RECOMMENDATION Visually lush if nonsensical time travel adventure. Beware the faulty, incomplete English subtitles. Home | Upcoming | Reviews | In Cinemas | Links | Features | Editorials | Search |