Time travel blur

WHENfriendsaskedmewhatIthought about this Chinese sci-fi time travel thriller, I simply shrugged. It’s not bad but it could’ve been better if the movie had been tighter, fresher and with a more plausible storyline.

tells of a group of researchers who are holed up in a bunker-like facility while they try to utilise a particle accelerator to open up a black hole to time travel. Set in 2025, it opens with Xia Tian (played by Yang Mi), a scientist working for the Nexus Corporation, who has just unlocked the secret to navigating through time.

When a man working for a rival company named Tsui Hu (Wallace Huo), catches wind of the breakthrough, he kidnaps Xia Tian’s young son Dou Dou (Hummer Zhang) in exchange for the experimental data. Despite giving in to Tsui Hu’s demands, Dou Dou is killed. Xia Tian uses her time travel portal to go back and save Dou Dou.

The interesting thing was to see different manifestations of Xia Tian, as she time travels and chances upon alternate versions of herself. Produced in part by Datuk

Xia Tian uses her time travel portal to save Dou Dou.

Wallace Huo plays Tsui Hu, a man working for a rival company.

Jackie Chan, the movie is quite enjoyable if you are willing to suspend belief and knowledge on physics.

There is a lot going on in and South Korean director Chang (whose real name is Yoon Hong-seung) has brought together the predictable scenes without over-doing it. The bad thing is that the action does not pick up immediately and I kind of lost my concentration.

Chang spends too much time on the technical aspects of time travel instead of giving audiences real excitement. The action that eventually comes is impressive though. There is some cool hand-to-hand combat and an inventive car chase scene

at the shipyard as well. The overall premise looks and feels more like an action film rather than a sci-fi thriller but it doesn’t deliver a smooth and satisfying final product.

The good thing about it though is that it is, refreshingly, told from a female perspective. So even though it has some loose ends, Chang still offers a somewhat entertaining film. He also dispensed with repetitive scenes, something often associated with time travel movies.

Although the plot won’t surprise anyone, watch it if you’re a fan of time travel movies.