Director: Jack Lai, Yuen Fai Ng
Year: 2025
Country: Hong Kong
Alternate Titles: Chum Chun Gei
Genre: Action/Period
Plot:
After two decades of peaceful solitude, Hong Siu-lung is drawn back to the Qin Dynasty when the six states—long united under Emperor Ying Ching—are threatened by a time-traveling adversary, fueled by revenge over his wrongful imprisonment. The past and present collide as Hong Siu-lung and the Emperor battle threats, both new and familiar, to protect the empire and the future itself.
Review:
This was an intriguing, if overall problematic, follow-up. Among the more likable factors to be had here is the intriguing setup that manages to bring about the differing settings with the present-day interactions and period settings meshing together. With the main character from the past show being shown to carry on the same type of peaceful lifestyle he envision for himself and trying to go about enjoying his life which offers the kind of callback to the backstory he offered up in that version coinciding with the present day crew attempting to right the wrongs they perceive, it offers a fun twist on the different ideologies that take place. When the new time-travelers arrive and look to change history for their own gain, his new quest at creating alliances with other local tribes so that he can prevent history from being altered allows for a great retelling of the theme featuring changing the future versus honoring your destiny. With one side looking to prevent history from changing and the other looking to alter it for their own benefit, this all sets into motion a fun dynamic and interplay that makes the story quite fun.
In addition to all this, there’s also a solid series of interactions that showcase the action setpieces throughout here as a lot of high-energy moments. Utilizing a solid mix of rapid-fire hand-to-hand combat or close-quarter gunplay that makes use of the futuristic technology against the more period-set weaponry, this creates a fun mix between the two sides that lets everything come together feel quite exciting and thrilling within the various encounters here. The mixture of different aspects keeps it light and fun, while everything keeps the film moving along at a brilliant clip, even if this does highlight the major issue of being quite reliant on a viewer being aware of what happened to the characters from the past to understand a lot of the motivations and plot points present. The fact that it moves along as well as it does is because it never bothers to offer much of a catch-up on what’s gone on in the previous media, so it all becomes quite confusing to see play out as a means of following the original characters for those who aren’t familiar with this franchise. It’s the main issue to be had here and does impact this one somewhat.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally likable continuation of the TV series, there’s enough to like here that it gets some solid and likable aspects that are enough to keep this going against the few issues featured here. Those who are fans of this style or approach or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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