Back to the Past

CinemaSerf7/10

Jan 4, 2026

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“Ken” (Michael Kiu Wai Miu) has been the victim of an injustice that saw him spend twenty years in jail. Now free, he has decided to avenge himself on those who stitched him up and so together with his daughter “Galie” (Baihe Re) and a couple of less than scrupulous cohorts he invades a top secret scientific facility and uses their time machine - which he helped develop - to return to the Qin dynasty and seize the Emperor himself. Why? Well they also have some useful technology that can scan then imitate facial features, so he reckons he can adopt the identity of the Qin and then change history. What he hasn’t factored in, though, is that the Emperor (Raymond Lam) is no pushover, nor is his mentor of twenty years “Hong” (Louis Koo) whom we discover quite quickly has a secret of his own involving this very same machine. Now back almost two and an half thousand years, and armed with state of the art technology what chance the local population can survive the onslaught of motor bikes, hover boards and of course guns - lots and lots of guns. I did quite enjoy this as it mixes the new with the ancient in quite an engaging fashion. There’s plenty of action, Koo proves to be quite an engaging battle hero, as does his son “Bowie” (Kevin Kam-Yin Chu) - yes, named after the British musician, and the gadgets are cleverly employed so as not to overwhelm the traditional elements of a Chinese society from 200-odd BC. There’s some humour from the dialogue, it rattles along entertainingly in a sort of “Dr. Who” meets the “A-Team” fashion and I suspect a sequel (or prequel) might be on the cards?