Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
At the end, I will try to provide a plot summary. Normally I would warn people about a possible spoiler alert, but for this film, knowing the plot beforehand may actually help your enjoyment, and lessen your frustration.
The title of my epinion actually comes from the movie's poster. I think this is a pretty clear example of how bad a Hollywood marketing department can mishandle the release of an Asian film. We are probably going to be seeing any Oriental martial arts movie released for the next two years compared to, or called, 'the next Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'.
What little I could read in the Cantonese & English credits is that the title song was called "Makes No Sense". This actually would have been an appropriate and better title for the film. What's up with the title, anyway? Its actual title is Seunlau ngaklau. If it means something other than "Time and Tide" in Cantonese, please let me know!
Watching this film can make the average moviegoer wonder if they have suffered head trauma from an unknown origin, and are having a hard time comprehending things. Thankfully, a number of audience members 'bonded' in the lobby after the film, all trying to figure out various aspects of the plot and characters. It was quite a relief to know that I wasn't the only one who felt so confused. Together some of us managed to understand some scenes, but no one seemed to grasp the whole movie.
The film was made in Hong Kong, and the majority of dialogue is in Cantonese. The Subtitles are in English and Chinese (Mandarin?) the entire movie. What is funny is that even the English is subtitled in English. One scene actually has a LCD message on a cell phone in English that says 'Should I take him out?' and the English subtitle says 'Should I take him out?'. The characters speak in Chinese, English and Spanish (although if they are from Brazil, shouldn't they be speaking Portuguese?). These are actually very good subtitles, and when multiple people are talking, they would often appear on both the right and left sides of screen.
The director of "Time and Tide" is Tsui Hark, who has made enormously successful pictures in Hong Kong like "A Chinese Ghost Story", "A Better Tomorrow" and the "Once Upon a Time in China" series. Many of his films featured Jet Li, before he did "Lethal Weapon 4". A few years ago he came to America and directed two Jean Claude Van Damme films, "Double Team" with Jean Claude and Dennis Rodman (which I never saw), and "Knock Off", which unfortunately I did see. I remember watching that film and thinking the direction was all over the place too. I also thought that although visually exciting, I had a hard time telling what was going on with the story, just like this one.
Hark says his directing style doesn't translate well when working on Hollywood films, and now I feel it is safe to say that his Hong Kong films don't really translate well to American audiences either. American audiences don't seem to like action scenes when we have no idea what is going on. Hong Kong audiences must be happier with a ballet of gun violence that doesn't necessarily let you tell what is actually happening.
Oddly, as a side note, I think the opposite is true of fight scenes in the last decade. American fight scenes are composed of close ups of various fists hitting random bodies, while the Hong Kong market seems to produce fight scenes in long shots where we can see the entire bodies of the protagonists.
Hark's Camera flows like a character in the film. It travels inside a briefcase filled with $10 million dollars, and into the barrels of two guns, one loaded and one not so that we can see this before someone attempts to fire them. Hark loves putting the camera in unusual places. We even get a tracking shot that starts inside a spinning clothes dryer for no reason. Another cool shot has the camera travelling backwards through a rifle's sniper scope to a close-up of the shooter's eye.
One of the most talked about shots has the camera chase a man out of a window as he rappels down the side of a building. I can only imagine a poor cameraman clutching the camera for dear life as a pair of stagehands throws him through the window.
Another interesting direction choice is how sometimes the camera seems to be searching for the actors. The camera will quickly pan to one character, and then when it tries to return back, it seems confused, and has to search a moment to find him. I think this was planned, but it is an unusual direction choice since it reminds us we are watching a film.
If the direction seems confusing, wait until you try to understand the story!
I started to write a paragraph describing the story, but when I looked back and saw so many "I think" in there, that I searched online and found some of the press kit notes on the plot synopsis. I could never have explained this properly without them. I dare anyone to understand this film upon first viewing!
We first meet our star, Tyler, working as a bartender when he and a female patron decide to go out and drink at every bar on the street. We soon see them waking up in his apartment where he finds out that she is an undercover cop when he sees her badge with her clothing. She freaks out upon waking and starts to attack him demanding to know if they slept together or not. He has no idea. And neither do we, that is, until very large text on the screen says "9 Months Later" before it fades away in an odd computer dissolve. Now they have run into each other again, and she is very pregnant. However, it turns out (in one of many confusing flashbacks) that she is a lesbian and neither she nor her lover are at all happy about the child.
Tyler feels obligated to help pay for the baby's upbringing so he gets a job with an unlicensed bodyguard company. He also says that he wants to make lots of money so that he can afford to move to a beautiful beach off the coast of South America. But since he continually tries to give his earnings to the mother of his child, that may just have been a clever throwaway line that made the segueway into a Brazilian part of the story.
Our other star is Jack. He is a mercenary who spent fourteen years in South America working or training with very dangerous soldiers. He is trying to flee his past and live in Hong Kong with his new bride.
Our two heroes meet by chance in a small store where Tyler is shopping for a fake gun and Jack for a music box. Tyler needs a gun for a bodyguard job, but cannot buy a real one. Jack wants his music box for his new bride. The connection, that they are unaware of, is that Tyler is supposed to be guarding a Triad leader, who is also the father of Jack's bride.
Soon, Jack's former associates come to Hong Kong in order to kill his bride's father. Somehow they discover Jack's relationship with him, and kidnap his bride (now very pregnant too) in order to convince him to assassinate his new father-in-law for them. His bride's condition reminds Tyler of his own pregnant situation, and they soon team up to foil the attempted hit.
Jack's cohorts feel that he betrayed them in a very confusing bank robbery back in South America. This was an early scene that was extremely confusing. We fly through a postcard of Brazil, into a hurricane, and then into some variation of a bank holdup. After a large gun battle involving people we don't recognize, a ludicrous scene follows where someone running from the hoods gets cornered in an alleyway littered with hand grenades. A shooter from very far away shoots the pin out of one of them. We then end up back in Hong Kong. I wish I could say I understood more about it. I don't know if Jack really did betray them, and if not, why they think it.
For some reason, Tyler goes to Jack's apartment, which he found somehow. Unfortunately it is staked out by the Brazilian gang, and a large shootout ensues. Some more shootouts take place, and our heroes team up to fight it out with the Brazilians between two locations, a train station and on the scaffolding above a concert.
A very exciting scene takes place in the train station where Jack's pregnant wife has appeared looking in a train locker that contains the stolen $10 million from an earlier heist. Her water breaks, and she is about to deliver the baby when Tyler finds her. He takes her into a room, prepares to help deliver the baby, and gives her the gun, telling her to shoot anyone who comes through the door. This is not something I've seen before.
I'm glad I saw the film, although I find it hard to recommend to someone unfamiliar with this genre. I did enjoy myself watching it, but it is frustrating not knowing what is going on, or why. This really does hurt the overall enjoyment of the picture to me. I'm sure I will like it much more the next time around, but for an initial viewing, my rating stands.
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