Search - Second Time Around on DVD

Great! Ready to see it a SECOND Time!

SereneNight | California, USA | 09/02/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Second Time around is the story of Ren (Ekin Cheng), a casino dealer, and his best buddy Sing. Ren convinces Sing to borrow the night's earnings of Sing' Uncle's casino to gamble in Vegas. Together the two friends travel to Vegas. Unfortunately, they have a car accident, they are robbed and Sing killed.When Ren tries to discover WHY Sing is murdered, he inadvertently goes back in time three days to a parallel/alternate reality. Does Ren have what it takes to save his friend from Certain death AND win back the money which is stolen?This is a GREAT movie. They really do a great job of bringing together all the talents of the characters in the film. Ren and Sing, and Ren's eventual girlfriend Tina really play well off eachother. I recommend this movie for lovers of suspense flicks, and those who like 'time travel' plotlines. Definitely a MUST for all Ekin Cheng fans! (Although, Ekin's fringed purple leather jacket must go!)"

Something cleverly different

Chris Roberts | 01/22/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

""Second Time Around" is a scifi-romance-mystery-buddy movie from Hong Kong. If that sounds like crossing a lot of genres not typically found together, then you already have an understanding of what the film is like.

THE GOOD: I thought it was a gas to see Jonathan Ke Quan in a movie again and that was my main reason for watching Second Time Around. He's a long way from his role as "Short Round" in "The Temple of Doom" but you can still recognize him. Ekin Cheng (a quite well-established Chinese actor) is very good in the lead role and carries the movie admirably. The story is actually very clever with a twist near the end that takes you by surprise. The whole time-travel piece is dropped in very deus ex machina-esque; however, I suppose all time travel stories have to leap the improbability issues somehow. The movie has a good pace, is intelligent, and is never boring. There's no dramatic audio in the movie, but the DTS track is very solid with what is there.

THE BAD: Sadly, the Chinese distributors made some big mistakes with the DVD's English subtitles. It looks like a computer problem, but whatever caused it, a lot of the text that should be there isn't. It may be that multi-line subtitles were only encoded with the bottom line? There are a few intact multi-line ones though so I don't know. Lines like "I don't know why you're acting like this; it's embarrassing me!" in Cantonese show up in the English subtitle as "embarrassing me!" If you're not fluent in Cantonese or the alternate Mandarin track, then it's a bit of a task to understand what's going on since half of the dialogue isn't translated for you. The subtitle problems are present for the English-language parts as well which gives you scope of the problem. All of the downloadable subtitles from online that I've been able to find are simply transitions of the original subtitles so they don't fix the problem should you think that you can remake the DVD with a corrected subtitle track. The video work is a bit shaky, jumpy, and out-of-focus on a few occasions. There are a several scenes with Asian slapstick thrown in for no better reason than most Chinese films feel they have to throw in some of that ridiculous physical comedy for gags. I really don't know how such scenes are perceived in Asia, but in North America they come off as embarrassingly unnecessary.

THE VERDICT: My Cantonese is good enough that I understood the movie; if yours isn't, then the flawed/damaged English subtitles are going to give you problems with fully understanding the dialogue. I think you'll still "get" everything that happens, but I can see how it would drive some people nuts. If that's not an issue for you, then it's a very smart story that combines a number of genres not usually seen together with decent performances and a very intelligent story. Not groundbreaking or anything, but a fun enough watch. 3 stars out of 5 after a half-star deduction for the frustrating subtitle track."