Time and Tide, Tsui Hark's come-back from the USA, showed the rest of the world that he hasn't lost his mad genius in one of the L.A. props storage rooms. Let's see what the fuss is all about.

Review

Credit

Gallery and links

Bonuses

Plot
Bartender Tyler (Nicholas Tse) dreams of paradise in chaotic and over-speed modern Hong-Kong. The best way for him to fulfil his wish is to make as much money as quickly as possible. One night, he gets pissed with a beautiful young lesbian and undercover cop, called Ah Jo (Cathy Chui). Both don't remember anything the following morning. Ah Jo realises that she might be pregnant. Tyler decides then to take his responsibilities as a young father and he really looks for a job that can provide a quick buck. He gets hired in the protection company owned by former loan shark Uncle Ji (Anthony Wong).
Jack, an ex- member of a South American commando team, has finally settled in Taiwan as a mere butcher to live a new life. He got married with Hui (Candy Lo) and got her pregnant.
A happy and peaceful future is awaiting the new family until his former team-mates arrive in Hong-Kong. Their mission is to kill Hui's father, a powerful Triad boss. Troubles arise when Uncle Ji and Tyler are hired to protect the Boss and when Jack is forced to kill him…

Review
Tsui Hark has always enjoyed playing with the 2 antagonists facets of the cinema industry: business and art. Unfortunately, this game doesn't come with drawbacks and Time and Tide is a good example. As an art object, this movie is probably the most exhilarating graphic material ever shot for the last five years, aside from Wong Kar Wai's features probably. On the commercial side of the project, however, Time
and Tide didn't trash the box office in Hong-Kong or in Far East Asia as expected by the Co-production Company Columbia Tri-Star. The success was there, but still moderate. A good cast of stars (i.e. Taiwanese rock star Wu Bai, Hong-Kong pop star Nic Tse and Candy Lo) should have assured to break records. What went wrong? Probably tremendous fast action mixed with an apparently complex plot but delivering several different sub-textual issues didn't appeal enough to the audience.

Some people stated that the holes in the plot of Time and Tide were eventually corked by ultra high-speed action, hyper-kinetic camerawork and editing. Tsui Hark never said that they were wrong, but he declared that Time and Tide is full of his favourite sub-textual themes, e.g. hope, romantism, existentialism, post-hand-over doubts and struggle against fate. I should add that there are plenty of different atmospheres and a lot of attractive characters in this feature.

Frankly on paper, this plot seems easy to grasp. The way Tsui Hark tells his story has however disconcerted a lot of people and even some film critics. But Tsui Hark tried hard to make the story easy to follow with directors' tricks such as voice over technique and a relative linear plot. Lots of supporting roles make the movie rich in situations and confrontations, but can confuse an audience used to be spoon fed in theatres. Don't get me wrong, I am not blaming the audience's capability to understand plots. The simple fact that the American film industry has always flood the world with linear plot features or easy story telling shows that sometimes people go to the cinema not to be bothered by any plot intricacy. For instance, The Matrix scriptwriter, aware of this fact, developed his script in order to explain Keanu Reeves and the audience the complexity of the Matrix worlds, which takes nearly half of the film length.

However, Tsui Hark has always taken advantage from a new production to experiment as much as possible the cinematic medium. He has used his audience to get ready to undergo an amazing experiment when going to theatres. For instance, flashy colours and bonkers editing will probably still affect your retina a few hours after watching Time and Tide.
Intensive editing from Marko Mak served the instantaneousness of speed action, but was also a mean for Tsui Hark to tell a story only giving what he wants (e.g. through jump cuts and ellipsis) to let the audience reassemble the puzzle and understand. Such brain process could appear daunting, especially when one is expecting to watch a modern action movie with his/her favourite pop stars.

Tsui experiments as well in order to show something never seen before, to create something new or to revive old practices in the local cinema. In Time and Tide, he revived tired heroic-bloodshed action sequences from recent Hong-Kong movies with wire works as well as he did for Kung-Fu movies, i.e. Once Upon A Time In China that launched Jet Li's career.

In addiction to that, Tsui managed to create different type of atmospheres and can even put naturally together abrupt changes in tone. In the beginning of the film the way a hand held camera follows Nic Tse through filters and fancy lighting and shows the exceptional tact he has with females and his ability to pull, refers to Wong Kar Wai's work, especially Chungking Express and Fallen Angels. But within this sequence, another atmosphere or strong feeling come into the equation. Nic Tse and Cathy Chui vomit after a drinking session from a bridge as taxis drive by. To me, this type of trash and anarchic behaviour refers to Tsui's third movie: Don't play with fire (aka Dangerous encounter of the first kind) describing a bunch of anarchic schoolboys in a rotten Hong-Kong.

So finally, Time and Tide is worth watching over and over again for its complexity and its fantastic action scenes that makes its richeness and its appeal. It does deserve a second though. When asked about Time and Tide, Tsui Hark claimed to have made a new type of action film and even expect from the audience to adjust to it!
To convince people, Tsui made another brilliant feature that shows action and tells a story in the same particular way: Legend Of Zu. Better get used to it!

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Credit
TIME AND TIDE (Release date in Hong-Kong: 19-10-2000). Cantonese: Shun Lau Yik Lau, Literally: Follow the Current, Against the Current, Mandarin: Shun Liu Ni Liu.
Director: Tsui Hark
Screenplay: Tsui Hark, Koan Hui
Directors of photography: Ko Chui-lam, Herman Yau
Editor: Marco Mak
Production Design: Stanley Cheung Sai-kit, Chow Sai-hung and Robert Lok
Action director: Xiong Xin-xin (Hung Yan Yan)
Music: Tommy Wai, Wu Bai and Nicholas Tse Producers: Tsui Hark and Nansun Shi for Film Workshop Co-production: Columbia Pictures Asia

Cast: Nicholas Tse Ting-fung (Tyler), Wu Bai (Jack), Anthony Wong (Uncle Ji), Candy Lo Hau-yam (Ah Hui), Cathy Tsui Chi-Kei (Ah Jo), Jack Gao (SDU commander), Joventino Couto Remotigue (Miguel).

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Photo Gallery

Links to other reviews
- Review from Time Asia
- Review by Stephen Teo in Senses of Cinema,
  author of Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions (London: BFI, 1997).
- Review by Shelly Kraicer editor of Chinese Cinema Page
- Other review

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Bonuses
Time and Tide, Tsui Hark Apocalipse written by Laurent Henry

Interview with script writer Koan Hui

Tsui Hark biography written by Laurent Henry

Interview with actor Wu Bai

Interview with director of photography Herman Yau

 

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Written by Thomas, Dec 2001

 

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