Karie the Maknae and Kmuse delve into the world of time travel and multiple versions of Yang Mi in their Fangirl Movie Review of the Chinese movie Fatal Countdown: Reset.  Come find out if their love of all things Yang Mi continues!

TRAILER:

SYNOPSIS:

Sia Tien is a strong mother who raises her child alone and is a key researcher in time-slip research based on parallel theory, developing a method of traveling through time using black holes. When Choi I-hoo kidnaps her son and demands that she hand over the new technology, Sia Tien uses the as-yet-unfinished time machine to go back in time two hours. While trying to save her son, she meets 2 of her own selves.(Mydramalist)

THE PLOT

 Kmuse: I was actually excited about this plot, since I am a sucker for a good time travel trope.  And while there were several really good twists in the story, I felt that it could have used a bit more editing to make the action/plot arcs tighter and more informative.  I felt that there were huge gaping plot holes that we were just supposed to overlook and accept.  This is just not a movie you can look too closely at.  The basic logic of the story just doesn’t hold up.

Karie the Maknae: I thought the plot held up well enough, and it was absolutely fascinating to see Yang Mi play three distinct versions of herself. The overall story arc was simple and straightforward, but the time travel provided the twists that kept this story from ending up in the “not another action movie” pit in meh-land.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Kmuse: It was a standard action movie.  Nothing that really stood out to me, either good or bad.

Karie the Maknae: There was one part where a tower was being blown up in the distance that was actually morbidly beautiful and really stood out to me. I was grateful there wasn’t a lot of shaky camera work that always seems to be popular in action movies–this one was tightly shot and smoothly done.

CHARACTER OBSERVATIONS

Kmuse: There were three versions of Yang Mi’s character and all had very distinct personalities/strengths.  I found it interesting how she changed with each additional trip through the time travel apparatus.  This is probably the biggest strength of the show and I enjoyed the twists and turns of the various time versions.

Karie the Maknae: Yang Mi absolutely carried this movie. As Kmuse said, her ability to portray three versions of herself, from weepy and scared to absolutely bad-donkey, was incredibly well-done. She’s such a fantastic actress.

Kmuse: I did feel that they totally lost an opportunity to utilize Wallace Huo to his full potential.  His character had little to no layers.  The only deviation from token bad guy to someone less sinister was in the last few minutes.  But it was too little too late.

Karie the Maknae: Wallace Huo did what was required of him by the script, and he did it terrifyingly well. Unfortunately, the story didn’t really give him a decent motivation for the things he did, and it was horribly, horribly explained in the last few minutes. The other characters were similarly under served in the motivation department, which cheapened the overall story.

OVERALL REACTION

Kmuse: I give this movie a 6/10.  There were some great moments of exposition but they were surrounded by a lot of “meh” story arcs.  It was worth watching for Yang Mi but it wouldn’t be on my top recommendation list.

Karie the Maknae: I’d give this one a 7/10 for Yang Mi alone. As I said before, her acting really carried the movie. Between that and the time travel plot twists, it’s not QUITE your standard action movie, but I wouldn’t recommend it necessarily. I found violence against one character extremely disturbing, and the film seemed to dwell on it. On the other hand, the fight scenes and the hunt-and-chase scenes were well done. I guess I would recommend it to adults who were in the mood for an action movie with a decent plot and phenomenal acting.

You can find Reset on Amazon HERE.

Til our next movie adventure,

The Fangirls

Dramas with a Side of Kimchi

**This movie contains violence.