Directed by Hong-Seung Hoon, Reset sees Wallace Hou and Mi Yang deliver solid acting performances that carry the film despite its dense plot and unclear motives.
First things first on Reset… I was pleasantly surprised by it and yet also left to wonder what if. Sci-fi can be tricky to pull off. Dense plots can often muddy what is going on as a writer or director tries to set up a complex fictional world while also introducing characters. Reset manages to pull it off just barely despite warning signs that its complex plot will swallow it whole.
The movie itself is set in the year 2025. A company called Nexus—yes, I know, very original—is experimenting with time travel technology. The American arm of nexus has had a massive failure from testing on human subjects and riots have destroyed their work. This is fed to us via text before the actual action of the movie begins, which is fine, but I would have preferred this to be shown with action on screen. The Chinese arm of Nexus however has reached a critical breakthrough in the technology and that is where our conflict begins.
A mysterious Man, Cui Hu, played by Wallace Hou, is offered the task of retrieving the data of the Chinese arm of the Nexus operation. His motives for accepting this task are unclear at the beginning.
Wallace Hou as Cui Hu
As the movie progresses we are introduced to our protagonist, Xia Tian, Portrayed by Mi Yang. She is one of the main figures in the work being done on time travel at the Chinese branch of Nexus. She is a single mother who is also a workaholic. After her and her colleagues report to their board of directors on a recent breakthrough her son is kidnapped. She is offered an Ultimatum from Wallace Hou’s character, give over her company’s data within an hour and her son will live.
As one would expect with time travel movies, things do not go as Xia Tian would have hoped, her son is killed, and she is forced to go back in time—a tricky thing, one of the constraints the movie puts on its characters is that this time travel is not an exact science and that issues can occur when something does go back—and try to change the outcome.
As the movie progresses Xia Tian is forced to go back in time on more than one occasion. This results in three Xia Tians being present in one-time line with the last one being a much darker version. Now this is where I want to stop for a moment and applaud the acting done by Mi Yang. Playing one character is tricky enough but playing three versions of a character is a different ball game and she pulls it off. Her portrayal of the much darker third version of her character is excellent.
Ultimately all three versions of Xia Tian must band together and try to solve their predicament together. Through the actions taken to do so it comes out that there is something more nefarious going on with regards to the villains. Someone on the on the inside of nexus is working with Wallace Hou’s villain to steal the Nexus Companies data and destroy the company. Now this is where some issues arise. I was at odds with Wallace Hou’s Villain’s explanation of his actions. He is known throughout the movie as this dark evil person for most of the movie, and is then given his expositional dialogue moments before he dies. This is a character that kills a child twice in this movie and through out the acts shows that he is a cold uncaring character. I think that they should have either opened the movie with this character and his motives or they should have just given him no personal motives at all. Wallace Hou’s acting is strong enough and his characters own actions in the movie are enough that I think they could’ve gotten by without his characters reasons. It’s a situation where the movie is about Xia Tian trying to save her son, that’s the action that I care about getting resolved. Wallace Hou’s Cui Hu character’s motives are not important to this outcome, his importance is that he is what stands in the way of Xia Tian’s son being safe or unsafe. Now they could have kept Cui Hou’s motives in but it’s just the way of this character develops that feels out of place. It gets to a point when it is revealed why he is doing these terrible things that I found myself just not caring all that much because I’ve already seen him kill a kid in some remorseless ways.
The movie ends with a confrontation of the three Xia Tians. The third and darkest version wanting to kill the other two, so she can be with their son. This ending while somewhat confusing does have a conclusion that left me satisfied and not upset which is as much as you can ask for in a movie sometimes. I should note here that there is an extremely not needed and cheesy post credit scene that did leave me saying “c’mon really?”
The 3 Xia Tians
As far as movie production goes this piece pulls off some pretty shots. The set designs are extremely well done. The lab where most of the action happens at is put together nicely. There are establishing shots that could have been deleted from the final cut. Mainly of the nexus tower. It is just clear from this that their CGI budget wasn’t the best. This is just one of those things that could have easily been avoided. There was also a rather annoying shot of Xia Tian using an elevator that was out of place with regards to the CGI. The best way I can put this is the CGI in these establishing shots and in this elevator shot reminded me of Star Wars Episode I. It’s just something they could have done without.
Now despite the negatives the film is still very watchable, and never turned me off which I was impressed with because of the scope of what they bit off. It really is a dense plot, but they do a decent job of keeping it grounded in the basic dramatic rule of a hero wants something in one place over the course of twenty-four hours. Keeping this core component of story telling strong throughout makes it so the complexity involved in this move can’t weigh it down to the point where you’re wondering what is going on. They are able to keep that core component grounded at the scene level and not just the overall movie. This combined with it’s extremely strong acting keeps the movie afloat of above any of it’s wrong doings. They were definitely on to something with this movie and you can clearly define where it shines and where it could have done better but the good of the film out-weighs the bad. If they just re-worked how the villain character progression went and taken out some shots they could have had something special with this film. It was however a very creative take on the story of a mother trying to save her child. I would ultimately deem this a solid watch if you can find it someplace like Netflix or Hulu. Would I go out of my way to watch this? No. Was I disappointed? Also no. But again, it’s also hard to not wonder what might have been if they had just made some very easy fixes at the pre-and post- production phases of the movie.
