Second Time Around (2002)
A young man goes to Las Vegas with his best friend to prove he can win big bucks. When he loses all of the money, he and his friend get help from a young woman who tells the man the story of some special stones that are part of a legend involving time travel and parallel universes. When the trio get in a car accident, the young gambler is the only survivor. Pursued by a female detective, the two accidentally end up back in time on Christmas Day, where the gambler decides to make the wrong things right, and he also ends up falling in love with the detective.
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Absolutely amazing
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
This is a strange mix of genres that you do sometimes see a lot of in Hong Kong films. It's partly a romantic comedy (which Netflix billed it as), but also more serious than that as well. Ekin Cheng thinks he's a hot shot gambler who just needs a chance (that is, money) to win big in Vegas. He gets that chance by stealing some money along with a friend. But things go horribly wrong and his friend ends up dead. But then he ends up going back in time rather mysteriously and has a chance to change things.The end and beginning are fairly serious, the middle is extremely funny in spots, almost slapstick.The English captioning is terrible at times, which is odd, because part of the movie is in English (it's set in Las Vegas), and they can't even get the subtitles for the English parts right.
The movie itself is a confusing mess of time lines that probably has loopholes I missed because it lost me somewhere along the way. What saves this movie is its humor, some of its jokes even made me laugh out loud, a feat not easily done - I'm generally one for spontaneous humor and not set ups. The chemistry between the leads also helped warm me to their characters. Wished they downplayed the sci-fi bit and gave the talented Jonathan Ke Quan a bigger role. 7/10
This is a little different film that I've seen from Hong Kong. This time a guy goes to Vegas to prove that he's the best card player/dealer. Things don't work as planned. But a with the help of a girl and some magic stones, he gets a second chance. It nothing new, as there are many films with this similar premise like Groundhog Day, 12:01, Run Lola Run. Those films are better, but this movie is entertaining enough to keep your interest with a nice mix of action, drama, romance, and a bit of science fiction. **1/2 (Out of 4)
SPOILER=======================================================> I just finish watchin the movie. I loved how the plot was set up, so that ekin cheng finds out who commited the crime, but I am confused as how his attitude could have changed so quickly, the early ekin would kill for money, but the later one who is only a few days older would risk his life for his friend and the girl. but other then that I loved it