Themes: Criminal's Revenge, Race Against Time, Triad
Main Cast: Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Nicholas Tse, Wu Bai, Anthony Wong
Release Year: 2000
Country: HK
Run Time: 113 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Two men who have a great deal in common become friends, only to find themselves turned into enemies in this slam-bang action fest from Hong Kong. Tyler (Nicholas Tse) is a man trying to make a career in a rough section of Hong Kong. One night, after several drinks too many, he hooks up with Ah Jo (Cathy Chui), an off-duty undercover cop who has also had a bit more alcohol than usual. Tyler and Ah Jo spend the night together, even though she usually prefers the company of women, and Ah Jo soon finds she's pregnant. Ah Jo has no desire to remain involved with Tyler, but he wants to do the right thing, so he takes a job as a bodyguard for low-level gangster Uncle Ji (Anthony Wong) and sends her his money, all the while wishing he could be in Brazil. Meanwhile Jack (Wu Bai), who once lived in Brazil, is back in Hong Kong with his very pregnant wife Ah Hui (Candy Lo), the daughter of a triad kingpin targeted by Brazilian gangsters. Uncle Ji is in charge of protecting the triad leader, and he makes Tyler one of his right-hand men. Tyler and Jack get to know one another and become close friends, but their friendship comes to an end when the Brazilian mob makes Jack an offer he can't refuse, putting the two men on opposite sides of a gangland war. Seunlau Ngaklau was directed by Tsui Hark, who returned to Hong Kong filmmaking after a brief sojourn in Hollywood. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Sure, this movie doesn't make a lot of sense, but if you're looking for subtly rendered characters and a restrained, coherent narrative, then see a Yasujiro Ozu film instead. This is decadent filmmaking at its finest. Ever the visual stylist, Tsui Hark and his camera go where no one has gone before, whizzing behind flying bullets and inside explosions. His characters swing from TV antennae, blaze guns from clothing lines, and wrest grenade-bearing villains of their armaments. Tsui's images are always arresting, driving the movie's plot at a break-neck speed. Time and Tide is littered with such pungent images as a flying newborn, a machine gun battle on rappellent cords, and a woman in labor squeezing off a few rounds at the baddies. Time and Tide is a wild kinetic ride by the grand poobah of Hong Kong action spectaculars. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Tyler (Nicholas Tse), gets a lesbian cop, Ah Jo (Cathy Tsui), pregnant after a drunken night. He joins an unlicensed bodyguard service lead by Uncle Ji (Anthony Wong), to make money to give to Ah Jo who wants nothing to do with him. Nearly nine months later Tyler meets up with a butcher named Jack (Wu Bai) and his pregnant wife, Ah Hui (Candy Lo), who helps Tyler, at Ah Hui's father's birthday, prevent the father's assassination. Tyler tries to convince Jack to start a bodyguard service with him, but Jack turns him down.
A group of South American mercenaries, known as the Angels arrive and threaten Jack, who they call Juan, and their second in command Miguel (Couto Remotigue) offers him a chance to rejoin them if he kills his own father-in-law. Instead, Jack kills the leader of the Angels evades Uncle Ji's bodyguards, knocking Tyler out in the process, and then steals a case full of cash from under their noses and escapes from the Angels. Jack drops his wife off at her father's mansion, giving her a key to a train station locker telling her to go there when their child is born. Tyler is interrogated by the cops in connection with Jack, they accuse him of being connected to the killer because he saw him up close. Tyler tells them nothing.
An Jo tries to parole Tyler, but is unable to, though Uncle Ji manages. Tyler thanks An Jo, and Uncle Ji locks him up in a transportation crate for a night before letting him out and getting Tyler to tell him about Jack. Uncle Ji then give Tyler some more money, which Tyler turns around and tries to give to Ah Jo where he finds out that she has just gone into the hospital to give birth. Tyler heads off after Jack, and breaks into his apartment only to find the Angels and Jack have the place staked out.
A running gun battle ensues between Jack and the Angels as Tyler desperately tries to survive one of them in Jack's apartment. Tyler ends up trapped in the apartment with the gas leaking and only manages to survive the explosion by hiding in the refrigerator on Jack's advise. Jack's tricks and cunning out maneuver the Angels into killing one of their own and distracting them long enough so he and Tyler can escape the rest. Miguel admits defeat and tries to call a truce with Jack, but then calls it off when one of the other Angels spots Jack's wife who arrives on the scene to see her former apartment burning.
The Angels take off after An Hui, along with Tyler who sees this, and they all follow her to the train station. Along the way Tyler steals a taxi with his fake gun, giving his wallet to the driver, who promptly takes it to the cops. The police, still suspicious of Tyler from earlier, place him on the scene of the gun battle and explosion send a SWAT team after him to the station. At the station, Tyler confronts An Hui with his fake gun and takes the money Jack stole from the Angels. An Hui goes into labor and one of the Angels shoots a cop, and an innocent, while trying to shoot Tyler.
Panic ensues, Tyler drags An Hui off to safety and the SWAT team arrives to deal with the situation. As they send in a medic team to retrieve An Hui, the Angels open fire on them. Jack arrives on the scene just before the SWAT team, including Miguel and other disguised Angels, starts a full invasion with tear gas. In the midst of the gases, Jack, the Angels, and the SWAT team hunts after each other, with several SWAT officers silently killed one by one by the Angels, who then disguise themselves in SWAT gear, killing even more unsuspecting officers. Tyler escapes with An Hui to the railway tracks, where Jack saves the life of the SWAT team lieutenant and surrenders to him.
The remaining Angels escape through a tunnel to a stadium full of concert goers. Tyler has to hunker down in the tunnels as An Hui starts to give birth, and Jack convinces the SWAT Lieutenant to let him go after Miguel in the stadium. Jack confronts Miguel in the catwalks above the concert goers and defeats him. Meanwhile, Tyler helps An Hui successfully give birth before the last of the Angels shows up. He beats Tyler up and threatens the child. He gets shot repeatedly by An Hui.
Jack is given a heads start to escape the police and visits with his wife, and Tyler recovers the money before going off to the hospital to see his child.
