When it comes to Liu Zhenwei's most famous crossover film, the first place is definitely "Journey to the West", followed by "Timeless Love" written by him. Both films are based on the theme of going back in time, and through the reorganization of different space-time lines, they lead to non-linear love stories.
In fact, in Liu Zhenwei's work resume, there is a similar film that has also done a very good job, but it has been in the bright dark corner of "Journey to the West", which is 2002's "Infinite Resurrection".
The film tells the story of Ah Ren (Zheng Yijian), a casino security officer, who forces his friend Ah Xing (Guan Jiwei) to steal a million dollars from the company and get a big bet in Las Vegas, only to lose all his money overnight.
Discouraged, they were on their way to Los Angeles on the hitchhiker Anna's ride, but unexpectedly had a bizarre car accident. Aren, who woke up from the hospital 2 days later, was told that Anna had been killed in a car accident and that A-Star's death was suspected of murder.
The next day, with the help of the "back stone" given to him by Anna, Ah Ren travels back to the day of the incident (that is, from the 28th to the 25th), trying to save Ah Xing's life and find out the culprit of the bizarre car accident. At the same time, the policewoman Tina (Cecilia Cheung), whom Ah Ren met on the day of the 28th, also wears back three days ago to help him change history.
Who is the murderer hiding behind the car accident? And can Ah Ren, who returns to the past, save his friend Ah Xing from death? These two suspenseful propositions have become the main driving force for the audience not to give up at the last moment.
It is also a time-space transition, but perhaps Liu Zhenwei does not want to repeat the old trick of "Journey to the West" again through this "Infinite Resurrection", so he put "salvation" in the first place and "love" in the second place. The reason is to focus on the expression of "cherish and grasp the person in front of you, do not wait until you lose it to regret it", at that time, it was not yet interpreted by the public to have too much deep meaning, then in this "Infinite Resurrection", Liu Zhenwei expressed its themes and ideas relatively shallowly, and even more "universal effect".
Therefore, the "crossing" in the film is more like the protagonist Aren re-examining himself, and finally completing a kind of personality realm of "self-help" - let's pull our eyes back to Ah Ren on the 25th, when he was selfish, arrogant, paranoid, in order to block the public money deficit that he lost overnight, he could turn a deaf ear to Anna who was injured in a car accident and dying, and even poison his friend Ah Xing who prevented him from robbing Anna of her gambling money.
However, after losing friends and getting love, he realized how important friends really were. So when he crossed back to the night of the incident, he desperately blocked the fatal blow he swung at Ah Xing on the 25th, saying such a line: Everyone will do something wrong, but not everyone has the opportunity to change, and I don't want to be condemned by conscience for the rest of my life.
In addition, the film is also significantly different from "Journey to the West" in the depiction of love. The latter is closer to tragedy, but "Infinite Resurrection" makes people feel warm and cozy. Although Arren did not end up with Tina, who was at the same point in time as her, it also meant that all the good memories of her and Aren's time together were completely blank. But when she sees the half pearl hanging from Aren's neck, she finally understands that he is the "other half" she is looking for (this is what Tina from another time and space gave him). This design, which connects two time-space love relics, cannot be unconvincing.
On the surface, this "Infinite Resurrection" seems to be to break the scientific view that "we may go back to the past, but in the end we can't change history", but in fact, it still does not jump out of the established category, that is, although Arren in the film sees himself on the day of the incident, the two time and space are completely parallel (he can't change everything at all), but this circular structure is scattered due to factors such as crossing, but the overall concept is complete.
I believe that the ingenious conception of this film and the clarity of the brain circuitry can be described as more than "Journey to the West". Think of Liu Zhenwei, who is now named the "King of Bad Films", just holding the "Journey to the West" IP and "Crossing" to simply and rudely fry cold rice, and now re-watching this "Infinite Resurrection", it is easier to teach people to sigh.
According to Liu Zhenwei, the original intention of the creation of "Journey to the West" was to apologize to the long-term lack of his wife, and this "Infinite Resurrection" is to supplement some things that are not clearly explained in "Journey to the West", so Presumably fans who like "Journey to the West" will like "Infinite Resurrection".
Interestingly, when the film was released in South Korea, it was called "God of Gamblers", which was obviously influenced by the popularity of Hong Kong-style gambling films in South Korea at that time. Needless to say Wang Jing, even Liu Zhenwei's "Gamble Saint" and its sequel "Gambler" have caused a huge response in South Korea, and "Infinite Resurrection" has found an American-Vietnamese actor Guan Jiwei to play A Xing, which is also a bit of a suspicion of "reproducing" the star.
However, this naming is obviously a kind of "misleading" - perhaps the Korean audience at that time was running to Jeong Yijian to witness how a "new version of Gao Jin" was born, but unexpectedly watched a film of "gambling and romance".