This movie deceived my expectations and I cannot let it go. More than half of the movie I got A-Xiang the thug and although his character is slowly revealed afterwards, I still got a sour taste in my mouth. And afterwards I could not stomach the sudden change of tone, all in all it's like I'm watching three different movies that don't seem to go together, and I have seen those movies before, several times actually, and they're not doing anything new here - a rather unfortunate attempt at an odd couple type of movie, or opposites attract or an unlikely bromance or something like that, the one in the beginning, then the tone shifts to melodrama, working hard to induce the feeling of loss, missed opportunities, the sad tragedy of a life not lived and so on, sprinkling bits of information here and there, filling in the blanks of the first story, and it is tragic, and yes, I shed a few tears, reluctantly, because I hate being manipulated so unimaginatively. And the third one is very brief and it veers towards a time travel - time disruption - rewriting the past kind of story and it gives a happy alternative to the previous tragedy, which works, but only because they were such cruel bastards before. But come on, if you want to use all those narratives together, you need to balance it out better, make it more even and seamless, otherwise it feels contrived and stitched together and solved at the last minute, which is what I got.
So no, this did not work for me and I begrudge it because I have been saving this movie for a while and it disappointed me. Just get better writers.
