A film to continue the events in the famous Hong Kong television series A Step Into the Past, the inventor of the time travel machine vows to return to the Qin Dynasty time period and place himself on the throne.
Way back in 2001 (and it still feels weird to write that) there emerged a Hong Kong television show that had a bit of everything – time travel, police procedurals, royal intrigue and drama, actual semi-factual history, the eternal struggle between master and apprentice, even plenty of romance too. The show had only one season that ran a respectable 40 episodes, and developed a devoted following. A sequel film followup to the show has been stuck in development hell since approximately 2018, and now here it finally is, in all the Warring-States glory you never knew you needed! Make sure your receiver is all juiced up, and let’s get into this!
So, a very quick recap – Inspector Hong Siu-lung (Louis Koo) is a 20th-century cop who bears a connection to the First Emperor Ying Ching of the Qin Dynasty and his infamous Terra Cotta warriors, who takes part in a top-secret time travel experiment intended to send him back to 247 BC and the coronation of Ying Cheng (Raymond Lam), only to have something go wrong and be sent back three years before the intended target, to the Zhao state of the Warring States period of Chinese history, and got stuck there. To return to the future, Hong must make a perilous journey of many miles, to activate a device at a certain location at a certain time, and be very careful not to make even the slightest change to the grand scheme of things, or nothing but disaster will follow. Hong goes on to have many adventures, using his 20th century knowledge to help him, makes many valuable allies and strong enemies along the way, and even takes a few wives! With all that imparted, onward into the movie we go!
Now, some twenty or so years after the events of the show, here we are in the present-day, where the inventor of the original time machine Ken (Michael Miu), a team of men and his daughter Galie (Baihe Bai), have stormed the top-secret facility where the time machine is held. Ken is determined, come hell or high water, to go back to the past and, with the use of modern face-altering technology no less, take the place of the Qin Emperor Ying Cheng himself. Suffice to say, everyone else on the team has their own reasons for wanting to go back to the past, and armed with all kinds of pocket-sized inventions Ken came up with, the team has a distinct advantage heading in.
Elsewhen, back in the Qin Dynasty enjoying a well-earned retirement with his wives and children, especially his son called Bowie (Kevin Chu), Hong Siu-lung spends his days playing football with his mates, farming the land and overseeing his little village, all the while keeping abreast of the takeover of the various warring states by the Qin Emperor, and worrying when, or if, he and his family will be next.
Just as a side note, in actual Chinese history, Ying Zheng did in fact conquer the seven major warring Chinese states, putting an end to the Warring States era and ushering in sweeping reforms that began the first centralized Chinese empire. It is well known that he slaughtered a vast amount of people in order to accomplish such a lofty goal, and that Ying Zheng was considered ruthless in his pursuit of it. After taking the throne, the new Emperor of a unified China was also known for his relentless search for the elixir of immortality, but that’s later.
The agonizing secret that the Emperor has carried these twenty years, that Chiu Poon is in fact not Emperor Ying Cheng at all, but a man coerced to replace him at the behest of his master, Hong himself, has festered this entire time. But in order to replace Ying Cheng first Ken and his men have to find the Emperor, and despite hiding with his family for these twenty years of relative peace away from history and courtly politics, everyone just assumes that Hong would be the best person to coerce to find His Majesty. Thus begins a race against time (pun absolutely intended) and the ambitions of bitter men, each of whom have their own reasons for desiring conquest and rulership, while Hong seems to be the only one who wants to be left alone to live in peace, away from any potential time-paradox-making schemes.
The film pays homage to the original show several times, giving flashback scenes from the show presented in a windowboxing format, a tender reminder of the wonderful OG drama that began on the small screen but brought us here to the big screen on the merits of solid drama, very fine acting, and an in-depth storyline. The movie offers us two endings, one following the vague historical record of a court official sent off in search of the elixir of immortality for his Emperor and was never heard of again, and an alternate ending built into the film, specially made for the fans of the show, featuring a surprise cameo from someone very royal (Michelle Saram)!
You don’t have to have seen the television show in order to enjoy the film based off of said show, but honestly, the show really is worth a watch anyway. (A Step Into the Past is available to watch on Tubi.) With so much entertainment based off of big budget CGI nonsense, we have a tendency to forget that small, intense dramas with little more than excellent actors and some good props, costumes, and sets, can give us that same feeling of being fed a wonderful story. There are plenty of parallels to actual history too, for those of us who like that sort of thing.
Back to the Past comes to a movie theater near you on January 30th, 2026!
Reviewed by Alicia Glass