Adrian Teh is Malaysian director of Chinese ethnicity who has made a career out of commercially successful Malay language films. They’re not my usual fare so I’ve never watched them. His latest is a science-fiction film that has garnered decent reviews and strong word-of-mouth. Since it’s easily available on Netflix, I thought I should take a look. Since it’s billed as a heartfelt time travel story, I had a few thoughts on how that might play out. Unfortunately my worst fears proved true as it’s the usual ‘can’t change destiny’ and ‘arbitrary constraints on superpowers” tropes. It’s a bold project for a Malaysian but it’s just not that good of a film.

As a jittery middle-aged man, Akid recounts the story of his life to a psychiatrist. He claims to have the power to travel to the past and proves it by performing some simple tricks. He stumbled upon the power as a young man and his father was unsurprised to hear of it as it runs in the family. He does caution Akid that he can only use it in a state of perfect calmness, that it cannot be used to change his fate and every use of the ability ages him. Sure enough, while out on a shopping trip one evening, his father accosts a robber and is stabbed. Akid attempts to go back in time to prevent his death but is too much distress to activate his power. As an adult, he joins the police and becomes a crisis negotiator. In that role, he is able to use his power to undo suicides to save people. Eventually he falls in love with and marries with Sarah, an Aikido instructor. He reveals his power to Sarah who makes him promise never to use it as she doesn’t want him to die before her. They have a son together named Anas and life seems perfect for the family. Naturally both Sarah and Anas die in a tragic accident and Akid repeatedly uses his power to try to save them.

This is very much not a science-fiction film and that is especially unfortunate because there are some details which suggest a rationalist approach. For example Akid uses a notebook to meticulously record the use of his time travel powers and whether each trip succeeds or fails in accomplishing what he wants. He also plans out in detail how to save his wife and child after his casual attempts fail. But this is the kind of film in which none of that matters and it’s kind of the point. Akid’s powers aren’t governed by consistent and logical rules. Instead they follow the rules of Greek tragedy. When the psychiatrist asks him why he didn’t simply go back farther in time to forestall any possibility of the accident, Akid replies that he has tried, hundreds of times. But the inevitable result is that his wife and son die instead in increasingly horrible and less plausible ways that feel straight out of the Final Destination series. Then it gets worse because the film can’t make up its mind over whether the power can change fate or not. Why is it that he is able to seemingly save people as a police officer using the power? Maybe the real rule is whatever works to advance the plot.

I have a real aversion to artificially and arbitrarily set rules like this to constrain and this is one of the worst offenders in that regard that I’ve seen. At the same time, it not only suffers from the usual pitfalls of time travel stories but doubles down on them. So whenever the time traveler leaves a timeline, it and everything in it cease to exist. That’s horrific, yet Akid exploits his power to revisit treasured moments of his past even while inflicting on his loved ones the realization that this will only be a temporary timeline that won’t matter. The inevitable result, as in all such stories, is that only time travelers have agency and matter. Everyone else is ephemeral, existing and disappearing at a whim. Teh ruthlessly plumbs the scenario for the feels to wrings tears from the audience. It might even work for those not thinking through the implications of his actions, that he would be undoing everything he has achieved in life including saving innumerable people.

I suppose the film’s production values are decent though the actors’ performances are only middling. I liked that the love interest is presented as a strong woman archetype who can defend herself. But then when it comes to random freak accidents, she stops having good reflexes and loses all agency to determine her own fate just the same. I was hoping to see some actual originality and flair in a Malaysian science-fiction film but this isn’t it.