A 17th century Qing Emperor sends Wai Siu-bo (Tony Leung) 300 years into the future in search of a virgin bride for his Highness. What Wai finds is a mess of trouble after hooking up with a bungling Hong Kong cop (Dicky Cheung) and discovering that a few other time travelers from the same era have arrived and not all of them are friendly.

Following the success of Stephen Chow’s Royal Tramp, Tony Leung reprises a previous TV role for Hero from Beyond the Boundary of Time. It’s a clunky, nonsense comedy full of crude humor, improbable circumstances and general stupidity. But, the last twenty minutes contains some mildly-diverting wire-fu action in the Ching Siu-tung tradition.

Most Western viewers probably know Tony Leung as the talented actor who delivered subtle performances in superb films like In the Mood for Love and Hero. But one look at Hero from Beyond the Boundary of Time is almost enough to ruin that image. Leung plays Wai Siu-bo, a “friend” of the Emperor who is forced to try out a Shaolin monk’s 17th century time machine that looks like an oversize, gold kettle. Wai’s mission is to find a virgin bride for the Emperor in the future, since apparently it’s even more difficult to find one in their own time. In the present day outskirts of Hong Kong, Wai is taken for an illegal mainland immigrant. He is arrested by officer Chiu (Dicky Cheung Wai-kin), a bungling cop who is caught up with triads. But the two soon become partners in looking for a suitable virgin while engaging in various sexcapades and run-ins with underworld thugs. They eventually settle on Siu-ha (Jacqueline Ng), a beauty Wai met earlier and has slowly been falling for. Into this situation walks two of Wai’s wives who have also traveled to the future and two kung fu-fighting assassins sent to stop Wai from succeeding.

For the most part, this film is not going to interest action film fans. Even general Hong Kong buffs will be challenged in finding enough entertainment value to justify a viewing. It’s a mediocre rip-off of Stephen Chow that wastes the bulk of the running time on tasteless gags involving a lusty transvestite, physical and verbal abuse of women, homophobia, aphrodisiacs, and the drawn out act of looking up a woman’s skirt. Leung isn’t funny as a participant in these activities and is certainly no ‘hero’ in any sense. As a non-martial arts actor, his only trick here is overusing the freezing, pressure-point finger jab. Dicky Cheung is just plain obnoxious as his idiot partner who winds up ‘man’-handled and shot in the ass, among other things.

The only highlight comes near the end as two assassins, played by Sophie Crawford (Buffy the Vampire Slayer double) and the super-talented Kim Won-jin finally inject the film with a little martial arts excitement to help wash away some of the comic crud. There are two fights, a warm-up in a house and the finale at an amusement park. On display throughout these scenes is a mixture of wushu swordplay, wirework, explosive and sharpened projectiles, Won-jin’s fantastic legwork, and edited-in special effects. The camerawork and editing is hyper-stylized with a multitude of cuts, but competently put together. Director Blacky Ko, a seasoned Hong Kong stuntman, handles the action much better than the non-action scenes. The film could haven benefited had Ko thought to mix in more of this action throughout the film rather than bunching it all at the end.

Hero from Beyond the Boundary of Time is a cheap frills flick that’s good for catching a few weak laughs and a touch of fantasy martial arts. On DVD or VCD, it’s also good as a coaster for your drink. But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for either use.

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