ICEMAN: THE TIME TRAVELER will be available tomorrow

Well Go USA

Presents

Iceman: The Time Traveler / Bing feng: Yong heng zhi men

Directed by Raymond Yip

Hong Kong/China, 2018, 88 minutes

Iceman: The Time Traveler, the sequel to the 2014 fantasy-adventure Iceman, debuts tomorrow, February 19th, on digital, Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD from Well Go USA Entertainment.

Not that you should care, because the film is a near total dog.

It continues the story of Ying (Donnie Yen), a general of the Ming Emperor's royal bodyguards who was buried and frozen in time by an avalanche during a fierce battle in the first film. Brought back to life in the present day, he embarks on a quest to correct the wrongs of history.

In addition to Donnie Yen, Iceman: The Time Traveler features a returning cast that includes Baoqiang Wang (Kung Fu Jungle), Shengyi Huang (Kung Fu Hustle), Kang Yu (Ip Man 3) and Simon Yam (Operation Red Sea), with the legendary Yasuaki Kurata (God of War) joining the sequel. Raymond Yip (Bruce Lee My Brother) takes over directing duties from Law Wing-Cheong.

The film was not so bad that I was unable to watch it all the way through, but it really doesn't have much going for it. The story jumps all over the place in time, the acting is rather perfunctory, the action sequences often seem "undercranked" so that they play super-fast and unnatural, and the digital effects are often pathetic.

My suggestion is that you save your time and money. At IMDb the film carries an average score of 3.8 based on 307 user ratings (as of when this review is being posted). I hardly ever make reference to IMDb scores in my reviews, but in this case I was really curious to see if it was just me who was woefully unimpressed. Obviously that's not the case.

Also you just might want to check out Edmund Lee's November 17, 2018, review at the South China Morning Post. He describes it as "a film so lacking in coherence, common sense and the most basic character arcs throughout its 87-minute runtime as to be an insult to the paying public." Although I reached my opinion of the film before reading Lee's article, it pretty closely echoes my thoughts.

Disc Specs:
-- Audio
   -- Cantonese DTS-HDMA 5.1
   -- Cantonese 2.0 Stereo
   -- English DTS-HDMA 5.1
   -- English 2.0 Stereo
-- Subtitles
   -- English
   -- Off
-- Trailers
   -- Trailer A
   -- Trailer B
-- Previews
   -- Shadow
   -- Big Brother
   -- Golden Job

AsianCineFest Rating: 1 out of 4 stars; dismal, even worse than the disappointing original.