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Read the following text and answer the quiz below.
[1] Hong Kong time-travel comedy film Back to the Past is a big-screen adaptation of the 2001 TVB drama A Step into the Past. It was released on December 31, earning HK$45.4 million in Hong Kong and Macau cinemas by the end of its opening week.
[2] Back to the Past’s story picks up two decades after the series left off. The show followed Hong Siu-lung, a 21st-century Hong Kong police officer. Hong is recruited into a time-travelling experiment and tasked with using a camera to record the coronation of Qin Shi Huang, who unified China and also became the first emperor of the Qin dynasty (221BC-206BC).
[3] An error with the time-travel machine sends Hong back three years earlier than planned. He ends up in the Warring States period (c. 475BC-221BC), where he becomes involved with the very people he was meant to only observe. In the end, Hong does not return to modern Hong Kong, choosing instead to remain in the past.
[4] The beginning of Back to the Past sees Hong enjoying a peaceful life in the countryside. But when a bitter 21st-century man on a mission appears, Hong is forced into action once more to prevent history from being rewritten.
[5] While Back to the Past and A Step into the Past have different titles in English, the film and the show share the same Chinese name. It roughly translates to “Journey to the Qin dynasty”. This is also the name of the novel series by Hong Kong wuxia and science fiction author Wong Cho-Keung (1952-2017). The novel series provides the basis of the show and the new film.
[6] Wong, better known by his pen name Wong Yik, published the 25-volume series between 1994 and 1996. The wuxia genre had been well liked for decades, but it was dominated by famed authors such as Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng. Wong’s story, which added a time travel element, gained huge popularity among Hong Kong readers.
[7] Back into the Past starred Louis Koo Tin-lok as Hong. On social media platform Threads, one user pointed out that despite the film’s showtime schedules being “busier than bus schedules”, they are often marked as orange or red online and on booking apps, meaning they have sold out.
Source: South China Morning Post, January 8
