Film

Reset

Name: Reset
Genre: Action, Science Fiction
Released: 2017
Cast: Yang Mi, Wallace Huo, King Shih-chieh, Liu Chang, Hummer Zhang

A 2017 Chinese sci-fi action film about a scientist racing to save her son and protect her time-travel research from a rival's kidnapping plot. It's a brisk, high-concept thriller that blends domestic stakes with speculative premise, anchored by strong performances and committed to its own logic rather than cutting corners for easy answers.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a high-concept thriller where a ticking-clock kidnapping drives the set pieces and the sci-fi idea stays tangible rather than lecture-heavy.

Skip it if you find action built on rescue-and-chase urgency wearing thin, or prefer sci-fi that explores ideas with patience over one that keeps moving.

What it asks of you: A brisk hundred-odd minutes of near-constant pressure that rarely lets the tension drop, even during its quieter moments with a frantic parent at the centre.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Inception2010

Like Reset, it builds an intricate temporal puzzle where the rules matter, the stakes are personal, and action sequences are designed to enhance rather than replace the central idea.

But Dense plotting can feel cold. Some find Nolan's ambition more exhausting than exhilarating, and the ending deliberately refuses easy satisfaction.

Looper2012

A time-travel thriller that actually thinks through its paradoxes while keeping genuine emotional weight. Smart without showing off, kinetic without sacrificing clarity.

But The violence is sudden and brutal in ways that can feel tonally jarring. Some viewers find the third-act pivot divisive.

Twisters2024

A spectacle with character at its centre—a scientist protagonist facing professional and personal reckoning. The action serves the story rather than the reverse, and it moves with genuine propulsion.

But If you need complex plotting or moral ambiguity, this is more straightforward. The emotional beats play broad.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Reset

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Arrival2016

Both centre a female scientist whose professional breakthrough collides with her most intimate relationships. Both ask: what would you do if you could see the whole arc of your own story?

A linguist decodes alien language and discovers her relationship to time itself—transformed. Speculative but grounded in feeling. Proves sci-fi's real power is emotional, not mechanical.

But Deliberately contemplative and slow-burn. If you watch for action or plot momentum, the stillness will frustrate before it moves you.

The Adam Project2022

A father-and-son time-travel story that takes its premise seriously while staying emotionally grounded. Action-driven but never loses sight of why any of it matters.

But Netflix production values sometimes feel TV-scaled. The tone wobbles between comedy and weightiness, which not everyone finds successful.

Tenet2020

Ambitious sci-fi action that trusts audiences to keep up with complex temporal mechanics. Visually inventive and committed to kinetic storytelling without dialogue cuts.

But Notoriously difficult to hear dialogue and follow logic simultaneously. Many found the audio mixing so poor it sabotaged the experience.

Predestination2014

A time-travel thriller that genuinely surprises. Takes its own rules seriously and constructs a locked-box narrative that rewards attention.

But Thin on spectacle and heavy on exposition. If you need action momentum, the long talk scenes will feel static.

Twelve Monkeys1995

Gilliam's fractured time-travel masterpiece: a scientist trying to prevent catastrophe, tangled timelines, paranoia and purpose colliding. Visually wild and thematically rich.

But The fractured narrative style can read as chaotic rather than clever. Deliberately unsettling rather than comforting—bleak in ways some find punishing.

The Cloverfield Paradox2018

A time-travel mystery aboard a space station that understands how to parcel out information and complicate every solution. Pulpy but genuinely clever about its own mechanics.

But Abruptly released with minimal marketing. Many felt blindsided by its ambition relative to the Cloverfield name, which created backlash it didn't deserve.

Russian Doll2019

A woman caught in a time loop facing the same night repeatedly. Starts as a high-concept puzzle and becomes a story about agency, connection, and choosing to live differently.

But The first season is tighter than the second. Some find the emotional-journey-through-repetition formula exhausting once novelty fades.

The Platform2019

Both are non-English sci-fi thrillers from 2010s Asia/Europe that trust audiences with their own logic. Both prioritize premise-consequence over sentiment, and both feature strong women navigating systems indifferent to individual heroism.

A Spanish sci-fi thriller set in a vertical prison that uses its premise as clean metaphor. Bleak, inventive, angry. Built on a simple concept executed with commitment and visual flair.

But It's deliberately punishing—brutal in ways that don't soften. The pessimism is the point, which can feel exhausting rather than clarifying.

mother!2017

Both 2017 releases that use genre scaffolding (sci-fi thriller vs. domestic horror) to interrogate the limits of control. Both centre a woman whose agency is constantly under siege. Tonally opposite but structurally cousins.

Darren Aronofsky's fever-dream about violation, creation, and collapse. Shot the same year as Reset, it's a nightmare-architecture where every rule is the story. Utterly committed, viscerally alive.

But Aggressively surreal and increasingly horrific. Some see it as pretentious or exploitative. It does not want you comfortable, and some viewers feel manipulated rather than moved by that choice.