Michelle Yeoh reportedly spent two years learning the Rubik’s Cube to prepare for the Chinese drama It’s My Time, in which she plays a real-life former maths teacher who became a champion in retirement. The true story is stretched and squeezed here, fictionalised to fit sports-movie formula; it ends up being so-so entertaining and funny in places, but disappointingly predictable. The biggest surprise is that cubing is so popular it has its own world championship.
A spiky performance in a nursing home
Yeoh gives a superb, spiky performance as blunt, foul-tempered Zhao Yanhong. Following a stroke, Zhao is living in a nursing home where she is the resident badass, assaulting her robot care companion and making illicit trips to the off-licence. She discovers her natural talent for the Rubik’s Cube when a washed-up ex-champion called Wu Youwei (Haoran Liu) comes to the nursing home to give a tutorial.
Classic sports-film structure
What follows is a classic sports-film structure, with qualifying heats and Zhao training day and night, lifting weights and pounding the city streets. Running is de rigueur in a Rubik’s Cube movie; physical strength is Zhao’s weak spot, says Wu, who agrees to be her coach.
Challenging stereotypes
Yeoh is enjoyably irascible as Zhao, who goes viral after thrashing a kid in her first competition. Her online fans call her “Grandma Zhao” and the film gently chips away at stereotypes of the older generation; fans assume Zhao is a cuddly elder, while younger cubers underestimate her skill and stamina. Yeoh brings intelligence to the role, but it’s odd that after making Zhao so testy and short-tempered, the film is all soft edges with a squishy centre. It’s My Time is in UK cinemas from 16 October.
