43.25 quintillion. That is the number of possible configurations of a Rubik’s Cube. It’s My Time is a film about a puzzle where one must find a single configuration among those countless possibilities. As in many sports films, the real game one must win, or the real problem one must solve, is not on the field but in life itself - and within oneself. Zhao (Michelle Yeoh) lives in a nursing home after losing her home over allegations of fraud. There, she meets Youwei, a former Rubik’s Cube world champion who is now reduced to performing modest tricks at night markets. Zhao enlists his help to learn everything about the Rubik’s Cube, and her skills improve by leaps and bounds as she solves one difficult puzzle after another, but the problems in her own life prove far more difficult to resolve. The Rubik’s Cube is a game, in which solving difficult puzzles requires constant adjustment due to continually changing configurations. Life’s problems are much the same. Unless we change ourselves, no problem can be solved. This is the obvious yet weighty truth about life that the film tells us - and why the object in Michelle Yeoh’s hands is a Rubik’s Cube, not a sword.
A Chinese film director and screenwriter, she is currently pursuing a PhD in Directing at the Beijing Film Academy. Her feature debut, THE CROSSING (2018), was invited to Berlinale Generation 14plus and received a Special Mention for the NETPAC Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, as well as the Best Film Award at the Pingyao International Film Festival in China. Her second feature, It’s My Time, starring Michelle Yeoh and Liu Haoran, was completed through SIFF YOUNG, a young filmmaker support program of the Shanghai International Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
