The Fun, the Luck and the Tycoon


 

Director: Johnnie To
Year: 1990
Rating: 7.5


This seems to be a peculiar film to fall between The Killer and Hard Boiled in Chow Yun Fat’s career. It is so wildly different than either of them in terms of style, budget and significance. That is of course one of the things about CYF that makes him so interesting. He took on roles of all types and does them all with great charisma.



This one is a fairly fluffy, but funny comedy done very much in the manner of the screwball comedies of the 1930’s. CYF is the tycoon with more money than God and more servants than I have dust balls under my bed. He has never had to work a day in his life for all of this. Not bad. The only problem is that his rich aunts from where this wealth springs have arranged a wedding to Nina Li for him. I could live with that!  Nina is a money hungry conniver who pretty much steals every scene she is in. Her primping prancing doll like walk is one of the funniest things I have seen (especially when CYF imitates it) but she is still quite the knockout. CYF isn’t too happy with this arrangement though.



One evening he wanders into a party and is mistaken for a waiter. He just goes with it and ends up getting a job as a janitor in a fast food restaurant. He loves it. The scrubbing, the cooking, everything about doing an honest day’s work. CYF literally smiles through this entire film. The fact that Sylvia Chang also works at the restaurant doesn’t hurt. There is of course the obligatory (in screwball comedies) shallow rich guy chasing after Sylvia as well. By the end of this film I guarantee that you will be smiling as much as CYF. There is one classic routine where everyone has to hide for one reason or another and so they create a human table (with tablecloth) and one by one everyone including the cat and some rats hide under there.