Lucky Guys
Director: Yao Ka-hung
Year: 1989
Rating: 5.5
If you live in Hong
Kong and you are a somewhat decent looking woman (or maybe not even), it’s
great to know that you never have to worry about being employed – no matter
how incompetent you might be. In this film Carina Lau, Sandra Ng and Elsie
Chan try to hold down regular day jobs, but always manage to be on the wrong
end of a pink slip. Carina works in a convenience store, but has the bad
habit of puncturing holes through the condom purchases of males when they
aren’t looking (not exactly being thoughtful regarding the woman on the receiving
end of that!), Sandra has a hot dog stand but gets most of the condiments
on her customers as opposed to the dog and Elsie has the challenging job
of dusting phones. Yes, she is a professional phone duster – but a top heavy
one that brings her in for a fair amount of mirth and lechering. In the 80’s
Elsie was well known for her extensive bosom and it is referred to (and focused
on!) constantly in this film (as well as poked fun of in Tiger on the Beat
– in which she did not even appear).
They lose those jobs and then the next ones until they finally turn to that
always there as a last resort job – nightclub hostesses! Here they have to
deal with creeps like Charlie Cho (one scene in which he caresses an unwilling
Carina made my skin crawl) and participate in drinking games (Carina again
has to chug a bottle as she did in Girls Without Tomorrow) and a slapping
game which I also saw in The Inspector Wears Skirts in which the loser of
a finger game gets slapped across the face – repeatedly. Not my idea of fun
– but what the hell. This being a comedy and these being good girls, they
never sleep with the customers of course.
With three single girls, you know there will be three single guys courting
or in HK film lingo “fevering” after them. These would be Jacky Cheung, Eric
Tsang and some fellow called Lam Man Chung who appeared in a few films and
then vanished from the HKMDB filmography. This film was probably not a huge
boost to his career though it did run for a month in 1989. These three run
a travel agency that would give a consumer complaint department hours of
overtime to process. This all changes though after they meet their three
sweeties over a luncheon in which the disabled are severely mocked as both
Carina and Jacky pretend to be blind and Sandra and Lam pretend to be mutes.
Eric is just himself, but that often seems mentally disabled!
So the guys decide to go straight, but little do they know their girls are
in the hostess game. When they find out (Eric has to grab a chicken when
words fail him), the men feel fooled and cheated and so break up. But again
this is a comedy. It is one of those goofy comedies that HK specialized in
during the 80’s from the Lucky Stars on – very broad, cartoonish and sentimental
that either appeal to you on some level or don’t. I guess they are growing
on me to some extent – I have come to love Eric’s high-pitched strained voice
(he sounds a lot like a cat we had that fell into a bucket of cement and
never quite recovered his vocals) – and to enjoy some of the total silliness.
Some are better than others though and this one is fairly middling even with
the excellent cast. There is also the usual musical video sequence and another
couple songs from I believe Jacky. Look also for a small appearance from
a young Francis Ng as Sandra’s boyfriend Rambo.