My Lucky Star
Reviewed by YTSL
For a variety of reasons, (too) many people
out there in this world of ours continue to harbor the mistaken belief
that Hong Kong only produces action movies (Most specifically, kung fu
works that have been collectively plus derogatively dubbed as “chop socky”
efforts). As regular visitors to this web site and other many Jade
Theatre fans can attest, however: “[t]he truth is, of course, that Hong
Kong cinema spans a huge and diverse spectrum of genres, some of which
are readily familiar to Western audiences (romantic melodramas and slapstick
comedies), others totally alien (period “swordsman” epics, “gambling king”
films, and hopping vampire flicks)” (See Jeff Yang’s “Eastern Standard
Time”, 1997:74).
Additionally, every once in a while, a film --
like “Peking Opera Blues” -- will come along “that seems to float free
of the entire history of cinema” and might be said to have consequently
“created its own genre (the period-comedy-women’s-actioner?)” (Lisa Morton
in “The Cinema of Tsui Hark”, 2001:65). More frequently though, it
seems that certain well received others are liable to spawn, revive or
help establish intriguing sub-genres and trajectories within this often
under-appreciated East Asian cinema. E.g., this (re)viewer can’t
help but see the existence of a distinct line that connects “Needing You”
(romantic office comedy), “La Brassiere” (romantic office comedy with female
oriented gimmicks) and “Dummy Mommy without a Baby” and “Mighty Baby” (ditto).
And so it is too with “Fat Choi Spirit” and MY LUCKY STAR (two Chinese
New Year comedies that have a distinctly Chinese angle; with this 2003
offering seeking to do for Feng Shui -- and related fields, like numerology
and both Western plus Chinese forms of astrology -- what the 2002 Milkyway
Image production did with mahjong).
As one ought to be able to predict of a work whose
release is timed for when people particularly wish to come by positive
plus auspicious experiences, MY LUCKY STAR is wont to be on the bright
plus light side. Like with many another Lunar New Year movie, it
also is meant to be utilized to deliver a moralistic message plus uplifting
exhortation as well as be good naturedly entertaining. As such, the
suggestion that bad luck will befall those who directly work to cause misfortune
to strike others get tendered as, if not more, often in this effort than
the evidently strongly cautionary “Know a Yip, make a loss” rule that Tony
Leung Chiu Wai’s Lai Liu Po character discloses to Miriam Yeung’s Yip Ku
Hung as being his family’s motto. Additionally, some care appears
to have been taken to submit that Feng Shui -- and, by extension, this
festive offering (whose credited personnel includes a Feng Shui consultant)
-- teaches that “all problems can be solved”, and that its practitioners
are more likely to seek to have an active role in effecting their destiny
than just passively accept whatever fate supposedly has in store for them.
Something else that is very much in keeping with
the Chinese New Year film tradition is this Vincent Kuk directed, scripted
(along with Patrick Kong) cum produced offering’s containing a large amount
of guest plus cameo appearances. Among the more notable of these
for me were those by: the rotund main man behind this movie (as Yip Ku
Hung’s character’s boss); Alex Fong (as her angelic father); Teresa Carpio
(as her wicked stepmother); Chapman To (who has two roles -- the larger
of which has him playing Teresa Carpio’s character’s boy toy); William
So (another cast member with more than one role to essay in MY LUCKY STAR);
Shawn Yu (as a policeman); Cheung Tat Ming (as a more senior uniformed
officer); and Josie Ho (as a client of this effort’s feng shui expert of
a male protagonist).
Keener eyed folks -- like LoveHKFilm.com’s Kozo
-- were able to also make celebrity spottings in MY LUCKY STAR of the likes
of Mark Lui, Ken Wong, Ken Chang, Anya, Rain Li and the (other) Alex Fong
who’s better known as a singer than actor. For the most part though,
that which starts off as a period piece -- but soon morphs into a contemporary
romantic comedy -- really does solely revolve around the likable Miriam
Yeung (particularly her contemporary character; who, not incidentally,
happens to be the apparently terribly unlucky -- but also extremely nice
-- descendant of her earlier Imperial Exams Scholar character) and the
charming Tony Leung Chiu Wai (another of those of this movie’s cast who
viewers will first encounter in a period setting before been seen some
more in a larger modern day role).
Almost needless to say, MY LUCKY STAR’s main female
and male characters do come to be romantically entangled over the course
of the offering. Contrary to expectations however, the third billed
Ronald Cheng does not seek even once to be the love rival of Tony Leung
Chiu Wai’s Lai Liu Po or Lai Ma Po. Additionally, he turned out to
not be in the fun picture as much as I had figured that he would be.
For all this though, he -- whose expert numerologist characters are the
foils of Little Tony’s ace geomancers’ -- definitely did add some amusingly
eye-catching parts to a movie which yielded one more surprise in terms
of its turning out to be considerably more generally amusing and enjoyable
than I had thought that it would be.
My rating for this film: 7.5