Fuk sing go jiu

Jackie's got a smaller, more serious role here, but I'd say it's worth it. You gotta have a penchant for goofy stuff though. This group is pretty enjoyable together, and the bits with Chan battling his way through the Haunted House is well worth it. Sort of a "minor" Jackie fil,m, it's worth a watch.

this is really two films, an hour long crime comedy and a half-hour kung fu film. i think hong Kong audiences can deal with such a mix better than most westerners. at any rate, the kung fu movie is enjoyable, very quickly paced, with some notable stunts - but to be honest, it offered very little new, and doesn't really meet the standard set by other films starring sammo hung and Jackie Chan from this era.

the comedy, on the other hand, is really fun to watch, even when it isn't knee-slapping laff-out-loud funny. this appears to be a little bit of a tribute to the Marx bros., with a touch of Cantonese slap-stick tossed in. it's really character-driven comedy; the funny bits could happen only because the characters are who they are. consequently, it just makes sense for a character - who was stupid enough to gamble on whether a fly would land on his poker hand - to be discovered looking for a hundred bucks he had lost outside at night inside a hotel lobby because 'the light's better in here'. there's also much physical comedy which is actually better to see than for me to describe.

one major warning - i've seen this film now in its original hong Kong version, which included mandarin and English subtitles; its original English-dub American release; its recent re-subtitled release; its recent re-dubbed release. of the four versions, the re-dubbed is by far the worst translation of the original dialog. although released on DVD with the new subtitles available, and so one would suppose the dub and the subtitles would be identical, they didn't even get this right - use the subtitles, avoid the new dub. and there are still crucial moments lost in the new subtitles. at one point, a character, trying to act tough, is asked what he would do if someone bumped into his car; the subtitle has him say that - essentially - he would force the guy to beg for mercy; that's not what he says, what he says is that 'i would beg for mercy' - in other words, this is the moment when his sham is exposed. i can imagine literally hundred - thousands - of people missing this joke entirely due to the bad translation here.

the best version - its original hong Kong version which includes mandarin and English subtitles .

still, even with this problem as obvious as it is, i think audiences will still find a lot to like about this film. the characters - all performed by the famous lucky-stars Chinese opera group that produced hung, Chan, yuen wah, and yuen biao - all present here BTW - are so amiable and unpretentious, it's hard not to like them, and if you do like them, you will have a good time.

A follow-up to Winners and Sinners,this is,like that film,essentially a comedy starring Samo Hung and some Hong Kong comedians,the Lucky Stars, with what really amounts to little more than an extended cameo from Jackie Chan. He has more scenes in this one,but despite what DVD covers might say he certainly doesn't 'star' in the film.

Opening with some great car and fight action involving Chan and his fellow Peking Opera School graduate Yuen Biao,the film than becomes,for almost the next hour,a series of comedy set pieces involving the Lucky Stars. As well as slowing the film to a halt the problem is that very little of the humour seems funny to these western eyes and may only be understood by Hong Kong audiences {as in a lengthy sequence on a bus involving jokes about Chinese dialects and the like}. Much of it is taken up with the men all trying to find ways to get close to female star Sibelle Hu, in what looks alarmingly like sexual harassment. Only Eric Tsang's childlike behaviour and Righard Ng's double takes,plus a gag about a walnut,seem to work.

After what seems like an eternity of this stuff the last 20 mins is all fantastic action,with a very imaginative fairground set piece which may have influenced Beverley Hills Cop 3,ninjas,and some terrific fighting involving Chan,Hing,Biao and some other Hong Kong action folk. Maybe it's a case of too little too late. As with some other Hong Kong films the action seems to cancel out the comedy and vice versa. It's OK,but Winners and Sinners before it and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stare are better.

For someone who loves the "three brothers" in the outstanding "Dragons Forever", or the also excellent "Wheels on Meals", "My Lucky Stars" was a poor offering. The fight scenes at the end, particularly Jackie's unique and exciting romp through the "haunted house", account for four of my five-star rating. The vast stretch of "humor" in the middle is comprised of some Chinese-nuanced gags, inaccessible to my Western senses, and a load of truly imbecilic slapstick, most of it so juvenile and embarrassing that I had to eventually begin fast-forward searching, to get to some decent action. I can only recommend the first 10 minutes, and the last 20.....

It is the second film in the series after Winners and Sinners. Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars is the film after this one. I would certainly recommend this series of movies. My favourite parts of this film are the fight scenes, but the funniest moments are when Sammo Hung is with his friends e.g. the scene where they pretend that there are robbers in their house to get close to Sibelle Hu. I like the end of the film as there is a lot of fighting between Jackie Chan and Dick Wei, Sammo and Lau Kar Wing and Yuen Biao and Lam Ching Ying. This is definitely the film, which made me watch martial art movies, particularly when they are comedies.