Do sing

Sing (Stephen Chow) is a mainland China country boy who arrives in Hong Kong to visit his Uncle "Blackie Tat" (Ng Man-tat). When Sing stays with his uncle and his friends in their apartment, Blackie soon learns of Sing's supernatural ability to see through objects and, later on, his ability to change playing cards by rubbing them. He takes advantage of this and turns Sing into the Dou Seng or the "Saint of Gamblers". After getting into a fight with several alleyway gamblers he meets the lovely Yee-mung A. K. A. "Lady Dream", and becomes infatuated with her. Sing quickly becomes a rival to the King and must win his way through a world competition to prove his skill.

The likeable Stephen Chow has the ability to see through things in this lively, glossy HK spoof of gambler films that were popular in the late 80's-early 90's, and there's plenty of fun to be had here, especially with a great performance by Man-Tat Ng, who is a chronic gambler looking to win the big stakes and his nephew ( Chow) is the key to that. Quite an enjoyable film, with nary a dull moment, not with the humour and silly moments running rife. There's some energetic comic fights - funny one is when every time Chow tries to hit a guy another man beats him to it. Man Cheung lends some eye candy, and does some butt-kicking, too.

All for the Winner, a parody of the Chow Yun Fat movie God of Gamblers, was a huge hit in Asia, further cementing Stephen Chow's reputation as a sure-fire box-office success. Personally, I found the film rather tedious; Chow may have had them rolling in the aisles in Hong Kong, but I watched rather stony-faced, only really enjoying the occasional fight scene or high-octane shoot-out (courtesy of action director, Corey Yuen).

Chow plays Sing, a young man from the mainland, who travels to Hong Kong to stay with his uncle Tat (Man Tat Ng). When Tat discovers that Sing possesses supernatural powers, he tries to exploit them by taking him gambling. But Sing's success at the tables attracts the attention of two rival gamblers/gangsters, both of whom wish to take advantage of his mysterious talents…

I'm guessing that a lot of the movie's comedy was lost in translation (some particularly dodgy subtitles didn't help), since I didn't find it very funny; add to that my general indifference to the gambler genre and I suppose I wasn't destined to love this film as much as I had some of Chow's other offerings (King of Comedy is my favourite so far).

Corey Yuen's deft handling of the action sequences make the film a not entirely worthless viewing experience, but there just aren't enough of them. A few more high-kicking bullet-spraying scenes and I'd have been a much happier bunny.

After the worldwide success of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, Chow is at last receiving global recognition and I hope that future projects will be as accessible to an international audience as these were. It would be a shame to see Chow losing fans around the world due to his sometimes more baffling and distinctly Chinese 'humour'.

This is probably Stephen Chow's signature movie, where he plays Chow Sing Cho, a Mainland nephew who visits his Uncle Tat (Man Tat Ng) in Hong Kong and is being encouraged by him to enter the gambling world. Cho possesses supernatural powers that enable him to see through objects, thus, Tat thinks this would be a good strategy for Cho to score some big gambling wins to him get out of being poor.

Co-directed by nonsensical comedy buff Jeffrey Lau, this film actually has a well mixture of action and drama, from Cho running into the Hong Kong Triads to him attempting to learn the real reason beyond his powers. There is also a good dose of slapstick comedy courtesy of Man Tat Ng and Sandra Ng, who plays the funny Ping, the love interest of Coren Yuen's character. It's a good thing the slapstick stuff doesn't get annoying that will leave a bad aftertaste. In addition, thrown in the beautiful Sharla Cheung and a host of other familiar faces in Hong Kong cinema (Paul Chun, Yuen-yan Lo and Sheila Chan), you'll get a good rush of entertainment.

The plot goes at a fairly fast pace from start finish and all the card playing, triad stuff (wished the villain was utilized more, though), Kung-Fu action and comic humor make this an entertaining film.

Grade B+

Stephen Chow comes from Gwangzhou to Taiwan to stay with his uncle Man-Tat Ng, Uncle is a degenerate gambler, and it turns out that Chow has two, count 'em, two superpowers: he can see through objects, which allows him to see cards through their backs, and he can change one thing to another, like the ime he changes a ticket of horse #4 to the winning 9. Stephen winds up representing Taiwan in an international gambling competition,where people are willing to kidnap and kill opponents to win. He also falls wildly in love with Man Cheung, an absolutely deadly spy except when the plot calls for her to be kidnapped, which makes Chow's powers fail.

It's as filled with ridiculous and funny gags as any Stephen Chow movie, with Man-Tat Ng getting in a fair share as the second banana. What it lacks is a sense of progress, that this leads someplace, as the gags seem added just to fill out screen time. I laughed a lot, but even the funniest sequence must connect to the rest of the movie.

All For The Winner (1990) was a Tawainese produced parody of the God of Gamblers. Stephen Chow stars 'The Saint of Gamblers", a mainland country bumpkin who comes to Hong Kong to visit his uncle Blackie Tat (Ng Man Tat). When Blackie learns about Stephen's special gift, he tries to turn him into a money making machine. Chow's favorite comic foil Sandra Ng co-stars as Blackie's roommate, co-director Corey Yuen also has a role as Sandra's husband. Paul Chiang plays the Gambling King and the other co-director Jeff Lau co-stars as his rival.

All For The Winner was a huge success and it cemented Stephen Chow's place as one of the biggest stars in Hong Kong. Wong Jing was so impressed with this parody, he produced an off shoot sequel starring Stephen Chow. This chance meeting made the two a huge amount of money and several funny productions as well. "Sharla" Cheung Man (co-star of God of Gamblers) plays Yee Mong (Beautiful Dream) a woman that Chow pines for but doesn't believe he's good enough for (he follows her through a few more sequels).

A sleeper hit throughout Asia. The film has several excellent action set pieces (courtesy of Corey Yuen) and the comic timing of Stephen Chow and Ng Man Tat is unbelievable.

Highly recommended!

Followed by God of Gamblers 2. All for the Winner 2 was produced by the Jeff Lau/ Corey Yuen team co-starring most of the principle actors from the first film with Anita Mui co-starring as Chow's sister.

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