Qian zuo guai

Perhaps the funniest foreign movie I've ever seen.

Cutting out the first few minutes of meaningless mayhem, Ying and his best friend Fatso win the lottery and are living it up, (Not to mention teaching a few people a lesson ;)) until the fateful day comes when Ying receives news of his terminal illness. Deciding life is no longer worth living Ying plans to commit suicide, but in doing so meets another lost soul, whom he helps out by handing over a generous wad of cash, in return his new found friend agrees to hire an assassin so that Ying can at least die with dignity. Shortly afterwards Ying is informed of a mix up on the doctor's part and that he is not terminally ill after all.

Ying and Fatso need to cancel the assassination and fast, but find out that their friend 'Chuk' who organised the assassination has himself fallen victim to some assassination, and worse still he has hired not one, but three assassins. Amidst the struggles that ensue the pair eventually find themselves at an asylum where unfortunately, Fatso's new girlfriend Julia is a patient (Another has a strange Woody Woodpecker-like laugh). Everything after this is action, comedy and simply mayhem, but through it all Ying and Fatso remain friends to the end, even to the point where each is willing to die so that the other may live.

Movie Highlights *Teaching the boss a lesson *Drunken Martial arts Master *Russian Roulette

Quote: Ying:-Now I know True friends are worth more than money. Money? (laughs) it's just paper (laughs again).

John Woo's comedy/action film is a star vehicle for Ricky Hui. He plays an every man that dreams of marrying a Golden Harvest star and becoming rich. Ricky's friend Fatso convinces him to play Mark Six. Using the numbers of his dream girl's birthdate and her measurements. To Ricky's surprise, he wins the lottery. But he finds out that being rich is not all that in enjoyable and runs a foul of a trio of hitmen who try to kill him( he hires someone to kill him when his doctor mistakenly diagnosis him with terminal cancer). What happens next is unbelivable.

As usual John Woo reuses the set pieces from his earlier films and recycles them in his later movies i.e. Bullet In The Head, Just heroes and the Killer. I highly recommend this film. Try and find the mandarin print. It contains more footage than the cantonese version. Be on the look out for a young Lam Ching-ying. Check out the Deer Hunter parody near the end of the movie. By the way this film was made in 1980.