Always Be the Winners 神龙赌圣之旗开得胜

Renowned gambling master Master Sha (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) lost his final showdown against his rival, Mr. Yau (Ekin Cheng), but a clever trick helped him wriggle out of paying for the defeat with his hand. Yet Yau has no intention of letting his opponent off the hook and demands a rematch — and if Sha wants to win, he must master a secret technique that the swindler Hui Man Long (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) can teach him.

In 1980s–90s Hong Kong, trends were born and died so fast that a film delayed by just a couple of months could end up in a completely different era. Gambling comedies came into fashion in '89, with the arrival of God of Gamblers, and just three years later all that remained of the profitable theme were scraps – a horde of imitators and plagiarists had drained it dry within a couple of years. Always Be the Winners was released when this once-fashionable trend had been finally consigned to the scrapheap, which predictably took its toll on the film's quality.

Though the word "quality" is not one to use in connection with Always Be the Winners – "quality," frankly, it has none. It is a thoroughly stupid and incoherent comedy with cartoonish characters and kindergarten-level jokes – a film like this could perhaps have been carried by Stephen Chow's sheer charisma, but silly comedies are many, and Stephen Chow is one. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai tries unsuccessfully to play in his mold, and although he is no newcomer to comedy, with all due respect, what comes out is merely a pale "Chinese knockoff." Things are slightly better with the rest of the cast, but not by much – the only ones worth noting are Eric Tsang as an elderly nanny and Sandra Ng, who plays Sha's devoted wife with great panache.

What is especially strange is that Always Be the Winners earned 14 million dollars at the box office – yes, the film was released during Chinese New Year, traditionally a generous season for box office receipts, but a "holiday" hit this weak would be hard to find. The successful jokes here can be counted on the fingers of one hand (mostly we are invited to laugh at rather strange things – for instance, at Sandra Ng's screams as Sha thrusts her hand into boiling oil instead of his own), and the gambling scenes are derivative and not particularly engaging – as mentioned above, by 1994 this theme had been plowed so thoroughly that the makers of Always Be the Winners had to dig through the leftovers.