The Fun, the Luck and the
Tycoon
Director: Johnnie To
Year: 1990
Rating: 7.5
This seems to
be a peculiar film to fall between The Killer and Hard Boiled in Chow Yun
Fat’s career. It is so wildly different than either of them in terms of style,
budget and significance. That is of course one of the things about CYF that
makes him so interesting. He took on roles of all types and does them all
with great charisma.
This one is a fairly fluffy, but funny
comedy done very much in the manner of the screwball comedies of the 1930’s.
CYF is the tycoon with more money than God and more servants than I have
dust balls under my bed. He has never had to work a day in his life for all
of this. Not bad. The only problem is that his rich aunts from where this
wealth springs have arranged a wedding to Nina Li for him. I could live with
that! Nina is a money hungry conniver who pretty much steals every
scene she is in. Her primping prancing doll like walk is one of the funniest
things I have seen (especially when CYF imitates it) but she is still quite
the knockout. CYF isn’t too happy with this arrangement though.
One evening he wanders into a party and
is mistaken for a waiter. He just goes with it and ends up getting a job
as a janitor in a fast food restaurant. He loves it. The scrubbing, the cooking,
everything about doing an honest day’s work. CYF literally smiles through
this entire film. The fact that Sylvia Chang also works at the restaurant
doesn’t hurt. There is of course the obligatory (in screwball comedies) shallow
rich guy chasing after Sylvia as well. By the end of this film I guarantee
that you will be smiling as much as CYF. There is one classic routine where
everyone has to hide for one reason or another and so they create a human
table (with tablecloth) and one by one everyone including the cat and some
rats hide under there.
