There are not many things in this world that can get me voluntarily to watch a Wong Jing comedy starring Nat Chan. But Joyce Godenzi is one of them. Born in Hong Kong to an Australian father and Chinese mother, she won the Miss Hong Kong contest in 1984. At least back then that was a sure-fire entre into Hong Kong movies. She made less than a dozen of them before retiring - after marrying Sammo Hung - but some of the films she was in are action classics and she is fabulous in them - She Shoots Straight, Eastern Condors, License to Steal and Slickers vs Killers.  Sammo deserves her but I wish she had remained in films for a few more years. So I will put up with Nat Chan to see her in one of her few films - even a non-action slightly lame comedy like this one.


Now don't get me wrong. Nat Chan is an enormously talented guy and in his heyday during the 1980's and 90s seems to show up in every dimwitted comedy there was - but damn do I find him annoying. He never stops talking and making faces and the comedies he is in are on the low rung of sophistication. Take an example in this film - he and his buddy played by Stanley Fung are traveling by oxen cart and their guide (played by the equally insufferable Wong Jing) says get something to drink and he squeezes milk out of one of the animals. Fung does it as well - asks why does this look so different - that was a bull you just milked. Exactly. But I give him credit - kind of goofy looking in a pleasant cherubic way - he has been successful at everything he does. He started off in a band called the Loosers which also had Alan Tam in it. After the band broke up Tam went on to form the iconic band The Wynners but Chan got into acting and then became a well-known TV personality hosting shows, calling horse races, breeding horses and getting quite wealthy. In most of the comedies he plays the second or third ranked character but here it is mainly his film.



In this one he plays an addicted gambler. He started playing mahjong at three and just the sound of the mahjong tiles nearly gives him a climax. But he gambles at everything. He is the Happy Gambler. Lose or win he is just happy to play. He comes back home in his underwear after a trip to Macau and he is smiling. But he falls for his new boss - Joyce - and she hates gambling. After first pretending to hate gambling too - one time turning his mahjong playing friends in his apartment into a Jesus choir when she unexpectedly drops by - he finally promises to stop. Many temptations come his way.


In another only in Hong Kong offensive thread his roommate Fung goes to the Philippines to buy a girl and bring her back to HK as his servant. She becomes his rickshaw driver, cook, lies down in puddles for him to walk over. She is played by Maria Isabel Lopez who had won the Miss Philippine Universe Contest in 1982. And she disrobes twice in the film - not that I am complaining but to see nudity in a Wong Jing comedy was really surprising. And to see Fung making love to her felt really wrong.



Chan is actually less irritating than normal here but his romance with Godenzi was as believable as me winning the Preakness. Zero chemistry between them. Thankfully. No big laughs for me but it really would have helped to understand mahjong. There is a lot of it. You might think after having seen mahjong played in 100 HK films I would sort of get it. I don't. Black Holes make more sense to me. Appearing also is famous director Chor Yuen as Godenzi's father and master gambler, another famous director Wong Tin-lam as one of the mahjong players and who also happens to be Wong Jing's father in real life, Charlie Cho (another actor who appeared in every bad HK comedy) as the sneaky rival of Godenzi and Elvis Tsui as the man who stole Fung's girlfriend away. A silly film but very much in the mode of gambling comedy films of the time that were so popular.