Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Hated it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Unmemorable
Special Effects	Unmemorable
How does it compare to similar films?	Weak

Advantages:	The choreographed fights scenes won't let you down
Disadvantages:	Too many cast to concentrate or relate to .   Too much libidos

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

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SYNOPSIS
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‘Fastbuck’s’ (Sammo Hung) and his friends have arrived to Pattaya in Thailand for a nice relaxing holiday. Unfortunately his heart was broken during one fine day strolling along the beach. The girl of his dream Detective ‘Barbara Woo’ (Sibelle Hu) decided that she must be straight with him. The reason that she expressed her dying love for Fastbuck during the last mission was to seducing him to help her rescue ‘Muscles’ (Jackie Chan). Obviously Fastbuck did not take this too well and when Barbara shortly asked him for help in another mission, he understandably refused.

Barbara’s mission was to prevent ‘Ma’ (Melvin Wong) from being assassinated. While on a boat ride, Ma was unfortunately terminated. Barbara felt something was wrong and rushes to save Ma when she located him. Luckily before she aboard a boat, Fastbuck decided to come along to help her friend. They finally found Ma’s body drifting in the sea and managed to get him on the boat. Ma managed a few important words to Barbara before dying.

As Fastbuck and Barbara returned back to their hotel, they were soon attacked and a sophisticated fight scene takes place. The news travels quick and they are in great danger, therefore the best thing to do was to go back to their Home in Hong Kong as soon as possible.

With some letter link from Ma, a theatre / drama novice called ‘Chi Chi’ (Rosamund Kwan) will be the next victim and the police will need to protect her. Barbara decides the best place to keep Chi Chi and her housemate ‘Johnny’ (John Sham) safe was to live with Fastbuck and his friends – ‘Herb’ (Charlie Chin); ‘Sandy’ (Richard Ng); ‘Blockhead’ (Eric Tsang); ‘Rawhide’ (Stanley Fung) and Pogada. Poor Chi Chi, little did she know that she was not actually all that safe in the house. A building full of horny men meant she became the centre of a practical joke even without realising. Yes, they perved on her by faking a house fire and the men were being ‘heroic’ by saving her and putting her in a cold bath tub – so they can see through her clothes.

Chi Chi has convinced her male housemate to go to the community centre and enrol the theatre group, what whatever tickles their fancy. Whilst there, the assassins of Ma coincidentally came to the same building. When Chi Chi spotted one of the assassins has a gun in the female toilet, she pretended to be blind, therefore her life was spared. When she escaped, she informed the male housemates. Realising the situation, they confronted the Japanese assassin (Yasuaki Kurata). Thankful Muscle and Ricky (Yuen Biao) were on their case earlier and came in just in time to save the day. Ironically, two other assassins turned up to help. The heroic trio consisting of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung finishes the film with a fighting finale against the three assassins. But who wins the girls?

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REVIEW
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This is apparently the third instalment of a trilogy. The first one being ‘Winners and Sinners (1983)’, which I have written a review for previously. The second one being ‘My Lucky Stars (1985)’, which I have not seen yet. I did not know about this until I rented it that it was based on the same cast.

‘Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars (TTLS)’ is an action comedy, just like the two previous instalments. The mighty Sammo Hung directed the film as well as starring in it. The cast I remember seeing in ‘Winners and Sinners’ were Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, Stanley Fung, John Sham and Richard Ng. Eric Tsang was supposingly introduced in ‘My Lucky Stars’ and ‘Twinkles’ introduced a young and handsome character called ‘Pagodo’ (Michael Miu).

With the fighting trio of Hung, Chan and Biao, one would assume that there would be outstanding fighting scenes without a double. This was true. If ‘Winners and Sinners’ is believed to be the funniest out of the instalments, then TTLS, in my opinion, is definitely more action orientated. Sammo Hung was able to choreograph several breathtaking fight scenes, which enable the trio to demonstrate their potential. This time, Hung was also able to introduce new talents within the fight, such as Andy Lau.

My soft spot is always on Yuen Biao, as I find him the most agile compared to Hung and Chan. Biao was able to present some sophisticated kicks and speed in the warehouse scene, with makes him a cut above the rest. It was due to back injury, Jackie Chan had a more cameo role in the film. But apparently they needed the Chan rather than to cut his character out all together as Hung won’t get his funding for the film with him.

There is no quarrel that the fight scenes are clever and memorable. Unfortunately bad elements are also memorable and can’t redeem the goodness for me. The comedy is somewhat ‘cheap and tacky’, as it centre on perving on women. What was more annoying was the fact the girls falls into the trap – are they all stupid? I wonder how Rosamund Kwan felt as Chi Chi when she was in a house with about 7 men, trying to grope her all the time. It must be uncomfortable for many actresses to take on such ordeal. For that, I am disappointed with Hung’s lack of taste in comedy.

The film has also a lot of plotless scenes, where there is a lot of nothing – mainly in terms of showing the several men in the house getting on with their everyday lives. The biggest mistake is that this is now the third instalment, yet the cast is still so large. It is difficult in taking such challenge to ensure everyone has about the same camera time. Yet due this consideration, you cannot really relate to any characters, as they are not explored in depth. Just to spice up this mistake, at the end of the film, there was hundreds of famous Chinese actors and actresses coming out of an elevator, into the building where the fight took place. And the purpose of that was? I am still baffled myself.

I would not recommend this film unless you really like Yuen Biao, Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. The fight scenes wouldn’t disappoint you but the film was rather pointless. Rather concentrating on a small plot and cast, they decided to have too many characters to fulfil this small plot. The comedy was good in terms of playing around with the Chinese languages. However, it is lost when translated into English. It is not a film for the female audience, as I’m sure they will get frustrated by the men’s libidos!

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INFO
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Director = Sammo Hung
Writing Credit = Barry Huigh
Year = 1985
Duration = 105 minutes
Language = Cantonese with English Subtitles
Cert = 15