Advertisement
Lucky Stars: How Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Co made one of the lowbrow action comedy series that defined 1980s Hong Kong cinema
- Winners and Sinners, My Lucky Stars and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars feature Hung as leader of a gang of righteous ex-cons who get help from Chan’s cop character
- With each film the action scenes become more ferocious, Hung’s character more dominant and Chan’s more serious. The humour is sexist and looks outdated today
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Winners and Sinners, My Lucky Stars, and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars, a trio of lowbrow comedies with martial arts scenes, were big Hong Kong cinema hits in the early 1980s.
Directed by Sammo Hung Kam-bo, who also starred in them, the films mixed comic actors such as John Shum Kin-fun and Eric Tsang Chi-wai with martial arts stars, and gave a lot of screen time to Jackie Chan. The stories feature Hung as the leader of a gang of ex-cons working on the right side of the law, with some help from Chan, who plays a cop.
Eureka Entertainment is releasing the Lucky Stars 3-Film Collection in the UK on Blu-ray on March 22.
Expert on Asian film Frank Djeng, former marketing manager of US-based film distributor Tai Seng Entertainment, and Jacob Milligan, Eureka’s production manager, answered the Post’s questions about the movies. Djeng provides the commentary for the Blu-ray releases.
Jackie Chan plays the character of the cop differently in the three films. Why do you think he changed the portrayal?
Advertisement