THE LUCKY GUY (1998) - A Chinese New Year's movie directed by Stephen Chiau semi-regular Lee Lik Chi. Ng Man Tat is the owner of the Lucky Coffee Shop, a local shop priding itself on its egg tarts and level of personalised customer service. The evil landlady (Sandra Ng) wants to hike the rent up to an unmeetable level, which means the shop will have to close and leave the district to the multinational chains, unless something can be done. Daniel Chan is Ng's son, who is not interested in the family business & doesn't understand the importance of community. Stephen Chiau & Eric Kot play two of the employees. The main focus of the film is the 3 little love stories between Chiau/Kot/Chan and Sammi Cheng/Kristy Yeung/Hsu Chi, all of which get roughly equal screen time over the course of the movie (it's not a Chiau star vehicle, in case that's what you're looking for).

The plot is fairly typical of New Year's fair, but well done. Characters are good, and performances are good (Chiau, Kot, Ng Man Tat, Sandra Ng) / acceptable (Daniel Chan, Hsu Chi, Sammi, Kristy) as you'd expect. The humour is pretty funny, despite some subtitle failings and the wholesale rip-off of a scene from an episode of Friends in one place. The movie certainly leaves you with a big smile on your face at the end, and contains quite a few memorable moments. Definitely recommended. The DVD is pretty decent by Mei Ah's standards.