Every year in February, HK cinema churns out Chinese New Year's comedies that are all essentially feel-good fluff with an all-star cast. This year's offering from Milkyway is no exception: headed by star Andy Lau Tak-Wah and with 3 of the 4 leads from the recent hit movie La Brassiere (Louis Koo, Gigi Leung, and Lau Ching Wan) in strong supporting roles, this new gambling comedy offer some light-hearted laughs and ninety minutes of mindless entertainment.

One would think that the gambling movie genre has more or less been done to death, but HK filmmakers continue to find new and fresh angles. In this case, the story is centered around a Mahjong ace played by Andy who has turned his obsession with tiles into a lucrative career that has paid for a big house and enables him to lend a helping hand when his mother (the hilarious Bonnie Wong) and his nerdy brother (Louis Koo) are evicted after Louis has lost his job. Joining the fun is Andy's somewhat eccentric (ex-)girlfriend who changes professions like you and I change our socks: first she appears as a traffic cop (so she can write Andy tickets), then she shows up as a tax inspector (so she can audit him) - talk about obsessions! It becomes clear that she is just as crazy about him as he is about Mahjong; she wants nothing more than to get married to Andy, which he will only agree to if she manages to beat him at the Mahjong table. Despite everyone's best efforts, she always comes up short, losing her temper in hilarious fashion in the process. Gigi Leung plays this caricature role with reckless abandonment, not afraid to make a fool of herself and being rewarded for that with some of the funniest scenes in the movie. Even crazier is Lau Ching Wan, who is dressed like a gangsta rapper and whose performance as a rival Mahjong player out to beat Andy is the highlight of the film. Andy himself plays his role with the usual charm, and he develops great chemistry with Gigi in their scenes, as well as creating good tension during his Mahjong duels with LCW.

The story follows the usual twists and turns, with Andy's luck suddenly changing midway through the movie, after Gigi curses him in a moment of desparation. How he eventually pulls through (and there's never any doubt that he will) and manages to come out victorious against all the odds is presented in a well-paced and fresh manner that had me thoroughly entertained. There's a moral in here somewhere (something about learning to lose well being just as important as learning to win well, and if you do, family harmony will be restored and you will get the girl and get rich...), but I forgot all about that when the movie took a sudden final twist and ended with a hilarious WFH parody.

One word of warning, though: the audience gets to watch a LOT of Mahjong being played, so if you're not familiar with the rules, you will miss out on quite a bit. It would certainly be recommended to at least brush up on the rules before watching the film. You can still follow the significance of what's happening in the games by picking up on the numerous cues such as facial expressions, but it adds a degree of enjoyment if you can actually appreciate the strategies being used by the players.

Recommended.