In the past decade during Chinese New Year, usually we would expect four movies -- one by Jackie CHAN, one by Stephen CHIAU, one by CHOW Yun-fat and one by Raymond WONG's productions. This year, although we don't have any Stephen CHIAU, Jackie CHAN nor CHOW Yun-fat film, we still have a Raymond WONG production, "Winner Takes All."

"Winner Takes All" is a movie about the process of revenge on Swindler WONG, who is considered to be the king of swindlers with hundreds of victims. Pauline WU (Joey YUNG)'s Dad is one of the victims and she flies to Singapore to seek revenge on Swindlers. She teams with a young swindler Ferrari (Nicholas TSE), who is trying to get money from a wealthy lady before he's arrested by Inspector Stupid (Karl MAKA). Stupid has been chasing Swindler for twenty years! Bastardly SZE (SO Yau-pang), who is following that same wealthy lady to take photos of her with another man for a divorce case, finally also joins Pauline's band. They try to cheat Swindler's daughter on a casino ship. However, that is a trap for another girl (WU Sen-kwan) to gather all the victims of Swindler WONG. Can they outswindle the king of swindlers?

The movie is the first production by the re-structured Cinema City, which was active in the 80s while its "Aces Go Places" series was successful at the box office. Since the 90s, Cinema City has not been that active in film production; their last movie is "TriStar" (1996).

One thing that is certain is that Raymond WONG is enthusiastic in film productions. Despite the failure in the local box office for his productions in previous years, he is still making movies. For those who are going to see "Winner Takes All," they are familiar with Raymond's previous Chinese New Year movies and are expecting only laughs.

In 80s and early 90s, Raymond WONG and Clifton KO Chi-sum's New Year movies were very enjoyable for the laughers. However, audiences will be disappointed by "Winner Takes All". There are two problems for "Winner Takes All" as a comedy. Some critics may criticise the plot of the movie. However, that is the usual case for Chinese New Year movies. We enjoyed Clifton KO's "All's Well, End's Well" despite the plot was not perfect.

As a Chinese New Year comedy, "Winner Takes All" should be able to make audiences laugh by packing high density of laughers in the movie. That is also the successful formula for Raymond and Clifton's previous production before mid-90s. However, there are not enough laughers in "Winner Takes All". In addition, most of the laughers appeared in the movie is also too old-fashioned for the younger generation.

Another problem is the making use of stars. Sam HUI looks too fat in the movie. In addition, his role in the movie is too small. His role as a king of swindlers looks like his show business role as "God of Singer" now -- only talks but no action. The movie would be more entertaining if there can be more interactions between Sam and other performers.

Inspector Stupid in the movie is also another source of laughers for his non-fluent Cantonese. Karl MAKA, who hasn't been in movies for the past 10 years, looks charmless in acting. Part of the responsibility comes from the plot for the poor effect of interactions between actors. The scene for Inspector Stupid holding Ferrari in the police station is presented poorly by showing the gaps of acting between two generations.

Out-dated is also another term that affects the overall performance of the movie. Audiences are not satisfied with such old style of filmmaking. It is understandable that Karl MAKA as an inspector can be a good selling point in the box office, but it works only when other things are up-dated so as to show how anachronistic the role of Karl is in the movie and then creates laughers.

In short, "Winner Takes All" is a movie that looks old-fashioned in plot and presentation. The movie would be much better if they took a more updated approach.

Written by Ryan Law, from Hong Kong Movie DataBase, on 8 February, 2000.