God Of Gamblers III - Back To Shanghai

In God of Gamblers III, Chow plays the 'Saint of Gamblers,' a talented gambler who gets sent back to 1937 Shanghai. He eventually hooks up with his grandpa (who looks mysteriously like 'Uncle' Ng Man Tat , Chow's sidekick), the original 'God of Gamblers' ( Ray Lui , who plays a parody of the role he made famous on the early '80's TV series 'The Bund', which was also a stepping stone for a little actor known as Chow Yun Fat ) and his beautiful girlfriend ( Gong Li ), who happens to have a semi-retarded twin sister -- who, of course, Chow falls in love with (as Brian from the Brooklyn Bridge site points out in his review, it's great seeing the actress normally known as an 'ice queen' letting down her hair a bit in this role).

Like I said, there is a good deal of gambling in the movie -- concerning a Japanese woman (Wong Wan-Si) who wants to take over Lui's club -- but Chow seems more with making goofy faces rather than gambling well. And that's why, for me, this is the worst film of the series. 'Worst' is a harsh word, since I still enjoyed the film. But compared with the other films in the series (especially the first) it pales a bit. The jokes aren't Chow's best, there's really no big action sequences, the running time is a bit long, and (most shockingly) there isn't even the usual Wong Jing gratuitous T&A or ultraviolence. Don't get me wrong -- this is a good movie. If you enjoyed the other movies in the series or Wong Jing/Stephen Chow films in general, you should enjoy this one also. It just needed a little more punch to set it apart from similar movies and it didn't deliver on that account, but it is a pretty entertaining way to kill some time.

Review Courtesy of Neil Koch