Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars

The Lucky Stars begin to wear out their welcome in their third outing.

“Jokes are supposed to be funny.”

The third film in the series is always a difficult sell, and so often tricky to get right. Police Story started to stumble on its third try, and the recent third Chinese Odyssey film failed to capture the magic of its previous films. The first two Lucky Stars films weren’t exactly masterpieces of cinema, but they had a charm that came from the bumbling likeability of its many leads. Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars is the third in that series, and it’s starting to feel like it’s recycling jokes and stuck in a caricature of itself.

The titular Lucky Stars are as follows: Kidstuff (Sammo Hung), Sandy (Richard Ng), Rawhide (Stanley Fung), Roundhead (Eric Tsang) and replacing Charlie Chin (who gets a cameo handing over the reins) is Michael Miu as Pagoda. Anyway, in the film special agent Barbara Woo (Sibelle Hu) returns for help from the Stars for whatever reason, after an agent is killed in Thailand by a criminal gang. He had sent an incriminating letter to an actress friend Wang (Rosamund Kwan), inadvertently putting her in danger. Barbara asks her to stay with the Lucky Stars, arguably putting her in more risk.

Meanwhile, police officers Muscles (Jackie Chan), Fung (Yuen Biao) and a third one without a name (Andy Lau) are attempting to bring down this crime syndicate, with the help of a lot of Pepsi product placement.

Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars is an odd film. I mean, they all are, being as they are a series of (ostensibly kung fu) movies about 5 grown men in their 30s living together and harassing women. They’ve always been a bit light on plot, but while the original Winners and Sinners had a logical set-up and something of a normal story progression, Twinkle is one of the lightest when it comes to plot. Instead, it chooses to focus on shenanigans which would be fine, really; but the schtick itself isn’t particularly good.

Most of the film’s comedy comes from the Lucky Stars doing everything in their power to touch, kiss or see women naked. It’s a routine that isn’t massively funny to begin with, but gets especially tiresome when the main characters do practically nothing else. It’s nothing new, but the previous movies had them also interact with the story more, and bumble their way into situations that didn’t necessarily involve women. Only Sammo Hung comes out of this with any dignity, too heartbroken by Barbara’s “I will never love you” speech at the start of the film.

It’s a shame, because I love seeing the Lucky Stars’ actors on screen. And you can see they’re doing their best, but it doesn’t matter how many comedy chops you’ve got, the middle-aged virgin routine isn’t exactly a knee slapper.

The action is also lesser compared to the other movies. It’s nice to see Andy Lau throw down, and the Three Dragons are on top form as always, even if Sammo doesn’t get a whole lot to do.  In the end Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars is just an OK movie that could have done with more plot, a variation of shenanigans and considerably less molestation.

Verdict: Still good for some chuckles, the stars’ strengths can’t do too much to save the franchise

Overall entertainment: 6/10
Violence: 3/10
Sex: 1/10
Plot: 2/10
Funny moments: Maybe three or four

Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars (1985)
Also known as: 夏日福星
Cantonese

Director: Sammo Hung
Writer: Sammo Hung

CAST

Sammo Hung – Kidstuff
Jackie Chan – Muscles
Andy Lau – Unnamed Cop
Yuen Biao – Fung
Richard Ng – Sandy
Stanley Fung – Rawhide
Michael Miu – Pagoda
Rosamund Kwan – Wang Yi-ching
Sibelle Hu – Barabara
John Shum – Curly
Charlie Chin – NAME