Mixed bag of treats

IT'S no secret Chinese films released during the Lunar New Year season are often high on star power but low on everything else. More often that not, these blockbusters tend to be hit-and-miss affairs, though recent ones such as Eric Tsang's I Love Hong Kong franchise boasted better-than-usual plots instead of simply rehashing the same old family reunion theme that Raymond Wong's rebooted All's Well That Ends Well shamelessly did.

Both filmmakers have given their respective series a rest this year and in place are several new ones including King of Hong Kong trash cinema, Wong Jing, rebooting his God of Gamblers franchise from the 1990s. His latest, From Vegas to Macau, stars Chow Yun Fat as Magic Hands Ken, a casino security expert who can tell cards simply by touching them. He's forced to return to gambling when his daughter Rainbow (Kimmy Tong) is captured by Ko (Gao Hui), the cocky head of an underground gambling syndicate who has never lost a game of cards and is determined to test Ken's "magic" hands.

Nicholas Tse co-stars as Ken's protege and Rainbow's love interest while funnyman Chapman To provides ample comic relief. Like most of Wong's films, it mixes slapstick humour with action and to be fair, the nonsensical gambling action-comedy genre is something he pioneered and From Vegas to Macau is a throwback to that. Chow's natural charisma saves the film from going completely downhill with its pure absurdness. From Vegas to Macau is not the best bet but also not the worst this festive season.