One More Chance

别叫我“赌神”

Hong Kong/China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 113 mins.

Director: Pan Yaoming 潘耀明 [Anthony Pun].

Rating: 5/10.

Onetime Hong Kong superstar Zhou Runfa [Chow Yun-fat] makes a lame “comeback” in a retro-ish comedy-drama about a compulsive Macau gambler and an autistic boy who’s actually his son.

STORY

Macau, the present day. Compulsive gambler Wu Guanghui (Zhou Runfa) runs a hairdresser’s along with his friends Flower (Liao Qizhi) and Fat Dog (Bai Zhi). One day he’s approached by former girlfriend Li Xi (Yuan Yongyi), who brings along a boy, Li Yang (Ke Weilin), she says is his son. She offers to pay him P100,000, in two halves, if he looks after the boy, as his father, for a month. As he owes moneylenders P85,000 in gambling debts, Wu Guanghui reluctantly agrees – and then realises the boy is autistic. A regular customer, local schoolteacher Fang Zhong (Fang Zhongxin), brings round his social worker, Miss Ma (Lu Huimin), to help out. She recommends being gentle with the boy but Wu Guanghui gets rid of her, saying he can cope without social services. He still shouts at the boy when necessary. Then, by chance, he discovers Li Yang has an amazing memory for cards, so takes him along to the casino and makes a killing, helping to pay off the debt collector (Cai Yizhi). (Years ago, Wu Guanghui and Li Xi had first met when she was a social worker at the Youth Detention Centre.) After dropping his tough guy/gambler act, Wu Guanghui gradually develops a bond with Li Yang. But it then emerges that the incorrigible Wu Guanghui has borrowed again from the moneylender. When Li Yang attacks the moneylender, Wu Guanghui and his two friends get into trouble. Meanwhile, Fang Zhong looks after Li Yang at school, where he joins the track team. But as the month winds on, some news comes from Li Xi.

REVIEW

Onetime Hong Kong superstar Zhou Runfa 周润发 [Chow Yun-fat] makes a lame “comeback” in family comedy-drama One More Chance 别叫我“赌神”, his first release in five years. Though actually shot pre-Covid in Jan-Mar 2019, soon after his last release, counterfeiting caper Project Gutenberg 无双 (2018), and passed for Mainland exhibition in late 2019, it waited a while to hit big screens – and flopped when it did. Where Gutenberg took a hunky RMB1.27 billion in the Mainland, Chance took a meh RMB41 million this summer, plus a ho-hum HK$12.8 million in Hong Kong.

Written, but this time not directed, by Gutenberg‘s Zhuang Wenqiang 庄文强 [Felix Chong], best known for the Infernal Affairs 无间道 (2002-03) and Overheard 窃听风云 (2009-14) crime trilogies with fellow Hong Konger Mai Zhaohui 麦兆辉 [Alan Mak], the film has only a vaguely criminal background to its plot about Wu Guanghui (Zhou), a compulsive gambler who one day is asked by a former girlfriend to look after for a month a boy she says is his son. Though Wu Guanghui has his troubles with moneylenders, the film is basically a father-son odd-couple story, as a confirmed bachelor, who runs a hairdresser’s with two pals and spends his nights in a casino, is suddenly faced with temporarily parenting a boy he’s never met and who is autistic to boot.

Though set in Macau, it’s typical Hong Kong fare with predictable stereotypes (moneylenders, street hoodlums, colourful buddies); even more predictably it starts going emotionally soggy around an hour in as the gambler develops a bond with the boy. The plot then veers off for a while with a story about the boy joining his school’s track team before a familiar twist brings a darker edge to things. Instead of ending then, the film goes on for a further 20 minutes that’s mostly padding. It’s the kind of script that Zhuang could write in his sleep – and makes one despair of Hong Kong film-makers ever trying anything original again.

Kitted out with long hair, to make him look more like a happy-go-lucky bum, Zhou – 63 at the time of shooting but rarely looking it – plays the central role very lightly, in a way that even looks as if he’s sending the whole thing up and obviously acting being bad. He’s surrounded by acting pals, from Fang Zhongxin 方中信 [Alex Fong Chung-sun], here with glasses and toupé as a local schoolteacher, to the late Liao Qizhi 廖启智 [Liu Kai-chi] as one of his business partners. As the only actress in the film with a role to speak of, the all-too-rarely-seen Yuan Yongyi 袁咏仪 [Anita Yuen], then 47, still has an ethereal demeanour but is rather left on the sidelines, as if Zhuang doesn’t really know what to do with her after triggering the main plot.

The real star of the film is the director, Pan Yaoming 潘耀明 [Anthony Pun], one of Hong Kong’s top DPs (Overheard; The White Storm 扫毒, 2013; Bodies at Rest 沉默的证人, 2019; A Guilty Conscience 毒舌大状, 2023) here making his solo directing debut after getting a co-direction credit on China-set drugs drama Extraordinary Mission 非凡任务 (2017) along with Mai. Pan and d.p. Tan Yunjia 谭运佳 (The Empty Hands 空手道, 2017) create visuals that discreetly add background, colour and texture to the action, without becoming a Macau tourism ad. This helps to give some depth to the cliched story – though, at the end of the day, from the writing through to the peformances, the movie all seems very same old, same old. The musical score, by Japanese American composer Hatano Yusuke 波多野裕介, is supportive and, thankfully, largely restrained.

The film’s Chinese title means “Don’t Call Me ‘God of Gamblers'”. a jokey reference to the 1989 Hong Kong comedy-drama, written and directed by Wang Jing 王晶 [Wong Jing], in which Zhou also starred (along with Liu Dehua 刘德华 [Andy Lau]) at the height of his local career. It’s all part of the retro feel to the whole picture which, though set in the present, has a slightly period feel and look. At time of shooting, Chance was known as Be Water, My Friend 骄阳岁月, the English title coming from a famous martial-arts saying by Li Xiaolong 李小龙 [Bruce Lee].

CREDITS

Presented by Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK), Beijing Bona Film Group (CN), Zinnia Pictures (HK), Alibaba Pictures (CN), Shanghai Bona Cultural Media (CN), Bona Entertainment (HK). Produced by 2898 Limited (HK).

Script: Zhuang Wenqiang [Felix Chong]. Photography: Tan Yunjia. Editing: Peng Zhengxi [Curran Pang]. Music: Hatano Yusuke, Dai Wei. Production design: Wen Nianzhong [Man Lim-chung]. Art direction: Zeng Jiabi. Costume design: Chen Baoxin. Sound: Kaikangwol Rungsakorn, Li Zhixiong. Action: Li Zhongzhi [Nicky Li]. Visual effects: Pan Zhiheng, Huang Zhili.

Cast: Zhou Runfa [Chow Yun-fat] (Wu Guanghui/Water), Yuan Yongyi [Anita Yuen] (Li Xi), Fang Zhongxin [Alex Fong Chung-sun] (Fang Zhong), Liao Qizhi [Liu Kai-chi] (Hua/Flower), An Zhijie [Andy On] (Chen Rui/Shui, casino boss), Ke Weilin [Will Or] (Li Yang, Li Xi’s son), Huang Debin [Kenny Wong] (Jiji/Prince), Bai Zhi [Ling Zhihao] (Fei Gou/Fat Dog), Cai Yizhi (Puta/Tart, debt collector), Lu Huimin (Ma/Angelina, social worker), Wang Wanzhi (Ling), Fang Ping (doctor), Li Pide (noodle restaurant owner).

Release: Hong Kong, 29 Jun 2023; China, 21 Jun 2023.