Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars (1985)

Director: Sammo Hung
Writer: Barry Wong, based on a story by Lo Kin, Barry Wong, and Roy Sze-To
Stars: Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao

Index: The First Thirty.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars may not be quite as varied as The Owl vs. Bumbo but it’s far more schizophenic. In fact, it feels like two different features were spliced together into a new one featuring a notable all-star cast.

Half of it is an action movie and this half is fantastic stuff, even if the story behind it isn’t particularly clear. Then again, it’s the third of seven films in the Lucky Stars series of movies and it’s been rather a long time since I last saw the first, Winners and Sinners. I remember that one a lot more fondly than I’ll remember this.

Sibelle Hu is Chief Inspector Woo Ba-wah of Special Unit CID and she’s after the MacGuffin of the movie, a letter sent by Ma in Thailand to Wang Yi-ching in Hong Kong right before he’s assassinated. That’s a memorable scene right there, because he’s parasailing at the time and the trio of assassins take to the sky too, merely armed with machine guns and bazookas. Most notably, one of them is Richard Norton firmly in extra-villainous mode.

The Owl vs. Bumbo (1984)

Director: Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Writer: Lai Ling Cheung
Stars: Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, George Lam, Deannie Ip and Michelle Khan

Index: The First Thirty.

Everyone has to begin somewhere and Yeoh Choo Kheng began by becoming Miss Malaysia in 1983. She was born in Malaysia, to a senator and his wife, so grew up speaking English but only understood a little Malaysian Cantonese. So, when she was offered a TV commercial for Guy Laroche watches with Sing Long on a call in Cantonese, she had no idea who that was. That commercial led to this picture and four decades later she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, breaking a lot of glass ceilings in the process.

Of course, if you’re reading this zine, you’ll know Yeoh Choo Kheng as Michelle Yeoh and may well know that Sing Long is Jackie Chan. He isn’t in this film but it was directed by and stars Sammo Hung, who grew up with Chan in the Seven Little Fortunes group at the Chinese Drama Academy in Kowloon, so there’s a clear connection there. He’d also appear in Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars, her second film.

Sammo plays Bombo from the title, who’s a thief. This picture begins with his final job, to rob a bank, for which he’s well armed indeed, with a crazy amount of ammo, grenades and a bunch of explosives, lots of which turn out to be fake, as we discover when he strafes a fish tank with a machine gun and nothing breaks.