MY LUCKY STARS - DVD review

It's hard to believe Jackie Chan's been doing this kind of thing for as long as he has. He's older than he looks, I guess. He was born in 1954 and started acting in films as a child in 1962, but I'm sure we all remember one of his earliest outings as an extra in Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" in 1973. That was something like ninety films ago.

"My Lucky Stars" is from 1985, one of Chan's glory years in Hong Kong cinema, the star teaming once again with actor/director Sammo Hung. Like most of Chan's films, "My Lucky Stars" is a mixture of comedy and martial-arts action, only this time there's more of Hung than of Chan. In fact, it looks like Chan could have phoned in his role, it's that small. He's in the picture for a chase and a fight scene at the beginning, and then he disappears for three-quarters of an hour; he returns for another fight scene and disappears; then he resurfaces at the end for a final fight. Jackie's on screen for maybe twenty minutes of a ninety-six-minute movie. Hung gets double that much screen time, but, after all, it is his picture; he directed it. Rank has its privileges. Besides, Jackie was busy with five other films that year.

Anyway, "My Lucky Stars" is exclusively for the dedicated Jackie Chan fan. Not only does the actor appear in it but briefly, the movie is remarkably frivolous even by Hong Kong comedy standards. The opening music sets the tone by being bouncy and silly, practically screaming the movie's intention of itself being bouncy and silly.

While plots are hardly what matter in these things, and while there isn't much of a plot in any case, this one involves a pair of Hong Kong detectives, Muscles (Chan) and his partner Ricky (Yuen Biao), sent to Japan to find a renegade cop who is working for a big-time diamond smuggling ring called the Ninja Gang, for obvious reasons. No sooner do the detective duo arrive in Japan than they're fighting it out with the Ninja baddies in an amusement park, where Ricky gets himself taken hostage. In order to rescue Ricky, capture the miscreant cop, and break up the smuggling ring, Muscles decides to work undercover with an old group of childhood friends from an orphanage they all once attended. Don't ask.

The orphanage-pack gambit is really just an excuse to cut away from the main action for a while to gather together the old friends, many of whom haven't seen each other in years and most of whom are now criminals: one a convict, one a con man, one a thief, etc. It's during this long interlude that we leave Chan and concentrate on the others. The old friends are led by Kidstuff (Hung), also called "Skinny" on the English soundtrack. Before they meet up again with Muscles, though, they have to get to Japan, which is an ordeal for them of a major magnitude. Each of them is something of a bumbling idiot. And it doesn't help that their police supervisor is a beautiful young woman they all want to get to know better.

This comic pack of potato heads runs amuck in Tokyo before meeting up with Muscles, and most of what happens before and after is slapstick, totally off the subject and, frankly, not very funny. In one episode that seems to go on forever, the guys take turns pretending to be burglars tying up one of their number with the pretty Inspector. Once is amusing, but after the fourth or fifth repetition it's annoying. There is, however, a bed gag that's cute. It's the only time I laughed during the film.

The acting is nonexistent, and the English dubbing is expectedly awful, but there's still no denying Jackie Chan's acrobatic martial-arts style; even though the man is not present throughout most of the film, the few, short action sequences that do feature him are often breathtaking in their balletic grace. It's not enough to sustain a movie, mind you, but the scenes are there for Chan diehards. Guess I'm not a diehard.

Video:
The Fox folks proclaim the picture size as having an anamorphic widescreen ratio of 1.78:1, and, lo and behold, the picture really does measure close to a 1.78:1 ratio. This is one of those few and important triumphs of truth in advertising, because most studios simply announce picture ratios at 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 or whatever their theatrical-release size was, no matter what the actual DVD screen size measures. Anyhow, the picture quality is very bright and very colorful, in the manner of the cartoonlike carryings-on it emulates, with good definition all around. There is a slight graininess to the image, however, and a small degree of roughness that tends to keep it from the highest ranks of video representation.

Audio:
The sound is reproduced via a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix or DTS 2.0 Stereo. In DD 5.1 there isn't much information directed to the rear speakers, but the noise of a buzzing fly in one sequence did appear quite convincing. The English dub is very clear, but it seems to be coming from an entirely different acoustic environment than the rest of the soundtrack. Otherwise, the sonics are rather ordinary, with not much in the way of dynamic impact or frequency extremes to make an impression.

Extras:
There's little in the way of bonus materials. You'll find English and Chinese (Cantonese) spoken languages, English subtitles, two theatrical trailers for "My Lucky Stars," and three trailers for other Fox martial-arts features. Twenty scene selections conclude the roundup. But understand that the disc is being offered at a super-budget price, under ten bucks if you shop around, so I don't suppose we should expect many frills.

Parting Shots:
I'm sure "My Lucky Stars" is one of those martial-arts pictures that would have benefitted from a Woody Allen overdub (a la "What's Up, Tiger Lily?"). I've used the word "silly" in this review, but it's the only way to describe the nonsense that goes on in this kung-fu comedy. Chan has gone on record as saying that American audiences don't appreciate Hong Kong humor or, at least, his brand of Hong Kong humor. Judging by my reaction to this film, I'd say he's right. I didn't appreciate it.

"My Lucky Stars" is one of a handful of martial-arts films released by Fox at about the same time. The others include "Duel to the Death," "Eastern Condors," and "Heart of Dragon." For the devoted kung-fu viewer, no martial-arts film is outright bad, so it's good to know there's so much kung-fu stuff available. As far as "My Lucky Stars" is concerned, it's the lightest of lightweight fluff, the DVD aimed at the Jackie Chan fan who absolutely, positively must have, or at least must see, everything the man has ever done. For the rest of us, it's an easy miss.