Movie Review: Bet to Basic/打雀英雄傳

I have one rule for movies: entertain me. I really don’t care about budget, or cast, or anything else as much as I do being entertained.

I’ve disliked some very popular films, and I’m a big fan of movies a lot of people don’t care for.

Bet to Basic/打雀英雄傳 (2006) is one of those films.

An extremely cheap, resoundingly local film, **Bet to Basic/打雀英雄傳   made me laugh, surprised me, and best of all entertained me, and that’s more than I could have expected or asked from it.**

Hong Kong has a long history of gambling movies. 

Chinese people like to gamble the same way that Irish people like to drink.

Mahjong isn’t gambling. It’s a game.

But so is basketball, and people gamble their… basketballs off on those games, don’t they?

Never mind.

Bet to Basic/打雀英雄傳 is the story of a mahjong savant named Lloyd, played by Jordan Chan Siu Chun.

He returns to Hong Kong after 20 years in America with an odd kind of luck: when he plays mahjong, he always draws a winning hand immediately, but it’s the lowest winning hand you can have: gai wu.

His cousin Flying Dragon is played by Chin Kar Lok in a role that lets him steal the comic spotlight almost every time he’s onscreen.

Flying Dragon enrolls Lloyd in the King of Mahjong tournament, the semifinals of which take place on the sidewalk in front of the Wanchai ferry pier.

I am not joking.

If great movies can be made on low budgets, then this movie is Lawrence of Admiralty.

Also enrolled in the tournament are Yuen Wah, played by Yuen Wah (!) and his rival Scott, played by Eric Kot Man Fai.

They are accompanied by their respective protégés, Peggy and Morpheus (no really), played by Rain Li and Samuel Pang.

The semifinals bring us the first of several twists in the plot. Soon enough the tables have turned, allegiances have changed, and new alliances are formed. 

Talking about it in language like that makes Bet to Basic/打雀英雄傳 seem a lot more dignified than it is.

It’s not. But it’s still great.

What this film lacks in plot or directorial skill is made up for with a lot of things that make me laugh every time I watch it.

A whole bunch of film parodies are on display, including Kung Fu Hustle, Election, F ist of Fury, Full Throttle, and A Moment of Romance.

Two of these are especially interesting because people doing the parodies are actually in the original film, and in one of them, an actor parodies his original role.

Speaking of original roles, this film is actually Chrissie Chau’s film debut. She plays a hostess named Mandy, and she has no lines in the film, and you gotta look quick or you’ll miss her.

But she still makes out better than the actress whose character’s name was Anthony.

That was just weird.

But not as weird as a scene featuring cross-dressing that will make you more grateful for a mosaic than you ever knew you could be.

This movie also features some of the most interesting and amusing commentators you’ve ever seen.

The two weirdos who host the semifinals are funny, but Viann Leung’s hosting of the finals almost steals the show.

I say almost because Chin Kar Lok does steal it in that scene.

Bet to Basic/打雀英雄傳 gives me a warm nostalgic feeling, because it seems like the sort of movie they used to make.

It’s got some monstrously rough edges, and it’s never going to be mistaken for a good movie, but how can you not love a movie with tofu mahjong tiles as part of a training segment?

How mad can you get at Eric Kot and Yuen Wah in fluorescent Afro wigs lip-synching a classic Sam Hui song about mahjong?

What’s not great about a movie that ends with a freeze-frame of a child making an inappropriate gesture?