Mark Reviews Movies: LUCKY GRANDMA

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 21, 2020

Good luck is relative. Winning the lottery is great, until the winner spends so much that the additional costs of owning so many things make the person go broke. Maybe the former sudden-millionaire ends up with a car for all the trouble. Having a bag of cash, owned by a now-dead stranger, fall into your lap might be lucky, too. That is, as happens in Lucky Grandma, until the dead man's gangster associates come knocking on the door. At that point, the good luck might be simply surviving.

Co-writer/director Sasie Sealy's debut feature is a wild ride, filled with dark humor and some twisty turns but grounded by a great, understated performance from Tsai Chin. As the eponymous grandma, Chin knows that trying to match the energy of the story would be futile and defeat the entire point of the film.

The humor and the thrills here come from the juxtaposition of the story's momentum with the steadfast nature of Chin's Grandma Wong. She navigates the mounting peril of her situation in the only ways she knows how—by the using the freedom and perceived vulnerability of her age to say and do whatever she wants.

At the story's start, a fortune teller tells Wong, a widow determined to live on her own, that she'll have a lucky day. When that day arrives, she wins a big bag of rice at the bank and a lot of money during a group trip to the casino. After losing all of her winnings, though, fortune calls again when she comes into possession of a bag filled with cash. The money's owner is sitting dead next to Wong on the bus, so she just goes home with it.

The next day, two gangsters (played by Michael Tow and Woody Fu) arrive at Wong's apartment. They suspect she has the cash. The quick-thinking, practical grandmother immediately visits a rival gang and hires Big Pong (Hsiao-Yuan Ha) as a bodyguard—after haggling the price with a little guilt trip, of course.

The plot is straightforward, although the particulars are a bit convoluted, but in a way, that helps us sympathize with Wong's plight even more. Chin, though, is the real connection for us and the heart of Lucky Grandma. She plays a wholly believable character with such natural, unflappable confidence that we're with her through every unlucky twist and fortunate turn.

Note: Lucky Grandma is available from Good Deed Entertainment through Kino Lorber's virtual theatrical program Kino Marquee. You can rent the film for home viewing, with part of the cost going to your local independent theaters (e.g., the Music Box Theatre or, starting May 29, the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago). For more information and to purchase access to the film, click here. Participating theaters are listed on the page.

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