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GOD
OF GAMBLERS 3 - THE EARLY STAGE
AKA:
Young God Of Gamblers ||
God Of Gamblers III
Year:
1996 Reviewer: Phil
Mills
As
a child, Ko Chun (Lai) is heavily involved with watching his
Auntie gambling with street vendors. When an attempted
con takes place, Chun is rescued from being seriously hurt by
a small girl who takes the injury for him, forming a bond
between the two. Years pass and we learn that Chun's
parents were killed and he is taken into care by a mysterious
gambling shark. He trains Chun and two others in the art
of card trickery with the aim of eventually getting one of
them to win the title of 'God Of Gamblers' as well as a large
percentage in all casinos. During the competition, Chun
is seriously hurt in the head and loses the title to his own
adopted brother. It is up to his childhood friend, now
known as Sister Seven (Yuen), to try to help Chun recover and
win back what should rightly be his.
Gambling,
kung fu and comedy - this can only be the formula for yet
another 'God
Of Gamblers' movie from Wong Jing. This time we are
presented with a prequel to the original film with Leon Lai
taking up the mantle of Ko Chun prior to his fame and fortune.
The storyline begins well enough but as soon as the familiar
head injury comes into play it is not only extreme coincidence
that lightning strikes twice for the same man but also
downhill for the production from then on. What we needed
to see here was a little more examination as to why this character has
become the smarmy, powerful man he is today but instead we are
presented with a shallow duplication of a tiring concept.
Jing also feels the need to justify each of Ko Chun's habits
seen in 'GOG' but the only effect this has is to remove some
of their mysticism and coolness as they are given such humble
(and quite frankly, dull) beginnings.
Leon
Lai showed a lot of promise in a cameo as a similar character
to Ko Chun in 'City
Hunter' which is why he was chosen for this role but
unfortunately he seems to lose a lot of that charm here.
Rather than make the role his own, he is left trying to
imitate traits created by Chow Yun Fat but he comes across as
far too bland and lifeless on screen for you to ever believe
that this is the same man. This isn't aided by the fact
that the other supporting members of the cast are either left
in comedy hell with incredibly weak jokes or just show up to
look macho and then get the stuffing beaten out of them.
Jordan Chan is probably the only plus to emerge from this mess
as he portrays what I would presume is an early version of
Dragon played by Charles Heung in 'God Of Gamblers'. He
also gets the majority of the action scenes where he displays
some martial prowess and strong charisma but sadly the
choreography lets it down and the film fails to find that
final gearshift into overdrive.
When
I heard the idea behind 'GOG 3 - The Early Stage' I have to
say that I was intrigued to see the past glories of one of the
most interesting characters to emerge from a Wong Jing film.
Unfortunately though, it is a poorly thought out film that
contains no real groundbreaking developments or fresh ideas.
All of the magic of the 'GOG' format is lost amongst an
increasingly abundant Wong Jing layout and you would have to
be a really hardcore fan to get much from it.
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