There aren’t that many times in your life when you watch a movie that completely catches you by surprise. My initial viewing of the GOD OF GAMBLERS circa 1997 is one of those times in my life. Up to that point I had only seen Chow Yun-Fat in the John Woo classics THE KILLER and HARD-BOILED, and I was beginning the process of trying to find and watch as many of his films as possible. When my Tai Seng VHS tape of GOD OF GAMBLERS arrived in the mail, I was very excited to pop it in the VCR and watch another badass Chow Yun-Fat classic! I wasn’t quite prepared for what I was about to see…

The film’s opening credits feature Ko Chun (Chow Yun-Fat), the world famous, mysterious “God of Gamblers” in Tokyo for a match with Ueyama, (Yasuhiro Shikamura), Japan’s top gambler. Ko Chun looks unbelievably cool in his dark suit and slicked back hair (Killer style), as he strolls into the casino, accompanied by the film’s rousing main theme, flanked by his beautiful girlfriend Janet (Sharla Cheung) and his personal assistant and friend, Ko Yee (Fong Lung). After being soundly defeated by Ko Chun, Ueyama asks the God of Gamblers to take on the dangerous Singaporean gambler Chan Kam-sing (Hon-Lam Pau), the Demon of Gamblers, in a high stakes poker match on his behalf. It seems the “demon” had beaten Ueyama’s father in a gambling match a few years earlier by cheating, ultimately driving the man to suicide. Ko Chun agrees to help Ueyama get his revenge. Knowing it could get dangerous, Ueyama assigns Dragon (Charles Heung), a former Vietnamese special forces soldier, to be Ko Chun’s bodyguard. The stage seems to be set for badass action and tricky gambling and then….

Walking home a night later after besting another group of duplicitous gamblers, Ko Chun falls into a booby trap that was set by Knife (Andy Lau) to screw around with his Indian neighbor who’s been getting on his nerves. Ko’s resulting fall and bump on the head causes him to have amnesia and revert to the mental level of a small child. Knife and his girlfriend Jane (Joey Wong), take him in and try to figure out who he is. The couple soon learns that the only thing that can calm him down and keep him from screaming is giving him his favorite chocolate treats. Knife, who’s obsessed with gambling, but is not very good at it, soon enlists “Chocolate,” his nickname for the stranger, to help him with some of his get-rich-quick, gambling schemes. Along the way, Knife discovers that Chocolate has amazing gambling skills even though he acts like a child. At first he tries to exploit him for his own purposes, but over time Knife begins to care about Chocolate and decides he will try to get him some help.

Will Chocolate get hit by a car, smash his head through the driver’s side window and turn back into Ko Chun? Will his friend Ko Yee, who’s always been jealous of Ko Chun’s success, align himself with Chan Kam-sing and murder Janet? Will Dragon turn out to be one badass bodyguard? Will Ko Chun / Chocolate grab two pistols and kill a group of assassins in slow motion? Will the God of Gamblers face off against the Demon of Gamblers in international waters and win? Will he remember Knife who has turned out to be a good friend to him?

For the first 30 minutes of GOD OF GAMBLERS, I was getting the exact Chow Yun-Fat I was expecting with his unmatched charisma completely dominating the proceedings. And then he hits his head. When I first watched this film I had never seen Chow in a comedy so I wasn’t expecting how over the top he would go. Watching the “coolest actor in the world” scream uncontrollably and beg for chocolates was something I wasn’t emotionally prepared for at the time and I specifically remember that “WTF” feeling that came over me. I had also never seen a “Wong Jing film” so I didn’t understand the extreme changes in tone that the film would undergo, one of the trademarks of his films. One minute I’m watching a suave Chow Yun-Fat, the next minute I’m watching crude, goofy comedy with Andy Lau and Shing Fui-On, and a little later there’s a man raping a corpse. What I soon realized was that in the world of 1980’s Hong Kong cinema, the rules are much different than American films and you never know what you might see next. That unique nature of Hong Kong cinema hooked me completely and it became my obsession for the next several years with Chow Yun-Fat as my favorite leading man. GOD OF GAMBLERS gave me an entertaining film while opening up a whole new world of entertainment. 

GOD OF GAMBLERS was a huge box office hit and started a new craze in the Hong Kong film industry for gambling films. Stephen Chow, another huge star in Hong Kong, released the movie ALL FOR THE WINNER just a year later in 1990 where he would play the “Saint of Gamblers.” It would be an even bigger hit than GOD OF GAMBLERS. The Saint of Gamblers and the God of Gamblers’ protege Knife (Andy Lau) would join forces in Wong Jing’s proper sequel GOD OF GAMBLERS II (1990). Gong Li would even join the fun with Stephen Chow in GOD OF GAMBLERS III: BACK FROM SHANGHAI (1991). Chow Yun-Fat finally returned to the role of Ko Chun in 1994 in THE RETURN OF THE GOD OF GAMBLERS. While not as strong as the original, it was another crazy entry in the series and another huge box office smash. 

The last things I want to mention about GOD  OF GAMBLERS are its two main stars, Chow Yun-Fat and Andy Lau. Chow Yun-Fat is incredible in the role of Ko Chun / Chocolate. He’s so cool and he’s also genuinely funny. He’s so charming in the role and it’s no shock that Hong Kong audiences and critics were completely enamored by him. When this film was made in 1989, Chow had won the previous two years Hong Kong Film Awards (the Hong Kong Oscar) for best Actor for John Woo’s A BETTER TOMORROW (1986) and Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE (1987), a film that would heavily influence Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS (1992). Chow would get nominated twice for his 1989 movies GOD OF GAMBLERS and ALL ABOUT AH-LONG, winning the award for the latter. Dominating both the box office and awards shows, Chow Yun-Fat was the unquestioned greatest leading man in Hong Kong cinema at the time. Andy Lau is another huge star in the world of Hong Kong entertainment. A dual threat, Lau was not just a leading movie star in the industry, he was also one of its biggest pop stars, where he is known as one of the “Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop.” To this day, Andy Lau is still a huge star in Hong Kong cinema. With that said, I’ve never thought that his character of Knife was one of his best. He’s a pretty selfish asshole for much of the film before having a change of heart near the end. He was so good in the following year’s A MOMENT OF ROMANCE (1990), as well as later films like RUNNING OUT OF TIME (1999) and INFERNAL AFFAIRS (2002). He’s incredibly talented, but his shallow character ultimately suffers in comparison to Chow Yun-Fat’s incredible performance in this film. 

If it’s not obvious, I highly recommend GOD OF GAMBLERS to any adventurous viewer who’s willing to simply follow the story wherever it goes. If nothing else, just sit back and enjoy Chow Yun-Fat in one of my favorite performances in Hong Kong cinema, or any other cinema for that matter.