Winners & Sinners

Sammo Hung wrote, directed and starred, Yuen Biao worked as one of the action directors, and Jackie Chan turns up in support as a permanently blundering policeman. The plot is thin on purpose: five men out of prison try to stay clean, start a cleaning company, and land in the middle of a Triad war. What matters is where it leads. This is the first entry in the Lucky Stars series, and the formula the sequels lived on is already fixed here. On one side broad comedy and a crowded gang of friends, on the other fight sequences that take themselves completely seriously. The two tones sit side by side without blending, which is still the strangest thing about the film. The comedy is where it dates. Several gags aimed at the women were cheap in 1983 and are plainly uncomfortable now. You wait them out for the choreography. Who it is for: anyone tracing Hong Kong action comedy to its source. Who it is not for: viewers with no patience for humour left behind by its era.