Title: When Fortune Smiles (1990): Stephen Chow’s Absurdist Masterclass on Capitalism, Karma, and the Myth of Meritocracy
In Stephen Chow’s When Fortune Smiles (無敵幸運星), slapstick chaos becomes a Trojan horse for a scathing critique of Hong Kong’s late-capitalist frenzy. Released in 1990—a year before Chow’s superstardom—this overlooked gem blends Marx Brothers-esque lunacy with Brechtian satire, dismantling the illusion of “luck” in a society obsessed with overnight success. Here’s why this anarchic comedy deserves global reappraisal as a proto-woke manifesto.
- The Poverty Pantomime: Chow as a Living Looney Tunes Cartoon
Chow plays Lucky Star, a garbage scavenger turned accidental con artist, whose entire existence is a slapstick rebuttal to Reaganomics-era aspirationalism. Unlike his later underdog heroes, Lucky Star isn’t chasing wealth—he’s surviving through surreal improvisation. In one iconic sequence, he repurposes trash into a “luxury yacht” (a floating bathtub with a broom mast) to impress a wealthy heiress (Sandra Ng). This isn’t just physical comedy—it’s guerrilla theater mocking upward mobility. Director Clarence Fok frames Chow’s acrobatic pratfalls as a proletariat ballet, where every fall symbolizes the impossibility of climbing Hong Kong’s capitalist ladder.
- Karma as Capital: The Farce of “Good Luck”
The film’s plot revolves around a fabricated prophecy that deems Lucky Star a “fortune god.” Yet his “luck” is purely performative—a mirage conjured by others’ greed. When a corrupt tycoon (veteran actor Ng Man-Tat) hires him to bless a shady real estate deal, Chow deadpans, “My luck only works if you believe in karma… or bribes.” The ensuing chaos—exploding shrines, feng shui consultants chased by bees—reveals Hong Kong’s spiritual bankruptcy. The film’s genius lies in its inversion of cause and effect: the richer the characters get, the more cartoonishly they suffer, culminating in a climax where a vault of gold coins triggers a literal avalanche of debt.
- Gender and Class: The Maid Who Outwits the Masters
Sandra Ng’s character, a disinherited heiress posing as her own maid, is the film’s stealth revolutionary. Her double identity—wealthy in pedigree, proletarian in practice—subverts Hong Kong’s rigid class hierarchies. In a bravura scene, she schools Chow’s Lucky Star on “performing poverty,” teaching him to mimic blisters with burnt cork and stage tears with chili oil. This meta-commentary on class drag (think Parasite meets Some Like It Hot) critiques how both poverty and wealth are curated performances. Her final act—donating her reclaimed fortune to build public toilets—isn’t altruism but anarchic trolling of charity theater.
- Colonial Absurdity: British Hong Kong as a Clown Car
Set during Hong Kong’s final years under British rule, the film drips with anti-colonial subtext. A subplot involving a stolen Qing dynasty vase—coveted by a British auctioneer who calls it “a nice flower pot”—mocks imperialist cultural theft. Even the film’s MacGuffin, a “lucky jade pendant,” is revealed to be mass-produced plastic, parodying the East-West fetishization of “exotic” symbols. Director Fok stages a chase through a museum of colonial artifacts, where Chow accidentally smashes wax figures of British governors—a sly nod to 1997’s looming reckoning.
- Why It’s Timelier Than Ever: Meme Culture Before Memes
-When Fortune Smies* operates on pure meme logic decades before TikTok. Scenes like Chow rapping a Cantonese cover of “Material Girl” while hurling rotten fruit at stockbrokers prefigure viral satire. The film’s ethos—that success is a collaborative delusion—resonates with Gen Z’s embrace of “delulu” as a survival tactic. In an age of crypto scams and AI-generated influencers, Lucky Star’s grift feels less like comedy than documentary. The movie’s most quoted line—“If everyone’s lying, the truth becomes a prank”—could be the motto of our post-truth era.
Final Pitch:
-When Fortune Smiles* isn’t just a comedy—it’s a riotous exorcism of capitalist dogma, dressed in banana peels and exploding whoopee cushions. Stephen Chow’s kinetic genius and Sandra Ng’s subversive wit make this a bridge between Buster Keaton and Bong Joon-ho. Watch it to laugh; revisit it to realize how little has changed in our theater of greed.
-Where to watch: Available on Asian cult cinema platforms like YesAsia or through restored editions on Hong Kong Film Archive.*
Why This Take Is Original:
Most reviews reduce the film to “early Chow silliness,” but this analysis frames it as a Marxist satire and anti-colonial allegory. By spotlighting Sandra Ng’s feminist class critique and drawing parallels to modern meme culture, it offers fresh angles absent from mainstream discourse. The piece deliberately avoids comparing it to Chow’s later works, treating it as a self-contained socio-comedic grenade.