Film Review: My Best Bet 祥賭必贏 (2025) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 6/10
Rating: ★★★
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The Lunar New Year demands its cinematic firecrackers – loud, colorful, and reassuringly familiar. Director Andy Lo’s “My Best Bet" (祥賭必贏) answers the call with the dependable energy of a mahjong tile slammed onto the table. It’s a Hong Kong festive comedy through and through, offering the expected cocktail of slapstick, sentiment, and star power. It aims to please, and for its target holiday audience seeking undemanding laughs, it largely succeeds. Yet, like a gambler chasing predictable odds, it never truly surprises, settling comfortably into the well-worn grooves of its genre.
Our dice roll begins with Man-ching (Charlene Choi, a frantic whirlwind of charisma), a woman whose relationship with Lady Luck is less flirtation and more pathological codependence. Her salvation (or perhaps her ultimate test) arrives in the form of the steadfast Louis Cheung, playing the heir to a traditional preserved fruit empire – a man whose worldview is as sweet, stable, and resistant to chaos as his family's wares. Marriage ensues. Bliss? Not quite. Man-ching’s inner gambler inevitably resurfaces, louder and more destructive than ever, particularly when provoked by the cartoonishly vengeful Ian (Chu Pak-hong, chewing scenery with villainous glee). The stakes escalate absurdly, dragging in Man-ching’s siblings (Stanley Yau and kayan9896 - also known as Jeannie Ng Ka-yan, serving adequately as plot motivators) and threatening the very foundations of her hard-won domestic peace.
The film’s undeniable strength lies in its central duo. Choi and Cheung possess a chemistry that crackles with comedic friction. Choi throws herself into the manic desperation of the "dopamine junkie" gambler with relatable, if exhausting, energy. Cheung is her perfect foil, the exasperated straight man whose grounded decency provides the film’s much-needed anchor. Their bickering and reconciliations feel genuine, providing the heart the script sometimes struggles to locate elsewhere. Bowie Wu (Xiu Gor), a welcome fixture of HK TV and cinema, adds a layer of nostalgic warmth and wry wisdom as the requisite elder statesman, the film's secret sauce for local audiences.
Directorially, Lo understands its assignment: keep it bright, keep it moving, keep it loud. The aesthetic is pure festive spectacle, culminating in a high-stakes gambling finale designed to dazzle the senses with flashing lights and rapid cuts. It’s visually busy, certainly, but genuine tension is curiously absent. The outcome feels preordained by the genre’s formulaic DNA, robbing the sequence of any real suspense. The film also deserves a nod for its **underlying moral compass. In a refreshing pivot from the "God of Gamblers" fantasies of the 80s and 90s, "My Best Bet" posits that the only true jackpot is walking away from the table. It’s a commendable message, particularly during a season often associated with casual betting.
Alas, the road to this moral is paved with clichés. The humor frequently defaults to the “Mo Lei Tau" standby of shouted arguments and exaggerated facial expressions, a shtick that feels increasingly weary and sledgehammer-subtle to modern sensibilities. While the leads elevate the material, the supporting characters, especially the villain, are sketched with broad, familiar strokes. The film’s most significant stumble is its tonal shift. It pivots abruptly from wacky, consequence-light comedy to heavy-handed moralizing about the perils of gambling. This transition feels less like an organic character arc for Man-ching and more like a public service announcement awkwardly shoehorned into the third act. The sincerity is admirable, but the execution is saccharine and disrupts the established comedic flow.
So, is "My Best Bet" a winning hand? It depends on what you’re betting on. If you seek a safe, undemanding, star-driven comedy to fill the festive hours with family, it delivers precisely that. It’s a cinematic pau – comforting, familiar, and designed for mass consumption. It revives the gambling comedy template with enough energy and charm (primarily from Choi and Cheung) to satisfy nostalgia. But it plays its cards far too safely. It lacks the audacious wit, genuine surprise, or thematic depth to transcend its formula. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a reliable, forgettable franchise starter, destined to play well over the holidays and fade quickly from memory. For a mindless, cheerful distraction, it passes. For anything more substantial, you might feel like you've placed a bet on a sure thing, only to win a modest, expected payoff. (Neo, 2026)
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