User Reviews

A nasty Chinese-American lady learns from her fortune teller she's incredibly lucky--so she empties her bank account and heads to Atlantic City to gamble. Along the way, she stumbles into a bag filled with cash and she steals it from the dead man who had it. Soon, Chinese gang members begin harassing her and so she decides to hire a body guard to protect her.

Watching "Lucky Grandma" at the Philadelphia Film Festival was an odd experience. While billed as a comedy and having a mildly funny first portion, much of the rest of the movie isn't funny at all and is more of a crime drama. Because of this unevenness, the story was enjoyable but nothing more.

Lucky Grandma is a deadpan crime-comedy that harks back to the aesthetics of 1990s indie-cinema, but one without many laughs or thrills, while the overall message is unimaginative (Grandma Wong's good luck turns out to be that she gets to live with her family).

This started off well. A curmudgeon grandma with grand-kids who visits a soothsayer - and then goes off to the casino to see what can happen. It has a some good twists and turns.

But then - it just becomes a mafiosa story with standard shoot-outs and silly confrontations. Its like the directors had no idea what to do with their build-up and filled the latter half of the film with standard cliches that were very humdrum.

I hardly understand how in this day and age today, someone can come to the review section of films like "Lucky Grandma" and leave racially insensitive comments... I see one where Grandma was described to be "a nasty Chinese-American lady," which I take offense to because I think her portrayal bears resemblance to how the actual Asian grandparents are for us 2nd generation immigrants. While it could be frustrating or annoying at times, we still love them nonetheless, and while Grandma may have committed some mistakes, she still has redeemable qualities.

The thing I appreciate most about this film is perhaps the portrayal of the Chinese/Chinatown community in America, and in particular Manhattan. A great portion of my interest in cinema studies lies in the portrayal of invisible sub-communities that operate in the shadows of mainstream culture, and this film certainly meets that criteria. Parallel to the hustle and bustle of New York City is the lively community of Chinese immigrants, who have been able to resist cultural assimilation to an extent. Those who are more apt at navigating the socio-economic landscape of the city establish niche services that employ and serve just this niche community, which saw the flourishing of businesses like Chinese taxis, Chinese supermarkets, Chinese tourism companies, all of which operated only in Mandarin (and sometimes Cantonese). I have once experienced this myself, years ago, and even then my experience barely scratched the surface of this side of the American dream. I appreciate that Chinatown was given much more personality than the traditional Hollywood portrayal, where the "Triad" would reside (do they even still exist?), or merchants sell exotic food.

Next, I find that Grandma is such a rich character. I might be exaggerating slightly, but the traditional Grandma in Hollywood action-comedy films have a weird sort of deus ex machina that unleashes their beast side as the film's grand crescendo. It's funny, but not for very long, and at times even frustrating when a wheel-chaired grandma suddenly stands up to unveil a machine gun on her lap this whole time, then slaughters an entire army of bad people. This film was quite the contrary, as Grandma remains at a consistent level of fragility (which is a weird way to put things, I know), and she is always aware of her drawbacks - her strength and her speed are not comparable to youthful gang members in their early 20s. This wasn't just true during fight scenes and chase scenes, but is the general power dynamic between the protagonist/antagonist that underpins this entire film and how it unfolds. She falls, she takes damage, and she gets scared, just as anyone would in her terrifying situation.

It's common to see viewers on the internet vent their frustration against Grandma, questioning why she just won't return the money, or why she did it in the first place. I'm sure she understood that it was breaking the law to take something that did not belong to her, but I doubt the point of the film is to challenge the boundaries of theft and private property. I suppose part of the point was to illustrate that sometimes with elderly people, especially ones that never grew up in a culture like America that was always "legally conscious," stubbornness is definitely in play. It doesn't legally or morally justify what they do, but I think it's surely an understandable explanation. In fact, it's most likely universal that some things our elder relatives hold dear seem inexplicably random, and it is what it is - either they give them up, or the world finds a way around it, and this film was a nice combination of both.

I think that more so in recent days than ever before, artists like Sasie Sealy and Angela Cheng are shaping an important part of the Chinese-American narrative and the generational immigration story. This is a narrative that is constantly evolving with every new generation, so I am glad that parts of the most invisible ones can make its way into mainstream American culture. Perhaps I have taken a much more serious stands on a lighthearted comedy, but so be it - regardless of rom-com or dark comedy, every successful Asian American film is a victory for the Asian Americans in the US.

An aging Grandma, who is grumpy and rude with everyone in her life, steals tens of thousands from a stranger, who dies on the bus seat right next to her. Her actions endanger her 11-year-old grandson's life, and she learns nothing in the process. This bitter character is a selfish moron... and we are supposed to find her charming?