Do san 3: Chi siu nin do san (1997)

Director:

Jing Wong

Writer:

Jing Wong (written by)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Drama

Plot:

Following Ko Chun's earlier years as he battles for the position he was destined for: The God of Gamblers.

Cast

Leon Lai	...	Ko Chun
Anita Yuen	...	Seven
Jordan Chan	...	Lone Ng
Gigi Leung	...	Kent Hing (as Leung Wing Kei)
Francis Ng	...	Ko Ngo
King-fai Chung	...	Kent (as Chung King Fai)
Tat-Ming Cheung	...	So (as Cheung Tat Ming)
Elvis Tsui	...	Tai-Chin (as Xu Jin Jiang)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ricardo Alexander	...	Bodyguard
Moses Chan	...	Soto
Collin Chou	...	Wolf
Yun-Fat Chow	...	Ko Chun / 'The God of Gamblers' (archive footage) (as Chow Yun Fat)
Chi Hung Ng	...	Mo Kau

Also Known As:

Du shen 3: Zhi shao nian du shen (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
God of Gamblers 3: The Early Stage (Hong Kong: English title)
The Legend of God of Gamblers

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Hong Kong:IIB | Singapore:PG (cut) | UK:18

Company:

Golden Harvest Company

Quotes:

[first lines]
Title Card: In 1986, when Ko Chun hadn't obtained the crown of the God of Gamblers yet, he had to face the most life-risking and hazardous challenge of his life.

Movie Connections:

Follows Du shen 2 (1994)

should've been a total separation from GoG series

it's always nice to wrap up a Good movie as a trilogy, adding the third sequel, in this case a prequel to the first movie. however, as this is considered the "early stage" of god of gamblers, it's flawed with contradicting things, such as Ko Chun and Dragon meeting one another, which they did not do until the japanese gambler in God of Gamblers I assigned Dragon as a body guard to Ko Chun. moreover, the characters depicting the original characters in GOG does not quite meet up to the requirement, Jordan Chan being Dragon, does indeed do some good action scenes but his physical appearance is too small to be Dragon, while as Leon Lai does not have the same charisma as Chow Yun Fat depicts in the 2 original GOGs.

finally, the plot of GOG3 explains how Ko Chun came to like chocolate and why he has faded back hair. i personally think they needed to be revised they didn't quite make sense.

all in all, putting aside the above notion, the movie has the same slick twist at the end leaving you in suspsense and then a fair explanation as of how the result came to be as it came. and action scenes were very well too, if not better than the original GOG's which used more gun vs gun battle, here Dragon usually starts off barehanded and ends up with a gun from his enemies hands.

try to put aside the original GOG's and watch this as a separate movie, it did try its best to tie the movie to the original one's , but i guess they tried too hard and they tried to ignore the fact that Ko Chun and Dragon never met until GOG1.