God of Gamblers Part III: Back to Shanghai

The English title of this Hong Kong film is God of Gamblers III: Back in Shanghai. However, the God of Gamblers himself (Chow Yun-Fat) is not in the film and the story mainly centers around Chow Sing Cho the "Saint of Gamblers" (Stephen Chow). Here, his powers and his Uncle Tat (Ng Man Tat) causes Sing to inadvertently to travel back in time in 1937 to Shanghai.

While the premise for the film sets a potentially intriguing story, the gambling excitement, which is a must in these films, is lost, unfortunately, in the uninteresting time-travel subplot and the acting suffers from screwball jokes and goofy humor. Much of the action and "tense" moments in the film were overkill, I think, and some of the actors like the hilarious actress Wong Wan-Si was underused. There is not much suspense going on in the film, and the intrigue level does not match that of the original God of Gamblers and Saint of Gamblers movies because of the acting and slow-moving plot.

It's nice seeing Stephen Chow return to his role though, as well as him partnering up with Ng Man Tat once again and seeing lead actresses Gong Li and Sandra Ng make appearances. However, this is one of the less exciting God of Gamblers sequels and it won't hurt to skip over this one.

Grade D