Tricky Brains: Viewer Comments

Tricky Brains is a pretty good comedy that never fails to amuse me when I'm bored or tired. This movie is just loaded with gags, which range from corny to downright funny. Stephen Chow plays a role that possibly only he can play, that of a trickster-for-hire (Norm MacDonald subsequently proved me wrong in "Dirty Work", which was equally good, although he played a revenge-artist, which was somewhat different). He takes business from both good and bad people, and in this movie, his job happens to involve ruining the lives of Andy Lau and Ng Man-Tat's characters. Not to spoil any surprises, but Stephen Chow proves to be effective playing cunning bad guys or sympathetic good guys with equal efficiency. Of course, being a comedy, you know everything is going to work out at the end, but the fun is getting there! On with the other stars, I thought Andy Lau did a really good job here, as just an ordinary working guy, instead of the knight of gamblers or some mega-superstar. He shows here that he has a knack for comedy (although he wasn't in many comedies afterward). The requisite role of Stephen Chow's girl for this movie is played by Chingmy Yau, who showed some good chemistry with Chow (not to the calibre of Sharla Cheung Man or Karen Mok, perhaps, but good nevertheless). Notable Wong Jing supporting cast is in full force here as well, such as the guy who played the bad guy in "God of Gamblers", the guy who played Chow's nemesis in "God of Gamblers 2 and 3" (also playing Chow's nemesis here), and even Wong Jing himself has a small role as well. Needless to say, if you're into comedy and don't really care about artistic value, don't hesitate to give this one a try.