Running away from gangsters to whom he owes money, Chi (Wah) hides in a busy city restaurant until the heat dies down. During his brief stay there, Chi meets the extraordinary waiter Wong whose ability to memorise orders is legendary in the area. Chi sees this remarkable gift as a way of making money and tries to persuade Wong to join him on the mahjong circuit. Unfortunately for both parties, Wong's guardian Fei (Qiu) flatly refuse to allow her impressionable charge to associate with the nefarious elements of the gambling world and threatens Chi with a severe beating if he goes against her wishes. Wong is eager to try out his skills though and decides to sneak out of the house to learn from Chi. Initially their partnership bears fruit and their name spreads throughout the mahjong world. This infamy brings them to the attention of notorious gangster Tin (Jing) who has Wong beaten so viciously that the ensuing head wounds give him the mental age of a boy. Though Fei is furious when she discovers what has happened her main goal is now to help him recover and plan their revenge, with Chi happy to take part.

Even to the mahjong aficionado, the sight of countless games played out on the big screen must be far from entertaining. To the rest of us, it's about as interesting as watching someone else watch paint dry. The plot is a mere conduit for these games and throws a number of very familiar scenarios into play to help the mahjong take centre stage. Jing recalls the basic premise of 'God Of Gamblers' but ensures that none of the wit or charm of his previous hit remains. The director seems blissfully unaware that a film can be as absurd and surreal as it likes, but good, involving characters are the only sure way to make pathos affective. Jing throws together his usual array of crass jokes, completely overblown sight gags and melodrama though there is simply not enough quality or star power for any of it to work.

In many ways 'Kung Fu Mahjong' is like the tasteless economy or 'value' brands that litter supermarket shelves - yes, it may only be 3p for a tin of beans, but it is so watered down and questionable in content that it bares very little relation to the real thing. Wong Jing's work is a very diluted pastiche of other people's work, from Quentin Tarantino to Chow Sing-Chi; 'Kung Fu Hustle' is shamelessly plundered as is 'Shaolin Soccer' and 'Kill Bill'. Jing doesn't turn these into clever parodies ala 'Airplane!', he just borrows iconography from the aforementioned films as if their mere appearance should be applauded.

'Kung Fu Mahjong' is tiresome and uninteresting, but never bad enough to make it unintentionally amusing. Wong Jing beats us into submission with numerous mahjong sequences, adds some poor computer effects (a bit like adding cheerleaders to a game of croquet to generate excitement) and spews it at the viewer complete with much shouting. Not only does this approach play havoc with your home theatre set-up, it also makes you question the very nature of cinema itself. Nevertheless, if you approach a film of this nature, with this cast, with this storyline and with this lack of imagination, there is very little sympathy you (or indeed I) should expect.

After getting that out of the way, it should come as no surprise that Jing Wong's latest effort is another "gambling comedy," but this time he's found new inspiration from his former leading man and has created the first, and I'm sure it won't be the last, spin-off from Stephen Chow's international blockbuster Kung Fu Hustle, Kung Fu Mahjong (2005). Not only does Wong borrow many of the CGI enhanced slapstick antics of Chow's masterpiece, but also a majority of it's cast. Two of Kung Fu Hustle's most beloved and recognized stars, Wah Yuen and Qiu Yuen ("Landlord" and "Landlady" respectively), both play major roles in Kung Fu Mahjong. These two have some real chemistry together and Wong uses this to his advantage, aping several moments from Kung Fu Hustle, including Qiu's ever present dangling cigarette and Wah's famous "flower pot" gag.

Wah Yuen plays Chi Mo Sai, an aging gambler who just doesn't know when to quit. After a brilliant winning streak, beating the odds at Mahjong, horse racing and cards, he blows it all and winds up in trouble with the local triads. While on the run he meets Ah Wong (Roger Kwok), a lowly waiter with a remarkable gift for memorization. He tries to convince Wong that, with his help, he could become one of the top Mahjong players in the world. I guess I should take a second here to explain what Mahjong is, since I had only a cursory knowledge of the game from playing the various solitaire versions online. Mahjong is a gambling game for four players that originated in China. It's similar to the Western card game Gin Rummy in that players build suits by adding and removing tiles, instead of cards, from their hands. The first player with all suits in their hand is the winner. Since all tiles are on the table at all times, Wong's memory would work even better than a card counters, since he'd just have to follow each tiles location instead of also having to factor the probability of a card's next appearance.

Unfortunately for Sai, Wong's Boss, Auntie Fei (Qiu Yuen), strictly forbids him from gambling of any kind. However, the lure of fame and money are too much and Wong sneaks out to learn Mahjong from Sai. Eventually, Sai takes him to the best casino in Hong Kong to test his skill and after cleaning up at the tables, Sai realizes that Wong's his ticket to retirement and Wong sees that there's a lot more to life than just being a poor waiter. With some help from Sai, Wong gets up the courage to ask out Cheryl, a young woman he's had his eye on. He wins her over with his new clothes and seemingly expensive tastes, but she refuses to let him take her home because of her "overbearing father," Tin Kau Ko, a mafia boss who also happens to be a master Mahjong player.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Cheryl isn't really Ko's daughter, but is actually his mistress. When Ko finds out that she's been seeing Wong behind his back he tries to have Sai and Wong killed. Wong is so badly beaten that he cannot even remember his own name much less Mahjong and brain damage is feared. Sai feels overwhelming guilt about Wong's condition and decides to pull him out of the "Master of Mahjong" tournament, but Auntie Fei has other ideas. She instead tries to use Mahjong as a form of mental therapy similar to that used with Alzheimer's patients in order to stimulate the parts of the brain most affected by Wong's injuries. Soon enough he's able to play like he used to and is ready for the big tournament playing against no other than Ko.

If some of these plot elements sound familiar that's because they are, with many of them appearing over and over again throughout Wong's gambling films. In fact, God of Gamblers (the one I'm most familiar with) also features an unbeatable gambling hero who loses his skill halfway through the film and then must overcome this handicap to come back against all odds and win in the end. Oh, I forgot to mention that someone the hero cares about very much must also be killed off in some horrific manner making the hero's triumph in the end that much more significant. However, the grand Mahjong tournament at the end of the film just didn't have the kind of impact it should have, mostly due to my lack of understanding when it comes to the intricacies of Mahjong.

Conclusion: I am a huge, huge (see, I even used huge twice!) fan of Kung Fu Hustle and while Stephen Chow is the man in that flick, let's face it, the Landlord and Landlady carried most of the movie. They start off as a couple of jokes, but as we learn their back story they just become these two great classic characters ("…the ill fated lovers, Paris and Helen of Troy."). To have these two reunite, along with other Kung Fu Hustle alumni such as Chi Chung Lam and Kai Man Tin (who also co-starred in Chow's Shaolin Soccer), is a real treat which combined with CGI enhanced physical comedy makes for a good time. However, the over-reliance on Mahjong as the focal point of the film, as well as some gags that just don't work (such as Qiu Yuen in a Kill Bill spoof that goes on wayyyy too long) make this one a tougher sell than the obvious source of it's inspiration. Still, for those of you, like myself, that just can't get enough of these two Kung Fu Mahjong makes a great Rental.

The proceedings here are your usual Wong Jing fare, with lots of toilet humor, some goofy action sequences and a few movie parodies (but someone please tell Hong Kong film-makers to lay off the Kill Bill homages already; I think I've already seen three or four of these already this year, and the joke was already tired last year). Like I said before, despite the title and a couple of gags (such as Yuen Wah getting knocked off a building and then getting hit in the head with a flowerpot), Kung Fu Mahjong is closer in tone to Wong Jing's well-known gambling movies, rather than Stephen Chow's box-office smash.

That's not necessarily a bad thing -- I've enjoyed many of Wong gambling pictures. However, I hazy on the rules of mahjong, which made the "duel" at the end hard to follow. And Wong Jing seems to be running out of ideas; the finale echoes Wong's God of Gamblers, but not in a very good way. Despites its' flaws, though, Kung Fu Mahjong is a fairly solid (if unspectactular) gambling movie -- but one beigins to wonder how many times Wong Jing can go to the well before the bucket turns up totally dry.