“Lucky Seven” Theatrical Poster
Director: Chao Chen-Kuo
Cast: Chiao Pei, Yang Wei-De, Lin Tung-An, Wang Chi-Cheng, Cheng Wei-Pai, Chang Chai-Ming, Hsu Yu-Ta, Hsiao Hung-Me, Eugene Thomas, Chang Yi-Teng
Running Time: 90 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Spend long enough in the niche genre that is kung-fu cinema, and you’ll eventually find yourself exploring some of the more obscure corners of what’s on offer. One such corner is that of the Taiwanese kids kung-fu movie, a sub-genre that rose to prominence in the 80’s and lasted into the early 90’s. While the traditional kung-fu flick was on the way out by the beginning of the 80’s, in Hong Kong the likes of Jackie Chan kept audiences engaged through bigger stunts, and an evolution into a more modern kickboxing style of screen combat. Taiwan and Korea on the other hand, while attempting to emulate the same, largely shifted their focus to making productions aimed at kids, and it was a move that turned out to be a successful one.
Many of these productions made the decision to actually have kids headline the cast, and some of the first out of the gates were 1980’s The Flying Tigers and the Kung Fu Kids and Kung Fu Kids Break Away. In 1986 the first entry of the popular Kung Fu Kids series hit the screens, spawning 5 sequels over the next 3 years, plus a reboot in 1992! Suffice to say, if watching kids headline kung-fu movies was your thing, then the 80’s was a great time to be alive. Shuffling itself in amongst the pack is Lucky Seven, which was released the same year, and more than likely was inspired by Kung Fu Kids.
Imbued with what feels like a go-for-broke approach to the genre, whereas Kung Fu Kids had 3 main protagonists, Lucky Seven more than doubles it with (you guessed it) 7 heroic kids as our leads, and similarly looks to ramp up the comedy and action stakes as well. The world that Lucky Seven unfolds in is a surreal one, and is probably best described as a live-action cartoon. Who exactly the 7 kids are is never given any explanation, but none of them seem slightly concerned that their parents don’t seem to be around, and they have no issues booking hotel rooms or reserving a table at a fine dining restaurant. However if you’re giving a thought to such things, then it’s safe to say that Lucky Seven probably isn’t the movie for you.
The kids come together when 6 of them go to the airport to meet their 7th member who’s flying in from the States. In a conversation fairly typical of what you can expect from Lucky Seven, he explains that in the U.S. he’s called ‘Rambo’, but in Taiwan they should refer to him as ‘Rocky’. Being educated in western culture, he takes the gang out for dinner at a steak restaurant, during which they witness the exchange of a large diamond go all kinds of wrong at a nearby table. In short, the diamond ends up in the kid’s possession, who are entrusted to find its rightful owner, of whom the only identifying features they have to go on is it’ll be a lady that’s wearing a flower and she has a mole on her upper thigh. Hijinks ensue as the kids attempt to find the rightful owner, while being pursued by the gangsters who want the diamond for themselves at every turn.
Lucky Seven is one of those movies that plays with your head, at once as grating as you’d expect it to be, but at the same time displaying a humorous streak that’s so intentionally dumb it’s hard not to laugh (for some reason I found it genuinely funny when, in the restaurant Rocky orders everyone a medium steak, and the others question as to why he doesn’t want them to have a full size one). There’s an infectious energy on display that means even the more offensive (or just plain absurd) jokes manage to get a free pass – from women being harassed, to Eugene Thomas being compared to a chimpanzee, and at its most brazen one of the kids tells an Argentinian fighter to “stop shooting at our boats” (a reference to the sinking of the Chian-der 3 incident, a Taiwanese shipping boat that was sunk by the Argentinian Navy in May 1986, resulting in 2 deaths).
The kids themselves are clearly all martial artists, and it’s probably safe to say that the trauma some of them endured in the action scenes is the reason why, for most of them, Lucky Seven is the only credit to their names. Out of Chiao Pei, Yang Wei-De, Lin Tung-An, Wang Chi-Cheng, Cheng Wei-Pai, Chang Chai-Ming, and Hsu Yu-Ta, it would be only Yu-Ta who’d go onto work in the film industry for a few more years, turning up alongside Lin Hsiao-Lu in a trio of fantasy flicks made between 1987 – 1990. Other than that, to see these kids in action front and centre, Lucky Seven is the only place to do so, and for that it may be worth it alone.
Marking the choreography debut of Chiu Ying-Hong, who’d go onto work on such Taiwanese productions as the 3D hopping vampire movie The 3-D Army, and the insane unofficial live action Dragon Ball flick, The Magic Begins, here he was already showing himself as a capable orchestrator of action. Like many Taiwanese action movies of the era, there’s a strong emphasis on impact and falls, with the undercranking turned up to just the right level of intensity. The restaurant brawl involving the diamond is ferocious, with a vicious kickboxing style on display (involving plenty of bodies crashing through tables), predating the kind of contemporary triad action that’d become the go-to in many HK productions during the late 80’s and early 90’s. The same scene also introduces Hsiao Hung-Mei (Sworn Brothers, Mr. Vampire Part 3) as the lady with the flower, who displays some impressive moves and willingness to take some brutal hits.
Director Chao Chen-Kuo, who had helmed action flicks before like 1983’s The Village Brother and 1984’s A Girl Rogue, thankfully knows to save the best for last. While many of the fights throughout the runtime are played for laughs, to the point that you’ll need to endure listening to the theme song which the kids sing play over some of them, the finale means business. Clearly inspired by the finale of Sammo Hung’s 1983 comedy Winners and Sinners (and indeed there’s nods to the My Lucky Stars series throughout), the kids and gangsters descend upon a warehouse filled with a healthy amount of stacked sandbags, barrels, and of course multiple levels to fall off. Each of the kids has their own specialty – one is a ninja (complete with full black garb), one riffs on Bruce Lee with a pair of nunchucks, one is a fencer, and…well, you get the idea.
As hard as it is to believe, the final throwdown contains barely any stunt doubling, with the kids getting thrown around like ragdolls, smashed through glass (poor Chiao Pei is thrown through a window and lands face first, the impact of which causes her legs to go over her back the wrong way, all in glorious slow motion), and kicked in the face. In any other movie it would be classed as child abuse, but apparently, not in Taiwan! The most hilarious element of the finale is not only how ludicrous the physical violence gets, but also the bizarre tone it takes, with the ninja kid killing a guy with his katana, and Chiao Pei snapping one of the bad guy’s necks! The beatdowns continue with the arrival of 2 foreign fighters, one of whom doesn’t appear to be listed anywhere, and the other is an always welcome appearance by Eugene Thomas (The Super Ninja, Ninja Condors), here taking a break from his Lo Rei partnered ninja shenanigans.
Throw in musical cues that include Madonna’s Material Girl, Survivor’s Burning Heart, and even a body popping disco dance off to Wham’s I’m Your Man, and you have yourself one of the most distinctly mid-80’s Taiwanese action flicks out there. Lucky Seven feels like it spends its entire runtime balancing on a delicate tightrope between inspired Looney Tunes style insanity, and gratingly juvenile comedy, and had it been in the hands of a director like Chu Yen-Ping it probably would have fallen off the wrong side in the opening minutes. As it is, while many of the jokes fall flat, there’s an equal number of bodies falling into just about anything that’ll break, and that balance is enough to result in an enjoyably manic dose of Taiwanese mayhem.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10
You sold me with Wham