Movie Watchable: “Lucky Grandma” Is the Dark Comedy Gem We Caught Way Too Late

Tsai Chin Makes This Chinatown Crime Caper Impossible to Shake

Mark your next movie night on us. We caught Lucky Grandma later than we should have, and this wonderfully strange little crime comedy immediately became one of those films that makes you ask: How did we miss this?

Originally premiering in 2019, Sasie Sealy’s Lucky Grandma is a dark comedy, gangster caper and character piece all wrapped around one magnificent lead performance from Tsai Chin.

And it is not just the acting. The movie has a wicked rhythm, a great soundtrack and score, terrific New York atmosphere and exactly the kind of dry, slightly off-kilter humor we tend to fall for.

Tsai Chin plays Grandma Wong like nobody else possibly could

Chin stars as Grandma Wong, a recently widowed, chain-smoking Chinatown matriarch who is determined to remain independent even while her family would very much like her to make safer choices.

A fortune teller predicts an especially lucky day, so Grandma does what any completely reasonable person would do with that information: she heads to the casino and goes all in.

Her luck does not exactly behave itself.

On the trip home, Grandma comes into possession of a bag of money connected to local gangsters. Instead of quietly backing away from the situation, she digs in, setting off a wonderfully absurd chain of events that eventually has her caught between rival criminal groups.

Then Big Pong walks in and somehow makes it even better

Realizing she may require a little backup, Grandma hires Big Pong, played by Hsiao-Yuan Ha, a massive bodyguard from a rival gang who becomes one of the film’s sweetest surprises.

The rest of the supporting cast includes Michael Tow as Little Handsome, Woody Fu as Pock-Mark and Yan Xi as Sister Fong, but the movie never forgets whose story this is. Tsai Chin owns the frame with tiny looks, irritated silences and the kind of stubborn body language that can be funnier than an entire page of dialogue.

That is one of the things we loved most about it. Lucky Grandma does not treat its older lead like a novelty and it does not need Grandma Wong to suddenly become an action superhero. She is funny, selfish, vulnerable, difficult, resourceful and completely herself.

The soundtrack is secretly one of Lucky Grandma’s best characters

Now let us get to something that grabbed us almost immediately: the music is fantastic.

Composer Andrew Orkin scored the film, and director Sasie Sealy has explained that they wanted the music to feel much bigger than the movie’s modest scale — what the pair called a “big, little score.”

The musical palette pulls from big brass, heavy percussion, retro Chinese-pop influences and strange electronic textures. Sealy has cited everything from the muscular score of Seven Samurai to 1960s Chinese-language pop covers and the unusual percussion of Jon Brion’s Punch-Drunk Love work as inspirations.

That explains why the movie can move from Chinatown noir to absurd gangster comedy without feeling like somebody changed the channel. The score keeps pushing Grandma forward even when she looks like she would personally prefer everyone around her to stop making noise.

Orkin’s soundtrack was eventually released as an 11-track album, with titles including “Lucky Morning,” “Hunting Grandma,” “Grandma’s Haggle,” “Gamblin’ Grandma,” “Grandma’s Mambo” and “Grandma’s Last Stand.”

Lucky Grandma looks like a crime movie but feels more personal

Underneath the money, gangsters and deadpan comedy is a movie about independence, aging, family and refusing to surrender your own life simply because everybody else thinks they know what is safest for you.

Sealy and co-writer Angela Cheng also let Chinatown feel lived-in rather than decorative. The cramped apartments, buses, shops and neighborhood rhythms give the movie a specificity that makes its stranger crime-movie flourishes work even better.

Lucky Grandma premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and later received a wider U.S. release in 2020 through Good Deed Entertainment. Critics were especially enthusiastic about Chin: the film currently holds a 95% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.

So yes — another great movie we caught later. Dark, funny, beautifully acted, musically distinctive and just odd enough that it never starts feeling manufactured.

Movie Watchable status: absolutely.

Watch the Official Trailer for Lucky Grandma

Good Deed Entertainment’s trailer introduces Tsai Chin’s Grandma Wong, her casino gamble and the Chinatown crime mess that follows.

Sources: Good Deed Entertainment; Rotten Tomatoes; Andrew Orkin; The Moveable Fest.