Magic to Win

cover

AKA: Happy Magic

Year of release: 2011

Genre: comedy

Director: Wilson Yip

Action director: Jack Wong

Producers: Raymond Wong, Wang Zhong-Lei, Lung Dan-Nei

Writers: Edmond Wong, Chan Tai-Li

Cinematography: Cheung Man-Po

Editing: Cheung Ka-Fai

Music: Andy Cheung, Chiu Tsang-Hei

Stars: Karena Ng, Louis Koo, Wu Chun, Wu Jing, Raymond Wong, Zheng Song-Ming, Yan Ni, Lo Meng, Vincent Kok

Rated IIA for mild violence

Movie Review Index
Main Page

Magic to Win  Magic to Win

Magic to Win  Magic to Win

Apparently, Magic to Win is a reboot of the Happy Ghost series, which were pretty popular films back in the 1980's and 1990's. Having never seen those movies, your friendly neighborhood reviewer can't say how Magic to Win stacks up against them. But, on its own, Magic to Win is Hong Kong comedy at its absolute worst: loud and brash, mistaking volume and number of jokes for actual hilarity.

The thin plot has Macy (Karena Ng) getting bestowed with magical powers after she runs into Professor Hong (Raymond Wong). Macy puts her new abilities to use by running a website where she grants people wishes. Everything seems peachy until an evil wizard, Bi Yewu (Wu Jing), shows up to try and take the powers for himself. Oh, and Louis Koo fulfills his contractual obligation to appear in every other Hong Kong movie released in an extended cameo as another wizard.

As you might guess, all of this is not very exciting stuff, even by Hong Kong teenybopper popcorn movie standards. It's basically Harry Potter without any of the charm or imagination. But, hey, at least we get a subplot about Macy's volleyball team thrown into the mix, so you get to see a crutch of many sub-par productions: the pointless musical montage.

For the rest of the running time, Magic to Win is awash is terrible looking CGI, as the film-makers try to bamboozle the audience into thinking they are actually watching something of some form of substance instead of a bunch of random ideas vomited towards the screen, like a poorly-conceived and executed lightsaber duel that would have probably gotten the production sued by George Lucas if he thought he would get more than fifty cents and a bus transfer. Sadly, that lame "homage" is probably Magic to Win's highlight, unless having people scream and overact for ninety-plus minutes is your idea of fun.

RATING: 2.5