Lucky Grandma
Oct. 21st, 2019 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI must admit, I went into Lucky Grandma expecting a sort of Mrs. Pollifax story, except instead of joining the CIA and discovering a talent for espionage, Grandma (IMDB simply gives her name as Grandma; thanks, IMDB!) falls afoul of a gang and discovers a talent for… gang stuff.
Lucky Grandma is not that story.
Grandma is a recently widowed chain-smoking eighty-year-old whose son wants her to move in with his family. Grandma would prefer to remain in her own apartment, but lacks the money to do so… so on a day that the fortune-teller told her would be lucky, Grandma takes her entire savings out of the bank and catches the Golden Panda bus upstate to a casino. She wins big - and then loses it all.
But on the bus ride home, Grandma discovers that her seatmate on the bus has just died. His bag falls on her head, and when she opens it, Grandma discovers that it’s full of cash.
So she steals it, and lands herself in the middle of a feud between the Red Dragon and the Zhongliang (I believe I’ve recalled the correct spelling), two local gangs who both have a claim on the money. She acquits herself about as well as you’d expect a normal person to acquit herself, but never rises above the level of a pawn. By the end she’s lost all the money, gotten shot, and seen her grandson kidnapped for ransom.
The shot is non-fatal and the grandson is rescued, but all in all, not a successful venture into gangland.
So then she goes to her son’s house for the grandson’s birthday, and the son shows her the room that he’s prepared for her, and… that’s it. That’s where the movie end. The whole story was “Grandma doesn’t want to move in with son, steals gang money so she can keep her own apartment, loses money, moves in with son.”
I guess I just wanted a bit more change to happen? If Grandma’s not going to become a gang leader, then at least I’d like some evolution in her relationship with her son’s family to explain why she’s come around to moving into his house. Instead it just feels like her bid for independence failed, so she’s forced to do the thing she spent the whole movie trying to avoid.
Having said all of that, I did find many of the parts of the movie charming. I particularly liked Grandma’s relationship with her bodyguard Big Pong, and I enjoyed Sister Fong, the leader of the Zhongliang gang. I just didn’t feel that the parts added up to a greater whole.
Lucky Grandma is not that story.
Grandma is a recently widowed chain-smoking eighty-year-old whose son wants her to move in with his family. Grandma would prefer to remain in her own apartment, but lacks the money to do so… so on a day that the fortune-teller told her would be lucky, Grandma takes her entire savings out of the bank and catches the Golden Panda bus upstate to a casino. She wins big - and then loses it all.
But on the bus ride home, Grandma discovers that her seatmate on the bus has just died. His bag falls on her head, and when she opens it, Grandma discovers that it’s full of cash.
So she steals it, and lands herself in the middle of a feud between the Red Dragon and the Zhongliang (I believe I’ve recalled the correct spelling), two local gangs who both have a claim on the money. She acquits herself about as well as you’d expect a normal person to acquit herself, but never rises above the level of a pawn. By the end she’s lost all the money, gotten shot, and seen her grandson kidnapped for ransom.
The shot is non-fatal and the grandson is rescued, but all in all, not a successful venture into gangland.
So then she goes to her son’s house for the grandson’s birthday, and the son shows her the room that he’s prepared for her, and… that’s it. That’s where the movie end. The whole story was “Grandma doesn’t want to move in with son, steals gang money so she can keep her own apartment, loses money, moves in with son.”
I guess I just wanted a bit more change to happen? If Grandma’s not going to become a gang leader, then at least I’d like some evolution in her relationship with her son’s family to explain why she’s come around to moving into his house. Instead it just feels like her bid for independence failed, so she’s forced to do the thing she spent the whole movie trying to avoid.
Having said all of that, I did find many of the parts of the movie charming. I particularly liked Grandma’s relationship with her bodyguard Big Pong, and I enjoyed Sister Fong, the leader of the Zhongliang gang. I just didn’t feel that the parts added up to a greater whole.
