Writer-director Gillian McKercher’s second feature film, Lucky Star, is a “day in the life” style drama that centers on a Chinese-Canadian man named Harold (Terry Chen), who earned his nickname “Lucky” from his grandmother by being a highly-skilled poker player. As the opening curtain draws, we find that he was once a high-stakes gambler who did very well for himself, even going as far as winning tournaments in Las Vegas.
Those days are now behind Lucky, having traded in this high-speed lifestyle for that of a loving family man who runs a tech repair shop, fixing phones and other products to resell in order to make sure his family never wants for anything. But as back the curtain draws even further, the cracks begin to show. The beautiful family life is slowly revealed as having been built on a crumbling foundation of unpaid taxes, outstanding parking tickets, lies, and a very long row of dominoes with an uncanny ability to fall one at a time, just as the last one is being propped up by another stack of borrowed cash.
Shoving one monster back in the closet inevitably causes two more to pop out. To make things even worse, Lucky ends up falling for a phone scam from someone claiming to be from the IRS, consequently losing a ton of money that he thought was fixing his tax problem. This leaves him with no choice but to secretly start gambling again to try and save himself and his family from losing everything.
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“…Lucky ends up falling for a phone scam…This leaves him with no choice but to secretly start gambling again…”
While watching Lucky Star, I began to see parallels between Lucky and Walter White from Breaking Bad. Both characters are family men who are highly skilled in their areas of expertise, and both are drawn into very dangerous lifestyles to make lots of money in order to help their families while hoping their loved ones never have to find out. In both stories, we find that almost nobody is a saint. Other family members may pretend to have the moral high ground at first, but they all begin to show their own shameful behavior when they see dollar signs, revealing that all humans are fallible.
The film may be considered to be a low budget film, but you could easily be fooled into thinking it had a larger budget thanks to its beautiful cinematography, lovely music, sound mixing, and McKercher’s clearly skilled direction. Even the sweeping imagery of the Calgary area in the intro is almost overwhelming in its picturesque presentation. You may just find yourself wanting to visit Calgary after seeing some of these shots. I know I did.
Throughout Lucky Star, Chen conveys the hopeless desperation Lucky finds himself in believably. Yet he always seems to find some little hope to cling to. This is where the drama lies, as that new hope continually gets ripped away from him. This is a solid drama with a very polished presentation that is sure to engross all who watch it.
"…you could easily be fooled into thinking it had a large budget..."
