THE ULTIMATE WINNER DVD (赢家) (2011)

SYNOPSIS: At a tender age, Shi Tian Cai has been influenced by his father's gambling addiction and known among his peers to be the junior gambling king. At 8 years of age, Tian Cai's father died in a fire leaving behind Tian Cai to fend for himself. As years go by…Tian Cai got married to Zhi Hui who is about to give birth. Tian Cai gambles to support his family and he believes that through gambling he would make himself rich. Tian Cai works with Honey, a junket who harbours deep affection for him, and wins at high-stake gambling sessions. With Tian Cai’s innate gambling instinct and talent, he managed to make a huge windfall. However, Tian Cai’s gambling ability generates envy and hatred from a Taiwanese tycoon Li Guan Jun. Each step that Tian Cai takes ultimately brings him closer to his nemesis and imminent death…

MOVIE REVIEW:

Li Nanxing can be considered as an iconic figure in the local television industry. After spending more than 20 years as a leading actor (and still is!) in Mediacorp, the 46 years old actor finally went behind-the-scenes as a director and star of “The Ultimate Winner”.

Ask anyone on the streets and most will likely remembered Li as Yan Fei in the enormously popular gambling theme drama series, “The Unbeatables”, our local counterpart to Chow Yun Fatt’s God of Gambling. Thus it comes as no surprise that Li decides to do his debut feature on gambling though it comes with a huge catch if you think you know what’s brewing.

Li stars as Tian Cai, a man who makes his living gambling. He believes he has the gift for it and despite his wife’s (played by Rebecca Lim from Channel 5, “The Pupil) protest, Tian Cai continues his wayward ways and met an opponent, Champion Lee (Taiwanese drama King, Aaron Chen) that will destroyed all that he has.

With a screenplay by seasoned TV director Harry Yap (he too helmed a gambling comedy, “Happy Go Lucky" starring Fann Wong last year), “The Ultimate Winner” is bogged down by formulaic plotting, weak characterization and a very preachy, not so subtle message – Gambling is bad. Despite the movie taking place across a period of three years and more, characters remain the same with nothing substantial to explain the happenings. Li reverts back to his gambling habit after a hiatus. His business partner cum admirer, Honey (Constance Song) still carries a torch for him. His wife continues to nag at him. Champion Lee is as unpredictable as before and that’s because we knew so little about the man.

And perhaps due to Li’s friendship, many other familiar Mediacorp stars, Huang Shinan, Zheng Geping, Chen Shucheng, Rayson Tan, Phyllis Quek and Dai Yang Tian walks in and out of this drama without making much of a lasting impression except Rayson’s character committing suicide at People’s Park and screaming at God.

Gone are the wildly-imagined card tricks and intense gambling sequences, what we have here is a few exhilarating racing sequences featuring Porsche, Lamborghini racing down our fantastic looking skyline in replacement. And not to mention, the constant references to Christianity can be a frustrating experience and this might come unprepared especially for mainstream audiences expecting a jolly well-executed high tension drama.

Although Li is competent in his directing debut in other aspects of this production such as the look and feel which probably appears much better than an average local title, “The Ultimate Winner” is a disappointing affair, the intention is a good one but it can’t really salvage an incoherent plotting. The National Council on Problem Gambling might probably pick this one up for educational purposes.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The 22 minutes Making of feature interviews with Li and other cast members and plenty of behind-the-scenes shots liked how the car racing sequences are staged.

The DVD also comes with a Teaser and Theatrical Trailer, Photo Gallery and a Music Video.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is competent enough for the dialogue-based drama and the video quality is acceptable.

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee