My Lucky Stars is a 1985 Hong Kongaction comedy film directed by Sammo Hung, written by Barry Wong, and starring Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. It was released as 5 Lucky Stars in Japan and as Ninja Encounter in the Philippines. My Lucky Stars is the second film in the Lucky Stars series, and a semi-sequel to Winners and Sinners, with many of the same actors returning as the "Five Lucky Stars" troupe, albeit with different character names and slightly different roles.
Plot summary
Undercover cop Muscles enlists his childhood friends, the "Five Lucky Stars", to travel to Japan to help him catch a Yakuza group. A corrupt Hong Kong cop flees to Tokyo to join his fellow mobsters, whose headquarters are secretly built under an amusement park. Two loyal cops, Ricky and Muscle, travel there to apprehend him and uncover the mobsters’ lair, but Ricky is kidnapped in a fight. Muscle goes into hiding and calls his supervisor to send help; since the mobsters already have information on the officers of the Hong Kong Royal Police Force, Muscle asks to send his orphanage friends, nicknamed the Five Lucky Stars, over to assist. The supervisor agrees and collects the five friends, who are all either petty criminals or low-wage workers. They refuse to aid the police, but the supervisor cunningly sets up a false story in the media that accuses the five of robbing a bank of millions of dollars, blackmailing them into helping. They ultimately agree when the supervisor teams them up with a rookie policewoman, Swordflower, who becomes an object of lustful target to the five. They travel to Tokyo and that night, Kidstuff, the Stars' most rational and talented member, and Swordflower go to Muscle’s apartment. After defeating some thugs, Muscle reunites with Kidstuff. The operation is to send phony money to the mobsters to allow the five to enter their lair, and that way they can get closer to freeing Ricky and apprehending the criminals. After a prolonged battle at the bowels of the amusement park, the criminals lose and the Lucky Stars receive a place to live back at Hong Kong as their reward.
Cast
Despite being billed as one of the stars, Jackie Chan's role in the film is relatively minor until the final half hour. The major star of the film is Chan's longtime associate and former member of the Peking Opera School, Sammo Hung. The film also features another of that troupe, Yuen Biao. In the first film, Winners and Sinners, Stanley Fung played an undercover policeman who was posing as the leader of the Lucky Stars gang. In My Lucky Stars and the third film, Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars, Hung's character is the nominal leader, and Fung's character is not a cop. John Shum was notably absent from the gang in this film, due to his commitments as a political activist. He is replaced in this film by Eric Tsang. As with Heart of Dragon, Sammo Hung's real-life brother makes a cameo appearance as a henchman.
