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Edmund Lee

1.5/5 stars
In a match made in cinematic purgatory, Wong Jing’s exhaustive fascination with the gambling movie genre meets Patrick Kong Pak-leung’s brand of crass relationship drama in Queen of Mahjong.
It’s a rare opportunity for the two critically maligned filmmakers to share directing credits and their mutual embrace of sexism.
The cast of the ensemble comedy is mainly drawn from the roster of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB, with Samantha Ko Hoi-ning in her first leading role in a local feature. She plays Elsa, a top insurance agent who fell in love with mahjong under the influence of her mother, who died when Elsa was seven.


In a storyline bearing uncanny resemblance to another of this year’s Lunar New Year releases, My Best Bet, Elsa has a chance encounter with Martin (Kenneth Ma Kwok-ming), her crush from high school, and the two swiftly become an item.
If only Martin, who hates mahjong players with a passion, knew about her mastery of the game.
The scenes in which Elsa shows off her skills at the mahjong table are the most interesting part for Queen of Mahjong’s target audience.
Unfortunately, sparks rarely fly between Ko and Ma, and Martin’s occupation as an inventor of artificial-intelligence helmets – cue “jokes” about porn loaded into their system – adds little to the story.

Perhaps as a nod to the 1992 screwball classic All’s Well, Ends Well, the film’s 99-minute runtime is filled out with two other storylines about the romantic life of Elsa’s sisters; neither involve gambling and both come across as tasteless farces that bring out some of the worst impulses of the filmmakers.
The first of those follows second sister Sammy (Dada Chan Ching), an acting enthusiast who ends up working as an intimacy coordinator on a film starring Tony (Carlos Chan Ka-lok), a movie star notorious for his abusive behaviour on set, and Coco (Taiwanese cheerleader Mizuki Lin Xiang), a sexy starlet who exists merely as silent eye candy.
It is just as well that Sammy and Tony fall for each other despite their opposing views on filmmaking, and Carlos Chan deserves credit for turning it up to 11 in his committed portrayal of extreme overacting. But not everyone is going to find the jokes about Tony’s past assaults on women funny.
Still, the film’s worst offences are reserved for the overweight third sister, Winnie (YouTuber Kris Cheung Kam-ha); she becomes the date of George (Jiro Lee Sheung-ching), a sexist man who has been hypnotised into thinking she is a great beauty.

All the gags here involve characters either calling Winnie a “gorilla” or throwing up in her presence.
If you are a mahjong aficionado who also happens to be a decent human being, it might be very hard work to sit through all the rubbish in Queen of Mahjong to get to the few good bits.
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Kenneth Ma and Samantha Ko in a still from Queen of Mahjong.

Samantha Ko as Elsa and Kenneth Ma as Martin in a still from Queen of Mahjong (category IIB; Cantonese) directed by Wong Jing and Patrick Kong. Dada Chan co-stars.

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Sultans of sexism deliver a torrent of tasteless trash interspersed with shows of skill at the mahjong table. Decent human beings beware


Sultans of sexism deliver a torrent of tasteless trash interspersed with shows of skill at the mahjong table. Decent human beings beware.


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An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


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Review | Queen of Mahjong movie review: Lunar New Year comedy let down by jarring sexism

Sultans of sexism deliver a torrent of tasteless trash interspersed with shows of skill at the mahjong table. Decent human beings beware