Synopsis: Mainlander Nan (Carol Cheng) moves to Hong Kong to earn a living through gambling. Once there, she meets up with her stuntman cousin Po (Aaron Kowk) and landlord Li (Alex Man). Together, they try to take on the gambling world and get rich quick but soon come across a plot involving a greedy investor, and a plan to scam a friend of Nan's. As a result, they all work together to stop the bad guy and save the day!

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Views: Not to be confused with Queen Of Gambler, the Kara Hui and Dick Wei vehicle made the same year or Cheng's other 1991 gambling action-comedy The Top Bet (which also starred a number of the same cast members), The Queen Of Gamble is a comedy about mainland girl Nan who believes she's got the same skills as the God Of Gamblers, and soon heads to Hong Kong to make a living from it. Once there, Nan moves in with her geeky (but handsome) cousin Po who shares a place with a gambling addicted landlord. After getting a job at a casino, Nan soon finds friendship with Fu Hon Hua, a cheeky playboy gambler, and his kick-ass partner Francis Lee. As many antics keep them on their toes, the friends soon learn about a ploy to bring down playboy businessman Fu Hon Hua – a new friend of Nan's. Together, they set out to help him and put a stop to the wicked Mr. Fu before he steals all of Hua's money in the ultimate game of cards!

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It's no secret that the Chinese love to gamble. Used as a plot-line in movies for decades, the subject matter got a little more life injected into it by the fantastic Wong Jing when he wrote and directed Challenge Of The Gamesters in 1981. Gambling continued to appear in many of his films throughout the years and in 1989, Wong did it again with the brilliant Casino Raiders and legendary God Of Gamblers. As a host of sequels and spin-offs followed, many other studios played their own hand – with most failing to reach the heights of Wong's success – and The Queen Of Gamble is one such movie. Although it's not a terrible movie and benefits from having such a great cast, The Queen Of Gamble is still missing a little something that just made the aforementioned Wong Jing titles big hits. The film was written and directed by Siu Sang, a director who made over 20 films – most of which came about in the 1960s. After directing some television episodes in the late 70s, Sang only directed 1 feature in the 1980s with Demi-Gods & Semi-Devils starring Norman Tsui Siu Keung and Austin Wai. Interestingly enough, it would be almost another decade before this project came about before finishing his directing career only 5 years later with the fun Yuen Biao feature, The Hero Of Swallow. Sang found support with The Queen Of Gamble with producer Chen Mu Chuan, a 70s kung-fu actor who appeared in films such as Iron Monkey, Crippled Masters, Monkey Kung Fu, and The Revenger with Ti Lung. Both director and producer also play a small role here...

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The cast is probably the strongest thing about The Queen Of Gamble, with Carol DoDo Cheng leading the way. I've always enjoyed her as an actress, and here she pretty much plays the same comedic role we've seen her do a dozen times – but it works. This was a crazy busy year for her appearing in no less than 7 films including the awesome Armour Of God 2: Operation Condor, The Top Bet, Her Fatal Ways 2, and Slickers Vs Killers to name but a few. The same can be said for the gorgeous Aaron Kwok who was still fairly new to the scene at this stage. In what was only his 4th role at the time, Kwok also starred in The Banquet, Lee Rock 2 and the fantastic Saviour Of The Soul (both with Andy Lau) and is as cute as F in the role of Po, Cheng's stuntman cousin who often comes to her rescue. The great Alex Man gets to let his hair down as Li, their gambler landlord, and offers plenty of laughs throughout. Man also had a busy year himself, starring in no less than 8 films – most of which were pretty serious pieces – so I'm sure he enjoyed having a bit of fun making this. While he didn't do many comedy roles overall, Alex actually went on to play a similar role the next year in the crazy Cynthia Khan movie, Super Lady Cop, which I quite enjoyed. The handsome Simon Yam (who came in as second busiest with 13 films in 1991) plays Fu Hon Hua, another fan of gambling and a friend of Mr. Fu – the cocky businessman who plans to steal from him, played by the late and wonderful Ng Man Tat who starred in an incredible 18 productions that year. And finally, the always delightful Sibelle Hu kicks-ass as Yam's double-crossing lady friend, Francis Lee, getting to take part in some of the more exciting action scenes of the film. Out of all the main cast, she wins third place starring in 9 features across 1991 including Crystal Hunt, Dreaming The Reality, Bury Me High, and Holy Virgin vs The Evil Dead. The rest of the cast is filled out with appearances from the likes of Gigi Lai, who stars as the daughter of Ng Man Tat, as well as Wong Tin Lam, Alan Chui, Ha Kwok Wing, a cameo by Dion Lam, and many others.

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The Queen Of Gamble is certainly not a bad movie by any means, but it's also not amazing. For the most part it comes across as a blend of Carol Cheng's very own Her Fatal Ways with a light dash of Chow Sing Chi's God Of Gamblers 2 – but just not as hilarious. That said, I did enjoy watching it and mostly for the fun cast and decent action scenes including a fun fight in a casino and another on a large yacht. The action choreography is handled by Ha Kwok Wing (who also pops up throughout), a popular face of over 130 films from many Shaw Brothers classics to any amount of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan hits (as a prominent member of the stunt team) including The Prodigal Son, Winners & Sinners, Police Story, and many more. On top of that, Ha appeared in classics such as Iron Angels, Magic Crystal, Burning Ambition, God Of Gamblers, Dances With Dragon, and Forbidden City Cop with Chow Sing Chi. While they're not the greatest action scenes ever, the fights do entertain and make for a fun watch – typical of this period of Hong Kong cinema where the stars weren't trained martial artists!

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Overall: Passable fun with enough to enjoy once, especially seeing Aaron Kwok running around in speedos, The Queen Of Gamble is far from perfect but has its moments!