Written By: Saiya Floyd
New York City is a special place to live, but also a place full of paradoxes. It’s full of famous sites and neighborhoods, but also teeming with hidden gems and secret subcultures. New Yorkers carve out their own pocket of the city, but sometimes the stars align into a New York moment, resulting in serendipity or your life coming apart at the seams. The city is bustling and always filled with people, but sometimes is a terribly lonely place to live in. Written by Angela Cheng and Sasie Sealy (who also directed), “Lucky Grandma” beautifully captures the contradictions and absurdities of living in New York by following the adventures (and misadventures) of Grandma.
“Lucky Grandma” follows Grandma, whose life is forever changed after a night at the casino. After losing everything, her night goes from bad to worse when the passenger next to her dies. That is until she realizes her dead seatmate had a bag of money on him, which she decides to take for herself. She doesn’t realize the money belongs to one of Chinatown’s gangs, and soon finds herself stuck navigating a criminal underworld. Sealy came up with the idea when she rode a bus that took people from Chinatown to Connecticut. “I looked around and realized I was surrounded by old Chinese people. And I had a vision of one of these Grandmas and a bag of money falling in her lap — pretty much exactly as it ended up in the movie.”
Tsai Chin breathes life into the ornery, stubborn Grandma. “As soon as I met Tsai in person, I knew she had to be Grandma,” Sealy said. As Grandma, Chin is as hilarious as she is in equal turns brusque and evasive. According to Cheng, Grandma was drawn from strong women in her and Sealy’s lives. “Grandma really is inspired in part by my own fiercely independent grandmother and Sasie’s mom. Grandma is our attempts at understanding the powerful Chinese women in our lives.” Grandma is a fighter. She’s not always right (after all, the action starts when she steals money from a dead passenger) but she has a point of view and does not easily give in. Chin is consistently funny, but in the moments when she is able to show the cracks in her armor, she is riveting. Early on, when Grandma gambles her life’s savings, the camera focuses on her. The expression in her eyes takes us through her rapid emotions without her having to say a word. These moments of vulnerability are quickly hidden behind a puff of cigarette smoke, as Grandma seems most comfortable behind a tough exterior.
And while Chin dominates the movie, she is helped by the strong supporting cast. Corey Ha is a standout as Big Pong, a bodyguard Grandma hires for protection. Chin and Ha make for an unlikely but incredibly entertaining comedic duo. There are also some poignant moments as they share with each other their diaspora stories. Grandma isn’t just a cranky old woman; she’s an immigrant who worked hard her entire life only to face financial instability when her husband died. And we learn that the kind-hearted Big Pong is only part of this violent world because of circumstance.
Chinatown is the perfect place to show these characters and their diaspora stories. The setting seemed like a no-brainer to Cheng. “Everyday I ride the subway and pass the Grand Street stop where there are hundreds of people just like Grandma waiting on the platform. And when you think about the fact that every one of them has a diaspora story to tell, how could the movie not be set in Manhattan Chinatown?” And while Chinatown is the perfect place to tell a diaspora story, the allure of it’s hidden pockets drew Sealy in. “Even though I’m a longtime New Yorker and Chinese American, Chinatown is still a mystery to me … It’s a whole other world, right in the middle of Manhattan, that somehow still seems to be impenetrable to outsiders, existing somewhere between myth and reality.”
From the restaurants and shops Grandma frequents, to the pool where she has an important meeting, to the fortune teller whose advice kicks off the story, Chinatown pulsates throughout the film. It’s an inescapable, vibrant presence. It was something that was featured in the film design very purposefully. “We did a lot of research and then tried to take what existed in reality downtown and push it to another level,” Sealy said.
The energy and bustling motion of Chinatown are captured beautifully in the film, but there are many shots that are just as notable for their stillness and careful composition. Given Sealy’s cinematic influences, this makes perfect sense. “I really grew up on both American and Asian cinema, so I was pulling from both: compositions from Bong Joon-Ho and the Coen brothers; color and textures from Wong Kar Wai; design inspiration from Wes Anderson and even Little Miss Sunshine … I like things that are stylized and live somewhere between grounded and fantastical, so that’s what we were going for.”
Sealy achieves this aesthetic middle ground, and exhibits a confident visual style. The tone of the script also strikes a middle ground; while mostly comedic, there is drama backed by high stakes. The script came about through a partnership between Sealy and Cheng, who met in film school, but worked together for the first time on “Lucky Grandma.” Says Cheng, “I also think that the most valuable part of our partnership is that we really do make space for each other’s weirdnesses and neuroses and busy schedules. Writing — especially writing together — is not always very comfortable, so it’s good that we let each other be ourselves.” She goes on to add, “We both really want to make stuff that have something to say about the hard bits of being human, but we also want to entertain and make our audience laugh at the same time.”
Mission accomplished. “Lucky Grandma” does not shy away from the obstacles life brings. It explores loneliness, financial hardship, and aging, but does so in a way that allows plenty of room for laughter. It’s a touching story about a woman made weary by the world, but who will not compromise who she is or stop fighting for herself. It’s funny, and at times heart-rending, but always entertaining.
Director: Sasie Sealy
Stars: Tsai Chin, Corey Ha
Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Genre: Narrative, Comedy