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ReviewThe Snowball on a Sunny Day movie review: family comedy doubles as a love letter to cinema
This witty Lunar New Year film follows a woman pretending to have won the Mark Six lottery after failing to buy the winning ticket
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3.5/5 stars
A botched attempt to purchase a Mark Six ticket with the winning numbers snowballs into an emotional journey for a working-class family in The Snowball on a Sunny Day. Part sweet tear-jerker, part love letter to Hong Kong cinema and the craft of filmmaking, this Lunar New Year offering reveals an unexpectedly whimsical side of the writer-director Philip Yung Tsz-kwong.
A radical departure from the gritty crime dramas that define his award-winning oeuvre to date (Papa, Port of Call), Yung’s comedy-drama is frequently witty and undeniably heartwarming. It largely succeeds despite a hackneyed message regarding family harmony, occasional stumbles into awkward humour and a bloated 131-minute running time.
We first meet Sunnie (Chung Suet-ying) two days before the Lunar New Year, when the aspiring filmmaker is overwhelmed while working as a script supervisor on a chaotic film set. She is also determined to help her beloved grandmother, Mui (Elaine Jin Yan-ling), secure a lottery ticket with her usual numbers – only for a series of farcical mishaps to intervene at the worst possible moment.
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