Review: 'Lucky Grandma' shifts from comedy to bloodshed abruptly, but Tsai Chin's central performance is a delight

What starts as an offbeat comedy turns sharply into a bloody gangster drama in “Lucky Grandma,” but what makes this jarring shift watchable is the actress in the title role, Tsai Chin.

Chin, now 86, is one of those faces you’ve seen countless times, without perhaps remembering it. She’s best known, probably, for playing Auntie Lindo in “The Joy Luck Club.” But she’s also had a recurring role on “Grey’s Anatomy,” played Ming-Na Wen’s spymaster mom on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” and in her younger days assisted Christopher Lee in several “Fu Manchu” movies, and bedded Sean Connery’s James Bond in “You Only Live Twice.” (She returned to James Bond, for a seat at the poker table next to Daniel Craig in “Casino Royale.”)

In “Lucky Grandma,” Chin plays Grandma Wong, an independent, chain-smoking old lady living alone in a walk-up apartment in New York’s Chinatown. She stays there despite the best efforts of her son, Howard (Eddie Yu), to move in with him and his family in the suburbs.

After getting a reading from Lei Lei (Wai Ching Ho), the fortune teller, that Oct. 28 will be a very lucky day, Grandma empties out her bank account and heads to the Foxwoods casino. Her luck at the tables doesn’t last, but on the bus home, the man sitting next to her dies in his seat — and his duffel bag lands in her lap. Inside is a whole lot of cash, which Grandma quietly takes home with her.

Of course, bags full of cash tend to have people looking for them. In this case, those people are two members of the Red Dragons gang, who try to intimidate Grandma into giving up the loot. Grandma is smarter than that, and plays the innocent old lady act. She also goes to the rival Zhongliang gang and hires a bodyguard, a gentle giant names Big Pong (Hsiao-Yuen Ma).

Turns out the dead guy was an accountant for the Zhongliangs, but might have been running a side scam with the Red Dragons. So Grandma is now squarely in the crosshairs of both gangs — and, as menacing as the Red Dragons thugs are, they’re nothing compared to the Zhongliang’s boss, the all-seeing Sister Fong (Yan Xi), who may be the one person here who doesn’t underestimate Grandma’s wits and tenacity.

Rookie director Sasie Sealy and her co-writer, Angela Cheng, bring a wealth of authenticity to this story. Their idea of Chinatown feels detailed and down-to-earth, a fully lived-in place rather than an exotic Hollywood fantasy. Likewise, the characters feel drawn from real life, the sort of people one might regularly run into in Chinatown. The film’s main flaw is that Sealy can’t quite pull off the Coen-esque change in tone as the gangster action turns quite bloody.

Chin, seeing a rare opportunity for the spotlight, doesn’t disappoint. She gives Grandma a gruff, unflappable exterior, but also shows the years of heartache that made her that way — while also slowly, gradually, revealing the tenderness within that shell. This “Lucky Grandma” is a fighter, and Chin’s performance makes her a winner.

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‘Lucky Grandma’

★★★

Debuts Friday, May 22, as a digital rental on various streaming platforms, including SLFS@Home. Not rated, but probably R for violence and language. Running time: 88 minutes; some in English, but mostly in Mandarin and Cantonese, with subtitles.