From Riches to Rags

From Riches to Rags
From Riches to Rags
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	錢作怪
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	qián zuò guài
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	cin2 zok3 gwaai3
Directed by	John Woo
Written by	John Woo
Produced by	Raymond Chow
Starring	Ricky Hui
Music by	Sam Hui
Production; company	Golden Harvest
Release date	7 October 1980;
Running time	101 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese

From Riches to Rags (Chinese: 錢作怪) is a 1980 Hong Kong action comedy film. It was written and directed by John Woo, starring Ricky Hui and Johnny Koo.^[1]

In the film, a nouveau riche millionaire is convinced that he is dying from cancer. Getting suicidal, he hires contract killers to kill him. He soon realizes that he is healthy, but he is unable to call off his own assassination. He survives the assassination attempts, but becomes unhinged during his stay in a mental hospital.

Plot

After buying a winning lottery ticket, factory workers Ah Ying and Fatso become millionaires overnight. However, a prediction by a fortune teller and a mix-up with a doctor leads Ah Ying to believe he is going to die from cancer. Not wanting to suffer, Ah Ying decides to commit suicide, but is afraid of it being painful.

While on a rooftop, he meets a poor suicidal man, who gives all his money to Ah Ying, under the condition that he hires a hitman to kill him. When Ah Ying realizes he is not going to die after all, he and Fatso tries their best to call off the assassination, and has to tackle not one, but 3 hitmen. The ensuing chase leads all of them to a mental hospital, where they got mixed up with various mental patients in the chaos.

In the end, all the hitmen are killed and the police has arrived to deal with the chaos, but Ah Ying and Fatso have become slightly crazy as a result, with both of them starting to befriend the mental patients in the hospital.

Cast

Ricky Hui as Ah Ying
Johnny Koo as Fatso
JoJo Chan Kei-Kei as JoJo
Lam Ching-ying as knife killer

References

^ "钱作怪 (1980)". MTime (in Chinese). Retrieved 22 December 2016.

External links

From Riches to Rags at IMDb
From Riches to Rags at the Hong Kong Movie DataBase

[1] "钱作怪 (1980)". MTime (in Chinese). Retrieved 22 December 2016.

[1]

v t e Films by John Woo
Directed	The Young Dragons (1974, also wrote) The Dragon Tamers (1975, also wrote) Princess Chang Ping (1976, also wrote) Hand of Death (1976, also wrote) Money Crazy (1977, also wrote) Hello, Late Homecomers (1978, also wrote) Follow the Star (1978) Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979, also wrote and produced) From Riches to Rags (1980, also wrote) Laughing Times (1980, also wrote) To Hell with the Devil (1982, also wrote) Plain Jane to the Rescue (1982) The Time You Need a Friend (1984, also wrote and produced) Run, Tiger, Run (1984, also produced) Heroes Shed No Tears (1984, also wrote) A Better Tomorrow (1986, also wrote and produced) A Better Tomorrow II (1987, also wrote) The Killer (1989, also wrote) Just Heroes (1989) Bullet in the Head (1990, also wrote and produced) Once a Thief (1991, also wrote) Hard Boiled (1992, also wrote) Hard Target (1993) Broken Arrow (1996) Once a Thief (1996) Face/Off (1997) Blackjack (1998) Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) Windtalkers (2002, also produced) Paycheck (2003, also produced) All the Invisible Children (2005, segment "Song Song and Little Cat") Red Cliff (2008, also wrote and produced) Reign of Assassins (2010, also produced) The Crossing (2014, also produced) Manhunt (2017) Silent Night (2023, also produced) The Killer (2024, also produced)
Written only	A Better Tomorrow (2010)
Produced only	A Better Tomorrow III: Love & Death in Saigon (1989) Peace Hotel (1995) Somebody Up There Likes Me (1996) The Big Hit (1998) Bulletproof Monk (2003) Blood Brothers (2007) Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina (2007) Seediq Bale (2011)