LUCKY STAR Starring Terry Chen Launches On Crave

Lucky Star, the second feature from Chinese Canadian writer/director Gillian McKercher

Deep in debt, with a house and a university-bound kid, plus a marriage on the rocks, reformed gambler Lucky (Terry Chen) sees his luck run out after getting scammed in a tax-fraud scheme. Ashamed and desperate to keep it from his family, he returns to underground backroom gambling dens, playing for big payouts to relieve the debt and win back his family’s favour. Meanwhile, each family member, unaware of Lucky’s troubles but feeling the money crunch, too, resorts to unsavoury means to dig out of their hole.

Lucky Star had a successful festival run with. This included screenings in the US at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. As well as sold out screenings at home in Canada at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Reel Asian Film Festival in Toronto and at the Calgary International Film Festival where it took home the Audience Choice Award.

Filming for the project took place in the McKercher’s hometown of Calgary.

Gillian McKercher is a Canadian writer, director, producer, and co-founder of Kino Sum Productions. Gillian’s first feature film as writer/director, Circle of Steel, won an Audience Award at the 2018 Calgary International Film Festival.

Kino Sum and Notable produce the film. Game Theory Films handles distribution. Gillian McKercher writes and directs with Terry Chen, Olivia Cheng and Sidney Chiu executive producing.

Guillaume Carlier (Circle of Steel), Amanda Verhagen (A Nice Indian Boy), Matt Drake (The Wedding Banquet), Nicola Waugh are producers. Charles Hamilton is the director of photography and Rebecca Brunton & Meredith Bates wrote the original score for the film.