Celestial Pictures committment to releasing the entire Shaw Brothers catalog is to be commended, but when one of their flagship releases is the 1983 screwfest Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, you have to wonder where their priorities are. This flick is spoken of as "groundbreaking" in the DVD's accompanying text. If they're talking about blazing new trails and creating new opportunities, then I'd have to disagree. If any ground was broken, it was likely in preparation for burying those responsible for this film.
     Cherie Chung stars as Li Tien-Chen, a dopey young woman who's rumored to be the unluckiest girl on the planet. When her dreams of marrying a rich guy (David Lo) are smashed by the wacky in-laws—and her own epic stupidity—she decides to contemplate suicide. Adding to her misery is the loss of her virginity to space aliens which show up in a Millennium Falcon-looking ship. That's right: she gets raped by space aliens, which costs her a gold-digging marriage. This is your first chance to walk out.
     Luckily she happens across private dicks Eden (mustached James Yi Lui) and Columbo (the entertainingly ugly Tam Tin-Nam) at the same railroad tracks where she's planning her demise. They're looking to off themselves after they accidentally caused a death while collecting debts. The serendipitous meeting of these unlucky parties offers redemption; the two guys can prove Chen's claim that she was raped by aliens, thus proving to her detractors that she's not totally insane. They manage to find some funky glowing stuff, which they attempt to show the media (a motley bunch including cameos by Tsui Hark and Alfred Cheung), but the resulting conference ends up in an impromptu food fight. Luckily, Dr. Lu (Leung Tin) shows up with proof that the aliens are real, thus corroborating everybody's stories and giving Chen the opportunity to pursue her dream as a media darling. That's right: everybody wins so Chen can become the early eighties version of the Twins. This is your second chance to walk out.
     The final third of the film constitutes your third and final chance to leave with your sanity intact, but if you do so you'll miss these amazing sights: Eden and Columbo dressed disturbingly in drag, an amusing pseudo-lightsaber battle between Eden and a Darth Vader-clone, and Cherie Chung getting her bottom spanked by a cold chicken leg. That's right: while on a picnic with Eden, Chen goes postal and tries to kill him, whereupon he subdues her, lifts her dress, and spanks her with a large chicken leg. If you're still watching this film, you deserve an award.
     To discuss what's wrong with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star could take days, but we can sum it up with this question: What the hell is going on? Even with logic and reason relegated to afterthoughts, the weirdness that shows up here is mystifying in its innanity. Boring, ill-advised musical numbers, lame comedy, and a werewolf subplot are among the narrative weapons employed by the film's six credited writers (including Manfred Wong and Lawrence Cheng). From the looks of it each writer was individually sequestered and asked to write fifteen minutes each. Then the six separate scripts were combined Frankenstein-style, the result of which was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. And yet they still managed to release the film.
     In truth, there are some small pleasures to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, most of which fall into the guilty variety. Ching Siu-Tung choreographs the little action we get, there is the occasional inspired gag, and Cherie Chung is exceptionally adorable, if not a little vapid. Big points are given to the opening car crash, which happens because an air vent does the Seven Year Itch-thing on a purple-skirted Cherie Chung. Still, while that fan service is likely to satisfy some, it can't make up for the remaining ninety minutes. The self-punishing may enjoy watching this cinematic disaster in action, but the majority of the viewing public will likely be unmoved. It might not have been a bad idea for Celestial Pictures to leave this one in the Shaw Brothers vaults for a few more years. A few more layers of dust wouldn't have made much difference. (Kozo 2003)

image courtesy of Intercontinental Video, Ltd.