After the events in God of Gamblers II, Tai-kun, who lost his ESP powers, has regained the abilities again and seeks revenge against Sing, the Saint of Gamblers. When Tai-kun, aided by his fellow disciples, exerts ESP powers under full force against Sing who is doing likewise to them, the spacetime becomes distorted and sends Tai-kun and Sing to Shanghai in 1937.
Meeting his own grandfather Chow Tai-fook and the benign millionaire Ding Lik, Sing must deal with Ding Lik's foes and the Japanese military forces, with his "mistaken" crush on one of a pair of twin sisters, find out who defeated the French "God of Gamblers", Pierre Cashon, in that era (the mysterious "Comment allez-vous"), and finally find out how to travel back to Hong Kong in 1991 and meet the resurfaced Lady Dream. The movie culminates in a poker battle with Sing and the French God of Gamblers, with the fate of Shanghai in the balance.
Cast
Stephen Chow as Chow Sing-cho, the "Saint of Gamblers"
The movie makes use of its cast to make references to other well known Hong Kong media. Barry Wong plays a supporting role as a Police Chief in 1991 Hong Kong, a role he also played in the Chow Yun-fat film, The Killer. Ray Lui plays Ding Lik, a role he also played in the Hong Kong dramatic TV series, The Bund. Lung Fong has a supporting role as a Chinese backer of the Japanese in 1937 Shanghai. His character accidentally kills the main character's love interest by defenestration, an action also performed by his character in the original God of Gamblers, which Stephen Chow's God of Gamblers films were spun off from. Billy Chow plays an unnamed Japanese soldier who is identical in costume and appearance to the character of General Fujita which he played in the Jet Li film Fist of Legend.
Title
The two titles, Chinese and English, has discrepancies with each other. The English title, however being God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai, does not feature the God of Gamblers, played by Chow Yun-fat. The Chinese title is translated to Knight of Gamblers II: Shanghai Beach's Saint of Gamblers, but the Knight, played by Andy Lau, is also entirely absent in this film. To clarify that, Shanghai Beach does not literally refers to the shores of Shanghai. It refers to a TVB drama called The Bund in the 1980s, which featured the clash between Shanghainese triads set in the era of the 1930s.
^Due to legal restrictions at the time in Taiwan, a special cut of the movie was released there, and Gong Li's role in the film was replaced by a Taiwanese actress and singer,[1] Sophia Fang.[citation needed]
