Review | The Snowball on a Sunny Day movie review: family comedy doubles as a love letter to cinema

This witty Lunar New Year film follows a woman pretending to have won the Mark Six lottery after failing to buy the winning ticket

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(From left) Jiro Lee, Chung Suet-ying and Harriet Yeung in a still from The Snowball on a Sunny Day (category: IIB, Cantonese), directed by Philip Yung.

Published: 5:15pm, 12 Feb 2026

3.5/5 stars

A botched attempt to purchase a Mark Six ticket with the winning numbers snowballs into an emotional journey for a working-class family in The Snowball on a Sunny Day. Part sweet tear-jerker, part love letter to Hong Kong cinema and the craft of filmmaking, this Lunar New Year offering reveals an unexpectedly whimsical side of the writer-director Philip Yung Tsz-kwong.

A radical departure from the gritty crime dramas that define his award-winning oeuvre to date (Papa, Port of Call), Yung’s comedy-drama is frequently witty and undeniably heartwarming. It largely succeeds despite a hackneyed message regarding family harmony, occasional stumbles into awkward humour and a bloated 131-minute running time.

We first meet Sunnie (Chung Suet-ying) two days before the Lunar New Year, when the aspiring filmmaker is overwhelmed while working as a script supervisor on a chaotic film set. She is also determined to help her beloved grandmother, Mui (Elaine Jin Yan-ling), secure a lottery ticket with her usual numbers – only for a series of farcical mishaps to intervene at the worst possible moment.

Mui’s lucky numbers then land the “snowball draw” jackpot of HK$88 million during the New Year reunion dinner of her fractured family. Having failed to place the bet, Sunnie is forced to maintain the charade, grinding her teeth as she feigns success to avoid disappointing her ecstatic – and suddenly united – relatives.

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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}This witty Lunar New Year film follows a woman pretending to have won the Mark Six lottery after failing to buy the winning ticket

This witty Lunar New Year film follows a woman pretending to have won the Mark Six lottery after failing to buy the winning ticket