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US, Canada / 2025 / 103min
Director：Lloyd Lee CHOI

Renowned Taiwanese actor Chang Chen plays Lu, a Chinese delivery worker. Separated for many years from his wife and daughter, he has been earning money to pay the apartment deposit so they can start a new life together, when his electric bike—his means of livelihood—is stolen, along with the deposit. Driven by the hope to reunite with his family, he works fiercely to recover both his bike and the money.

Lu Jia Cheng works as a deliveryman in New York. On the day his long-held dream of bringing his wife and daughter from his hometown is about to come true, he is confronted with the theft of both his electric bike and a bogus broker who runs off with his rent money. Directed by the New York-based Korean Canadian director Lloyd Lee Choi, this feature-length version of his short “Same Old” depicts an unglorified view of the Chinese community at street level, and those who appear all have financial struggles and moral flaws. The camera weaves through the dim alleys of Chinatown with Lu in dreary hues that express both the city’s frigidity and its inhabitants’ emotional fatigue. Chang Chen’s sensitive performance is remarkable, and the moments where his grounded realism intersects with the magical realism seen through his daughter’s perspective stay with us long after the film is over. The work had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival.

Director’s statement

The initial idea for LUCKY LU came about during the height of the first wave of the pandemic, a traumatic period for everyone. As a New Yorker, I and millions of others survived off of the services of essential workers… not just for life saving care, but for the simple yet crucial necessity of being fed every day while trapped in our apartments.

Living in New York, the image of a food delivery driver is a pervasive one. We see them day and night,nameless, faceless men in hefty jackets and beat-up helmets whipping through the streets on their e-bikes. The sight of these electric vehicles pervading the NYC soundscape has become as classic of an image as the yellow cab over the last few years. Largely, these riders are immigrants juggling dozens of food orders at once and working long hours through the cold, wind, and rain.

Our interactions with these hardened workers are transient and transactional. For that split second when the door opens before they hand over our food, these strangers peek into our lives. And yet, these delivery riders, that are often overlooked, hold space in our communities and often share the same hopes and dreams of progress that we do.

This was the world I wanted to explore in LUCKY LU. A world that is unforgiving and exists in near invisibility right in front of our eyes and even in our homes each day... yet one that we never truly notice.This daily grind and nearly invisible struggle that exists all around us is fascinating to me. Next time you are answering your door or walking down the street, imagine that the man whipping past you on an e-bike is LU-- an “essential worker”, a regular man, a flawed human, just trying to provide for the ones he loves.