A great comic trio : Stephen Chow, Ng Man-Tat & Andy Lau, in a funny but crazy film
If you know those guys a little bit, you know that if you bring Wong Jing as the director, Stephen Chow Sing-Chi and Ng Man-Tat together, if you don't get a smash-hit, you'll at least get inevitably a most crazy result. Tricky Brains, according to this rule, with in addition a very bankable Andy Lau Tak-Wah and a very enjoyable Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching, except for a rather abundant cast alright, however
not as profuse as in Future Cops, must have costed in all around 35 euros at most (joke, of course...) technicallly speaking (the photography is rather poor) as well as for the actual expenses which, besides actors paycheck, only represents the numerous silly widgets used by Chow.
And yet, the movie made more than 30 millions HK$ at the box-office...another good operation for the "God Of Producers" !...
It's the story of Jin Koo (Stephen chow) who is a trick master, he's able to trick anyone in order to discredit, publicly humiliate or simply drives someone mad and that for the highest bidder. Andy Lau, young and naif office worker, is flirting with a colleague (Rosamund Kwan Chi-Lam) who is actually the boss's daughter sent to spy on his employees. Waise Lee Chi-Hung, a young and rich partner of the boss, in love with his daughter, sees in Andy Lau a danger and therefore hires Jin Koo to trick and mess up with Andy Lau and his father, Ng Man-Tat in order to show to the boss and his daughter that Andy is fishy. 
With Wong Jing and Stpehen Chow as pilots, the humour is inevitably fat and often "below the belt" but manages to make you smile and even chortle during the movie. Stephen Chow as Andy Lau, has often played with Ng Man-Tat as a sidekick which, except for a few gags too "retarded teenagers", makes the trio Stephen/Man-Tat/Andy works really good specially in the hilarious improvised chinese opera scene, which however, by its very local nature and not always well-translated subtitles, will remain pretty hard to aproach for thoses not initiated enough to HK comic.
Stephen Chow is faithful to his mad playing and his usual folly while Ng Man-Tat still brings a lot to Chow's success.
Because without any inductions, besides a few exceptions (All's Well, End's Well or From Beijing With Love for exemple), the most whacky movies of Stephen always stars his stooge Man-Tat : Fight Back To School 1, 2 & 3, Royal Tramp 1 & 2, Love On Delivery, among a lot of others... 
Andy Lau is amazing, mostly for this time of his career, and really lets himself go without looking at himself like he often does in romances, in sum, play fully without inhibitions nor fears to look foolish, which he does great here.
Uncommmonly, I, for my part, find Rosamund Kwan as flat as she's beautiful. She doesn't play in a self-restraint way, she's just barely good to express what she has to, you just have to examine her facial expressions when she replys or react to her partner's lines, she never really seems to be in accord with him. Chingmy Yau, although she's closer to a playmate than to an accomplished actress, brings more freshness, mostly on an unpretentious comedy like this one, and broadly speaking stains less than Rosamund (sorry Rosa...).
In Brief, if you're at least familiar or even buyer of crazy comedies a la Wong Jing or Stephen Chow (or like here, both !), then Tricky Brains will make you spend a good laughing evening, mostly if you add the enjoyable presence of a funny
Andy Lau. For others, stay away because you won't even find the writing qualities of some Chow's movies (I think about King Of Comedy) or just the inexplicable comic alchemy which brings success of others. A rather good movie, but for interested people only.
