TV series

Dumb Luck

1990 · 1 season

A wry, slow-burning social satire that lets you watch a naive outsider get swallowed by hypocritical high society.

Overview: The sexually repressed widow Doan comes to play tennis in the court where sly, lewd orphan Xuan (nicknamed Red-haired Xuan for his sunburnt hair) is working as a ball boy. Their encounter that day would change Xuan’s life forever, as the widow introduced him to an entirely different world of the hypocritical and decadent petite bourgeoisie class, a condition of “Westernized” middle-class Hanoians under French colonial rule in the 1920s. An 8-part series adapted from Vu Trong Phung’s classic satire.
How it feels: Satirical, cynical, dark and absurd. Measured and needs your attention.
About: Class, corruption, identity, ambition
Content: Mild violence, sexual content and language. No gore.
Note: Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Full breakdown

Tone: satiricalstrength 3 of 3
cynicalstrength 2 of 3
darkstrength 2 of 3
absurdstrength 1 of 3
Pacing: measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: class
corruption
identity
ambition
sexuality
Places: big city
Era: period
Audience: adult
Form: serialised
Content intensity: Gore none
Language mild
Violence mild
Sex mild