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In my first review for the slapstick chronicles of silly villager Ah Niu (Ye Feng) and his Big Uncle (Wang Sha), we unpack the terror of living in a city ravaged by progress, alongside the guilt of desiring to partake in its consumerist pleasures. We learn an unspoken ‘truth' that for Ah Niu, the childlike icon of innocence, to remain a good person, he must remain poor. Lo and behold, the third of “The Crazy Bumpkins” series: “Big Times for the Crazy Bumpkins” (1976), sees a bag of money and jewels accidentally falling into Ah Niu's lap, making him actually rich. After 2 iterations of largely repeated gags, John Lo Mar's moral reflections on life in the new city enters a new curve, coming to a head in “Crazy Bumpkins in Singapore” (1976). Though this narrative shift is likely practical, it also ironically reveals the films' contradiction, as a marketed Shaw Brothers' product criticizing consumerist culture.

Fittingly titled Comic Relief, Singapore's Asian Film Archive's (Afa) ongoing retrospective of the iconic duo Wang Sha and Ye Feng brings John Lomar's and Shaw Brothers Studios' endearing “Crazy Bumpkins” quartet back to the big screen. 26 titles, 3 talks and a free exhibition celebrate years of belly-aching laughter, a then ‘soothing' balm, as curator Yeo Min Hui writes, in the wake of widespread anxieties during Hong Kong and Singapore's rapid city transformations in the 70s and 80s. 2 weekends since the retrospective's opening, 2 of the 4 “The Crazy Bumpkins” films have been screened, and 2 more to follow, as will a second review. While thus far, the comedy does serve to criticize the city's consumerist ideals, its moral logic consequently, and intriguingly struggles to detach from the allure of wealth, chance and a better life. This review examines the troubled psyches of the first 2 chapters: “The Crazy Bumpkins” (1974) & “Return of the Crazy...