Gai tung ngap gong

This is another fun Hong Kong comedy starring Michael Hui and Ricky Hui (their younger Sam Hui has a cameo appearance). Here, Hui (Michael Hui) runs a restaurant with a tasty roast duck recipe. However, his employees and customers have to endure the a run-down and unsanitary looking restaurant - Hui's way of cutting maintenance cost. Hui might have to rethink his strategy when an American-style fast-food restaurant opens across the street.

It's a nice little movie with some laughable moments and decent acting, with Michael and Ricky delivering their unique comedy brand that will sure entertain the audience. Sylvia Chang, Lowell Lo, Wing-Cho Yip and Kai-Nam Ho all make a great team in making the plot pretty exciting by making the audience guess how they will be able to pull off competing with the popular fast food restaurant.

The movie is not as suspenseful or funny as previous Hui Brothers films like The Contract and Security Unlimited, but it's still great comedy that surpasses many of today's films of the 00s and on.

Grade B+

Given my love of the Hong Kong cinema, then of course I had to sit down and watch the 1988 comedy "Gai Tung Ngap Gong" (aka "Chicken and Duck Talk") when I had the chance to sit down and watch it for the first time here in 2024.

I had never actually heard about the movie prior to watching it. But that hardly mattered, because it being a Hong Kong movie that I hadn't already seen before was more than sufficient to make me sit down and spend 99 minutes on watching it.

Writers Michael Hui, Clifton Ko, Joe Ma and James Yuen put together an enjoyable and entertaining script and storyline. Sure, it was a late 1980s Hong Kong comedy in every sense of those words, but that was actually a good thing. I was genuinely entertained throughout the course of the entire movie. The movie's story and narrative actually still holds up today, given the small independent restaurants that are found all over Hong Kong, the ones that have way more charm and style that those chain restaurants that overshadow them.

The acting performances in "Gai Tung Ngap Gong" were good, though I was actually only familiar with Ricky Hui on the entire cast list. But I will say that the actors and actresses put on good performances and made the movie all the more enjoyable.

While this wasn't a comedy that had me bursting out laughing, it was still an enjoyable comedy, because it was definitely a feel-good type of comedy. And it was a mixture of the storyline and the well-written characters that made it so.

All in all, "Gai Tung Ngap Gong" is a movie that is well-worth sitting down to watch if you enjoy the late 1980s Hong Kong cinema.

My rating of director Clifton Ko's 1988 movie "Gai Tung Ngap Gong" lands on a five out of ten stars.

A strange Chinese comedy, produced in Hong Kong (by the time, still British) about a roast duck restaurant, which suffers from the opening of a fried chicken competitor, and American type "fast food" restaurant, that threatens to close the old chinese competition.

The comedy is slapstick, taken to the extreme, the characters grotesque and the humor basic.

It seems to have seduced many viewers in its day, judging by the ratings on IMDB, but it is manifestly a domestic consumer product. Any foreigner will find, at the very least, exotic, this popular Chinese humor.

A mere curiosity, for cinephiles who like to try everything.

I was always told that trans-lingual comedy films are never funny. That if you're not Chinese, well you're not even going to crack a smile. Well they've obviously never seen this film. Made in Hong Kong, "Gai tung aap gong" is absolutely one of the best comedy films I have ever seen. Michael Hui, a legendary comedy star in Hong Kong, plays a character Ah Hui, who runs a traditional HK Duck shop. Things are going well until a fast-food store by the name of "Danny Chicken" opens up across the street and begins to draw the crowds away. For Ah Hui, this means war! Such scenes as Ah Hui sneaking into Danny Chicken dressed as an Indian woman, the Chicken and Duck mascot brawl, the James Bond-style investigation of the "secret ingredients", and the Danny Chicken training class are, in my opinion, all-time comedy classics.

This is just one of those movies I saw as a kid that I just loved from the first time I watched it. Since then it's been a bi-annual tradition to see this movie. It is hilarious through out the whole movie. There is literally never a dull moment, just brilliant. This battle for the old vs new restaurant chain is such a simple but yet so intresting and fun to watch. Hui's character is equally lovable as he petty. Some how petty humour just does it for me, I'm a huge fan of Seinfeld. Also this being an 80's movie just makes it so much better with the music.

This will remain one of my top 3 movies of all time!