Tong Pak Foo dim Chau Heung

To be honest, I am not a big fan of Stephen Chow's earlier works. Not that they were bad, but they were not as good as the classics such as God of Cookery, King of Comedy, Shaolin Soccer, and of course, this film. I found the early films with Stephen talking in a cartoonish "comedic" voice annoying.

The ones where he has more creative control tend to have him speaking in a more natural, and more deadpan voice and those films tend to carry deeper messages than just a mindless comedy. Seriously, some scenes are moving.

Now back to this movie, there's really not much to criticize here. The acting, the dialogue, the typical Stephen Chow style of humor, all fantastic. There aren't many ROFL moments, but there are endless classic funny moments that the film will make you grin from ear to ear pretty much from start to finish. And I know that I personally still quote some lines from the movie in my everyday life... :)

The one knock I do have is Gong Li, whose talents seem wasted in the film. No doubt she looks great in the film, but she's not given much to do and seems rather wooden as if she did not enjoy herself in the movie. Knowing Gong's talent, it felt strange to see her character just be a "vase" love interest and nothing more.

I guess you don't want to have anyone upstage Stephen but in that case why not cast a starlet with a less impressive resume than Gong?

However, overall, this is a great film and I highly recommend it.

Technically this film is a romantic comedy, inspired by a well known (though likely invented) story from the life of Táng Yín (1470-1524), also known as Tang Bohu or Tong Pak Foo. According to Wikipedia, the real Tong Pak Foo "was a Chinese painter, calligrapher, and poet of the Ming dynasty period whose life story has become a part of popular lore".

At the beginning of the film, Tong Pak Foo starts out unhappily married to 8 wives. In the end, after going to extraordinary lengths to pursue a slave girl, I guess he ends up with 9 wives.

Even in a Hong Kong movie, Tong Pak Foo might have been, like Kung Fu Panda, the son of a restaurant owner. But the film plays it safe and goes the traditional route of making him one in a line of Kung Fu artists.

Tong Pak Foo has inherited one dangerous enemy from each parent. The Evil Scholar killed Tong Pak Foo's father and wouldn't mind finishing his job by killing Tong Pak Foo himself, if and when a convenient opportunity happens to present itself. And there is a spurned lover who is probably still jealous and extends her hate of Tong Pak Foo's mother to Tong Pak Foo himself.

So much for the basis of the overall plot. But it doesn't really matter because the plot's only purpose here is to provide a sense of overall direction to a series of jokes and funny episodes. Everything is subservient to the humor. At any time there is a chance that in the next second something completely unexpected happens, possibly moving the film in a new direction, possibly being forgotten a second later.

The film has the familiar Hong Kong feel of British humor transferred into a Chinese context, which I love in Jackie Chan films. Only here it's a bit cruder and I think slightly more Chinese. More in the direction of Carry On or Benny Hill, though fortunately not far enough to make this a bad film.

The English subtitles aren't optimal. I imagine they are surprisingly good at capturing the original Cantonese jokes; but the English is often wrong and says the precise opposite of what it should say. This can be a bit distracting.

In my opinion this is a very good film (8 stars). If the crude jokes were replaced by slightly more sophisticated ones and there were stronger sense of overall coherence -- tying up the loose ends in a convincing way without damaging the overall flow of the film -- I would easily call it excellent or even perfect. But as it is, I can also understand those who rate it 7 stars or less for being a bit too low-brow.

This is a typical Stephen Chow's commedy. Inside you see all the necessary elements: jokes, love, kungfu. Well, the story is not new. This is a traditional Hong Kong/Chinese story, but the reproduction in this new style has been quite successful. I must admit that this movie has given me one and a half-hour of continuous laughing. However, this is a very "Hong-Kong-ish" movie. I think only Hong Kongese can appreciate its jokes. Because of difference in culture and inability of translating exactly, non-HongKongese may find the movie stupid and uninteresting. If only Hong Kong people rated this title, I'm sure the rating would be higher.

"Flirting Scholar" follows Stephen Chow's long tradition of inspired looniness, and made me giggle out loud in reaction to its pure enthusiasm to entertain. His riffs on Chinese tradition are funnier when you have some context, but much of his humor is so outrageous that you'll laugh regardless, as many jokes, especially the physical comedy, are universal. While this isn't quite my favorite Chow film, it's definitely worth watching, and still a must-have item in any Chow collection.

Like many Chow films, "Flirting Scholar" takes a typically over-the-top approach to its comedy, and incorporates such elements as extremely physical slapstick, parody, kung-fu, cartoonish surrealism, and wacky references to other HK movies. To truly appreciate Chow you need to watch lots of HK cinema -- and after you have watched several of Chow's films, you will begin to pick up on running gags that appear in successive movies.

While not as masterfully executed or as narratively tight as one of his truly brilliant films, such as "God of Cookery," this film is simply so utterly crazy at times that it will nonetheless make you laugh out loud, as all of his films inevitably do.

One of the funniest slapstick comedies out there, this movie rivals Royal Tramp and Tricky Brains in its comedic value. This movie absolutely requires knowledge of Chinese history, especially of the main character, Tong Bak Fu. It also requires knowledge of Hong Kong popular culture from the 50's to the 90's. Indeed, this movie references everything that is Chinese, from Tong Bak Fu's scholar friends to the Cantonese dub of Dragonball Z, and everything in between. Of course, without such complete knowledge, what is supposed to be funny is not even mildly amusing, as the comedic element in scenes are often subtle or obscure or both.

Tong Bak Fu is a malcontent scholar of great renown who has eight wives. Somehow, his wives have come to take complete control his life, and he finds himself constantly at their mercy, who do nothing but gamble with each other. His friends too, have become nothing more than an annoyance. Desiring romance, he ventures out to seek true love--and finds himself fallen in love with a servant of a wealthy household. Back in those days, servants, though often socially lower than family, were considered a part of the household and subject to the jurisdiction of the family, especially--in this case--the matriarch. Tong Bak Fu must disguise himself as a peasant and sell his services to the family in order to woo the girl and eventually marry her. With the help of a manservant, he gets in and finally learns the name of the girl--Chou Herng. That of course, is where everything goes wrong.

Stop now if you cannot identify the three places that are blatantly set up for comedy in the above narrative. Now, I don't mean that my rather apathetic introduction is funny in and of itself, but rather that at least three of the things I've described have the potential to develop into a very funny scene. If you can find all three places exhibiting the potential for comedy this movie will be absolutely hilarious. If you can find two, this movie might be pretty funny, but nothing special. If you can find one, don't expect too much. If you cannot find any, then move along--this movie isn't for you.