Tong Pak Foo dim Chau Heung

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.

The previous review is quite unfair. This movie can only be understood and hence enjoyed by Cantonese (not even by other Chinese). I laughed all the way. You will, if you can enjoy this kind of lower intelligent jokes (same level as Jim Carrey's). It has so many local jokes that I missed some since I left Hong Kong for a long time. I can feel they're funnier if I stayed in HK long enough. The performance is great for Chow. It is not a good role for Gong Li. It is a comedy rather than the serious roles she is usually in. Unlike some stars such as Chow Yun Fat, she is only good at certain roles. The song at the end is great and I believe it was copied from another movie with a similar name, which is a serious version of this movie.

This is a great film for us,maybe also for those who can speak Chinese and know about Chinese culture. Of all the comedies I've seen,this one could be the best. If any could claim better,it would only be chow's another film,which I can't provide with an English name. This dude,dje2000,obviously knew nothing about China,and his words should not be on the first page of this film. Everybody has to find it not helpful,this could be the real silly thing. I'm saying this because IMDb Rates and page links are seen almost every movie site.This comment could kill the new comers.

replace it! replace it! replace it! with any of the others.

Tangbohu was a very famous artist in ming Dynasty of China, but in Chow's film, (I said Chow's, not only for his acting as the hero but also for his affection in the film, because he usually took the role of director as his) his image was greatly changed. but the changes were not done random. Chow cast his feeling of his early life in it. Chow is a clever actor, but when he was young, everybody, especially his boss thought he was just anybody else. he felt disappointed and lonely, because no one amid his talent. so in the film this feeling was expressed through the role. though it is a very good comedy which makes you laugh through out the film, you can still get some complex feeling of life. Chow showed his excellent acting talent in the film, and the other supporting roles were also very good, such as Peipei Cheng, James Wong etc. if you can speak Cantonese, you can get more interest from it, because it contained a lot of vivid and interesting oral language in Cantonese.

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.