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.

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.

Stephen Chow is the greatest of the Four Scholars in Ming-era China. His paintings go for 30,000 taels a pop, his poetry sells like mad, he has eight wives who spend all their time playing mah-jong, and he is thoroughly miserable. Then he spots Gong Li and falls in love. She is a servant in the household of James Wong and Pei-Pei Cheng (who is very funny), so he sells himself to the household under a fake name. He quickly rises because of his scholarship, and is overjoyed when Gong Li confesses she loves his poetry and the man who wrote them. Unfortunately, she doesn't believe Chow is that man. Also, Madame Cheng hates him, sight unseen.

There are also various subplots involving Wai Lam as King Ning, and the big fight at the end is with Chia-Hui Liu, who killed Inigo Montoya's father. I mean Chow's father.

The only star to compare with Chow is Jacky Chan. However, while Chan performs his comedy stunts using practical effects and takes that often injure him, Chow's gags verge on cartoons. Chow also plays with Chinese mythology, and while I am unclear as to which legends this movie refers to, there's no need to understand the details if you have any familiarity with your typical Kung Fu movie. The details of the silly plot take up a lot of time, but there's still plenty of gags to make the audience laugh.

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.

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.