Well now, this is an old one. An early vehicle of Jet Li's and co-starring a very pre-superstardom Stephen Chow as his dubiously-moraled sidekick. The story in a nutshell is Jet Li is part of a wushu team that comes to Frisco for a demonstration or smth, and presumably, they're from China, not Hong Kong, and that's why his friend, Tiger, runs away on the day they're supposed to go back. He also accidentally kills a cop. While chasing him, Jet Li misses his plane AND gets framed for the murder. Then, in an epic and really obviously set-up accident, he gets away and wanders the streets for a bit before running into Stephen Chow.

The rest of the movie is messy and somewhat hard to follow because of the mumbled, mangled and otherwise mispronounced English. Or, at least it would be if the plot was not completely generic and obvious where it was going. Jet Li's character tries to get by as a grocer helping Chow, but somehow Tiger keeps showing up (he's now working for a pan-Asian gang) and eventually the two's worlds collide and all hell breaks loose. Which, naturally, leads to lots of kung-fulishness.

Really, the only good points of this movie is Jet Li's martial artistry and Stephen Chow, whom I firmly believe could play anything now. If he's going to change his tune, he should go full circle and put out some more dramatic roles. He's good at being dark. Surprisingly good, in fact. Not that he didn't have some moments of comedy, several in fact, but ultimately his character was a pitiful bastard who pretty much made his own bed and had to lie in it. Though, a bit at the end suggested it might not have turned out so badly.

Ultimately, it was an ok movie if you're a fan of the stars, but otherwise, pretty damn generic.

Mood blah Music FACT – 1-2 Tags: action, drama, jet li, stephen chow

Well, on the surface, this is just your basic goofy Stephen Chow/Wong Jing pairing, including an almost starring role by the director. But, allegedly, Wong Jing couldn't afford much of Stephen Chow's time, and so the Grandmaster is in more of a supporting role here with Nick Cheung taking over star responsibilities.

The plot is relatively simple. Nick Cheung plays an undercover cop who hates swindlers. So when he's directed to take down master swindler Ferrari (Wong Jing), he gets swindled left and right, embarrassed and made fun of, often by buxom Kelly Lin who smirks her way through this one. At the end of his wits, he finally agrees to enlist the talents of Wong Sifu (Chow) who is his girlfriend's sister's husband. Sandra Ng is pretty hilarious as the Sifu's wife too. The movie is rife with parodies of other movies and some of it is hilarious, some of it not so much.

But to be honest, the most interesting thing about this movie to me is Stephen Chow playing against type. And I mean, really against type. Normally this sort of arrogant asshole character of his would get shown up, or brought down and discover a heart or something, but not in this one. Wong Sifu is an ass from the very start. He swindles his family, even his kid, and he refuses to help Nick Cheung for anything less than 10million dollars. Or unless Nick Cheung can trick him. Which is of course impossible, and Chow punches him in the face when he fails. And even when he finally does help, it's because Ferrari sends people to kill him and he gets pissed.

Stephen Chow plays this role with an attitude that's like barely restrained annoyance, and it comes out in everything he does, even his trademark grin. His hair is flecked with grey, he wears glasses for most of the film, and he just has a completely different air from anything he did previously. In fact, he honestly never does anything goofy. Like I said, he has a dangerous, annoyed air about him the entire time. Even in the obligatory kung-fu scene. He's ambushed by a baddie who grabs his shirt. It rips off his shoulder as he mercilessly pummels the guy into the ground. He doesn't smile even once. He looks positively pissed, in fact.

This was, of course, also the last film he did before Shaolin Soccer, 3 years later. And he hasn't done a movie for someone other than himself since. So, Idk, you can probably read something into that. But it was interesting to see him play such a dangerous, not-nice character and well, still chew scenery like he always does. It was pretty sexy, ngl.

Mood hungry Music ＳＣＡＮＤＡＬ – Ring! Ring! Ring! Tags: comedies, nick cheung, sandra ng, stephen chow

Your basic cop buddy film featuring a pre-superstar Stephen Chow and Heavenly King Jacky Cheung. I've only seen Cheung in one other thing, that being As Tears Go By playing the guy that nicely brought everyone down. He's alright as an actor, somewhat compelling, but not really. But as usual, this show is stolen by Stephen Chow, who wasn't even a big star at this point in his career.

The plot is fairly simple. Chow and Cheung are cop buddies, best friends, roomies, all that good stuff. They aren't at odds, quite the opposite. But Chow's character is Pepper, hot-headed, kind of a jerk. And Cheung is Curry, nicer, more easy-going, at least makes an attempt not to get into trouble. But either way, they're trouble-makers in the force that nevertheless, manage to get things done. Then a woman comes between them. I know, cliched, right? Lol. It's ok though, because this is a funny movie, so it doesn't take you down annoying roads of sap and emo.

Meanwhile, the rather frightening Blackie Ko wants to kill them. Mostly because Chow shot him after he killed their undercover. So eventually you know these guys have to make up so they can get the bad guy.

As I said, it's pretty standard stuff. But there's some great action sequences, it's plenty funny, and you gotta love how Stephen Chow steals nearly every scene he's in right up to really stealing the whole damn movie. Someone had to be watching this back then and thinking, wow this guy's gonna be big.

Mood hungry Tags: action, buddy, comedies, jacky cheung, stephen chow

As a hardcore Stephen Chow fan, I was almost turned off from this movie because of reviews saying how he was barely in the thing. However, those reviews said the same thing about The Tricky Master, and that turned out to not be the case, so yes, I watched it finally. And can I just say that those reviews are massively misleading. Stephen Chow is all over this film. In an hour and 28 minutes, he appears onscreen quite often, and when he's not, you don't miss him, because as I said, this film has his persona all over it. That, and the boy who's really a girl is incredibly engaging, with comic timing Sing Yeh himself was obviously quite enamored with, since he apparently became her godfather, lol.

But anyway, yes, it's a very good movie. Simplistic, but perfect in its own little way. It's cute, it's serious, it's funny, it's clever and Stephen Chow still somehow manages to continue his career-long parody of his own work in it.  Not to mention insert his trademark mo lei tau and it just seems so natural. Because the man is a genius and could probably do just about anything in movie form if you give him half a chance.

The story, as I said, is simplistic. A kid and his dad live in poverty, and the dad tries to teach the kid about being a good person, but the kid, being a kid (annoying little buggers) would rather have nice toys and the respect of his prickish classmates. Along comes strange alien thing, CJ7, who may or may not give the kid what he wants. But in the end, it comes down to what's really important. When that becomes clear, everything else will fall into place. Or at least, that's what the movie seems to be trying to say. But it gets there delicately, not heavy-handed or even overly sappy. The drama is so believable, but then so is the resolution.

A really amazing little film. And one I'm pretty sure could only be done by the grandmaster.

Mood drunk Tags: comedies, stephen chow

Oh, I guess I did post here semi-recently. I have been sucked into the maelstrom that is Stephen Chow's filmography and have barely come up for air. So instead of a review today, I have to say a few things about this experience. Most of his Western audience who occasionally watch Asian films and consider themselves fans, have usually only seen Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, King of Comedy and God of Cookery. Let me just say that those are nowhere near his funniest films. I have in fact noticed that his earliest films are actually generally the funniest.

This is mainly because of his style of mo lei tau that he somewhat abandoned later on in favor of more serious acting, and of course, directing. But his nonsensical motor-mouthed obnoxious characters from the older days are the ones that make you roll on the floor laughing. His rapid pace of movie making fell off quite a bit by 1993, only doing three films that year (compared to 7 the previous). His directorial debut, Love on Delivery, was....not good. But he got better with the Bond parody, From Bejing with Love. But then, Forbidden City Cop had that same forced feel. He was basically trying to balance nonsense with more serious subject matter, and it simply doesn't work very well. It's hard to take the nonsense in light of certain events in the movie, and at the same time, it's hard to take the seriousness serious.

However, it should be noted, he did not write those movies, not like he did FBWL and Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. Because those movies managed to get that balance of funny and dark right. Again though, while those are good movies, like I said, they're not as hilarious as his earliest efforts.

What are these early gems you ask? Well, let's start with 1990's Look Out Officer, which is also occasionally known as Shaolin Idiot for some inexplicable reason. Though Chow's character is not perhaps the brightest bulb, he isn't a Shaolin anything. This was kind of a supernatural comedy, the main plot point being a ghost trying to avenge himself. Dumbly, he enlists Chow's character to help. Hilarious nonsense ensues. Another one like this is When Fortune Smiles (same year), which has Chow falling in with a moronic son trying to get at his dad's money, which has been left only for his sister. He's supposed to marry the sister. However, the sister is a fake, planted by the other son for the same reason. A lot of funny misunderstandings happen and the fight scene at the end is epically funny.

Then of course, you have to move on to the God of Gamblers business. First Chow stars in a parody of sorts called All For The Winner where he plays a naive mainlander with mental powers that allow him to cheat at various gambling institutions. One of the best scenes is where Chow's character mimics the God of Gamblers himself. This movie then obviously earned Chow a role in the sequel to GoG alongside Andy Lau, which might be just a bit funnier than All For The Winner.

1991 produced a hilarious movie called Legend of the Dragon. If you've seen Kung Fu Hustle, it's pretty funny to see Chow play the idiotic son of the landlord in much younger form. The Fight Back to School series also started that year, and yielded two pretty hilarious sequels. The third one was probably the funniest of all with its Basic Instinct parody and a few clever Pink Panther bits.

Let's not forget the wuxia though, shall we? Royal Tramp, Flirting Scholar, Chinese Odyssey and Hail the Judge show that Chow can be just as funny in costume as without. While Chinese Odyssey has to be a classic, I want to zoom in on Royal Tramp, which is a two-parter. A more perfect role for him is probably not out there. Because his character is that guy that has no skills, but somehow gets himself surrounded by powerful people and dangerous plots. Arguably the only skill he has is all the lies he tells to keep on good terms with all these people at the same time.


So yeah, that got exceedingly long, but long story short, if you enjoyed the nonsense occasionally on display in Chow's more well-known films, do yourself a favor and check out the oldies. They really are the goodies.

Mood hungry Music 莫文蔚 – 甜美生活 Tags: actor profile, stephen chow

There are a lot of reviews I haven't done yet, but I thought I'd run down the list of movies I saw this year. It was a LOT. Probably more than I've seen in awhile.

• Overheard
• Accidents
• Mulan
• The Beast Stalker
• Look For a Star
• On His Majesty's Secret Service
• Tricky Brains
• The Lucky Guy
• Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince
• Lawyer Lawyer
• God of Cookery
• From Beijing With Love
• A Chinese Odyssey Parts 1 & 2
• Chung King Express
• Fallen Angels
• Flirting Scholar
• The Duel
• Butterfly Lovers
• Fight Back to School 1, 2, 3
• Royal Tramp 1 & 2
• Justice My Foot
• Look Out Officer
• All For The Winner
• God of Gamblers 1 & 2
• My Schoolmate the Barbarian
• Half Cigarette
• 2002
• The Promise
• A New Police Story
• Moving Targets
• Dragon Tiger Gate
• Invisible Target
• A Chinese Tall Story
• The Warlords
• Fist of Fury
• Protege
• One Night in Mongkok
• A World Without Thieves
• Needing You
• Cat and Mouse
• Fat Choi Spirit
• Fulltime Killer
• A Fighter's Blues
• Century of the Dragon
• Moon Warriors
• The Con Man in Las Vegas
• Conman
• As Tears Go By
• Dance of a Dream
• Casino Raiders
• Hong Kong Godfather
• 13 Kaidan
• Yesterday Once More
• Flash Point
• Brothers
• Valkyrie
• Divergence
• Genghis Khan: To the ends of the Earth and Sea
• Painted Skin
• Robin B Hood
• Running Out of Time
• The Banquet
• Time and Tide
• The Dark Knight

Mood blah Music ムック – 僕等の影 Tags: year in review

A wuxia retelling of the classic tale, this one definitely has its detractors. In fact, I'm not sure I've read a good review of it yet. Though, I'm sure they're out there...somewhere. The story is pretty standard Romeo and Juliet. A girl and a guy fall for each other, but politics and family issues fatally get in the way. In fact, it goes right down to the part where the girl takes the fake death pill, but the only person who knows dies and so the guy has no idea and well, kills them both. That part is actually a revision to the original tale, as far as I can tell. So Jingle Ma essentially made it more like R&J that it really was.

Anyway, I'm going to do pros and cons on this one, because, as I said, the story is simple and it's really more up to your tastes if you like it or not.

Cons:

- Even though I have said that a girl posing as a guy in wuxia is as simple as a different hairstyle, Charlene Choi really didn't even do that. There was nothing that really suggested she was posing as a guy even. Especially since her teacher knows, you initially assume Wu Chun knows too.

- Wu Chun's acting was rather dubious. His range of emotions was simply not there. He was good at angry, but that was about it.

- It was a little hard to buy their falling in love. Too much like, oh bam, they're in love, that's how it is.

- Which leads to the pacing was bad up until the last part, and the costumes and staging were lackluster.

Pros:

- the fights were good. I was particularly impressed with Wu Chun

- Ah Sa is a funny gal, you can't help but like her infectious perkiness.

- when it came right down to it, they got the ending act right. I won't even lie, I had tears streaming down my face by the end. And ultimately that's why I would somewhat recommend it, just because it still ended up being a pretty affecting drama. But maybe less if you're a fan of the original tale, and more if you're a fan of R&J or Shakespeare in general. It had that vibe.

Mood bored Tags: charlene choi, romance, wu chun, wuxia

This is basically a prequel to God of Gamblers 2. Well, one of two prequels, the first obviously being God of Gamblers, lol. But this is where the character of Do Sing (Stephen Chow) comes from. He shows up as a kid from the Mainland to visit his uncle (Ng Man Tat), and it quickly becomes apparent that he has supernatural powers. Naturally this leads to the greedy Tat trying to figure out how to get rich off of him. The problem is, it seems like whenever he wins something from his powers and tries to use the winnings selfishly, all sorts of things go wrong.

There is a little play on the God of Gamblers too, with Chow's character trying to be like him, right down to walking in slow motion. The part where he tries some card tricks that all fail spectacularly is pretty amazing too.

This one drags in the middle almost to the point of being boring, no actually it was definitely boring. But it picks back up for the final act. Chow, of course, is hilarious, and this is pretty much the movie that put him on the map and eventually catapulted him to superstardom, and you can easily see why.

Mood bored Tags: comedies, gambling, stephen chow

So, this is actually a set of movies, but they are definitely two parts to a whole and not just your regular sequels. The first one is called 'Pandora's Box' and it begins with a rundown of how the Monkey King was killed. Or disposed of. The next thing we know, we're in the middle of a desert with a bunch of robbers. The leader of these robbers is a scruffy unibrow'd caveman whom, with a bit of peering, is obviously Stephen Chow. Then, a couple of devil sisters show up and make themselves at home. One of them is Karen Mok, but I'm not really familiar with the other one. Thus the first half of the movie is mostly about Stephen Chow's character trying to one-up these gals and get them out. It's also side-splittingly hilarious.

Like most of Chow's best and funniest movies, it's all about big hilarious scenes. Everything else is just setup. Probably the absolute best comes near the very end where Chow has to go back in time to save his lover, but every time he does it, he ends up arriving just a millisecond too late and has to try again. Also great was the scene of him and Mok trying to have sexytimes in the desert complete with slow-motion clothes-ripping. But where it gets funny is when the clothes-ripping goes on for several seconds longer than it should. And then they finally give up since they can't get all the clothes they're wearing off.

The second movie, Cinderella, is more story-oriented as Chow is now the reincarnated Monkey King. He's still trying to find Karen Mok, but in the meantime Athena Chu falls for him. There's still plenty of hilarity, but the gags don't come as fast and furious as the first one, and it probably drags on twenty minutes too long.

Nevertheless, the two movies are funny together and they don't seem nearly as dated as their year suggests.

Mood bored Tags: comedies, karen mok, stephen chow, wuxia

I guess the standard plot vehicle of hilarious wuxia is the deposition of an Emperor. Previously Cat and Mouse and The Duel did the same thing. The main point is a love story of sorts, but it's told against the backdrop of a coup d'etat.

This one stars Louis Koo and Barbie Hsu and there plenty of glimpses of other funny people that usually show up in these kind of movies, which, btw, is directed by Wong Jing, purveyor of the ridiculous. Essentially Louis Koo plays Royal Dog, an absent minded professor who wears Aretha Franklin bow hats in the tub. He's in love with Barbie Hsu's character, but she doesn't think he really is, so she starts trying to test him. All it does is make him cry though, lol. At first he thinks she's fallen for a handsome guy (Brad Pitt in the subs), but the guy is actually a girl.

Meanwhile, one of the other royal guards has a thing for the princess. But the ridiculous emperor has a bunch of princes coming in from out of town to woo her. Naturally they're replaced by fake ones by the plotters. Which is basically the Empress's brother. Just like Cat and Mouse in fact, lol. However, during the IQ test part, Royal Dog somehow makes himself most wanted on the Princess's list.

That's about the gist of the plot, with a lot of ridiculousness thrown in. To say that's it's not funny is far from the truth, unless you lack a sense of humor entirely. Nevertheless, most of the hilarity is ridiculous and might be helped along if you've had a few drinks.

Mood creative Music Lady GaGa – Telephone (feat. Beyoncé) Tags: barbie hsu, comedies, louis koo, wuxia