The other TVB drama Stephen Chow had a big part in, this one is a modern dramedy. Like Final Combat though, it takes a long time to set up the ending sequence. Now, it started out really interesting, with this quirky family kind of all living together and running a mahjong parlor. Alex Man is the ex-Triad, and Stephen Chow is his cousin. Ng Man Tat is Stephen Chow's father, and Alex Man's mother's brother. Then there's Old Hen who is Stephen Chow's grandmother on his mother's side and aunt to Teresa Mo who makes an early appearance.

Stephen Chow's character is an obnoxious taxi driver who constantly insults people and is just sarcastic as a way of life. The people around him seem to only tolerate him, except for his grandmother who spoils him unmercifully and dotes on him ridiculously, probably mostly only to spite Tat. So it takes a few episodes to properly introduce everyone, and it's all funny and interesting.

But then it takes a bit of a downward spin in the middle, like a lot of dramas, I've noticed. The main problem is paying a lot of extra attention to minor characters. The whole thing with Yu Gau was tedious and annoying and stretched believability on many fronts. There was also the focus on Ming Tin's (Alex Man) cop friend and his brother, the penny-pinching banker, much of which didn't need to be there. The exposition involving Ming Tin's Triad family was probably nessa, but God, Anthony Wong was annoying, lol. Of course, the other problem with all these minor characters taking a spotlight was lack of Stephen Chow, as he was the main cause of hilarity in the series.

Fortunately, by the time it starts to wrap up, there really is a good amount of suspense in the final episodes. And the scenes with Shui (Chow) and Chi are hilarious. So all in all, it was a good show, but like Final Combat, would have suffered immensely without Stephen Chow, whose acting was both funny and affecting. I can really see why both of those shows helped make him popular.

Mood blah Tags: comedies, drama, stephen chow

I don't know quite what to make of this movie. On one hand, it's got some pretty funny gags and a fantastic scene of almost total nudity from Mr. Chow (forgive me, I'm a fangirl). But on the other hand, the plot is somewhat pointless and the dark, violent undercurrent tempers a lot of the funny. It's different from Out of the Dark, where the violence, while definitely violent, is also obviously comic. Here it's more like someone spliced together a normal violent triad movie into a Stephen Chow movie, and the results are not all that great. Because, you see, I like both separately, but together they're kinda like...Idk, two things that don't go together. I tried to think of something clever, but I failed.

The story is that Chow is a comic-book reading waiter who thinks being a triad would be cool. And for some reason, which I guess I missed, he ends up getting in the good graces of a boss and becomes one. He also manages to climb the ladder without doing much. Until eventually, triads do what they do best, betray each other and kill you. So then he finds out that triad life actually sucks. And...that's pretty much it. In the meantime, there's plenty of shooting and beatings and torture interspersed with jokes.

That's the entire movie. Stephen Chow does a good job with what he has to work with, but he's the only one turning in any kind of above average performance. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times; his presence is all that's required to turn a crappy film into a watchable one.

Mood annoyed Tags: comedies, stephen chow, triads

Only the second drama I've been bothered to write about, and that's because it's one of the few Stephen Chow starred in.  So, what we have here is a 30 episode TVB drama starring Sing Yeh, Ng Man Tat and Francis Ng.  It's a fairly typical wuxia thing in that it's ridiculously convoluted with the requisite amount of fake deaths, poisonings, love triangles and evil eunuchs/queers/women.  It also has probably the WORST sfx I've ever seen.  The good thing is though that they're so bad they're hilarious.

But onto the story....what I can remember of course.  No, it's too long, lemme sum up.  Stephen Chow is the son of the leader of Celestine School, but he hates martial arts, so he spends most of his time gambling and getting into mischief.  Unlike his brother (who isn't really his brother) who is a really great martial artist.  He also happens to be a huge douchebag.  The bad guy (at first) is Ng Man Tat's doppleganger, the seriously queer Koo Yim Yeung.  He's cultivated a female martial art and now has an insufferable urge to wear makeup and flip his hair.   Sometime before that he had a daughter, who starts out manly, but eventually falls for Chow's character.  Similar to the Royal Tramp story, Chow's guy bumbles his way through the movie, being tricksy and surrounding himself with powerful pals, before he finally stumbles upon the key to martial arts greatness.

As I said, convoluted.  And would be complete crap without Stephen Chow, who manages to make anything he's in above average.  Actually, in all seriousness, he was pretty hilarious and luckily in most of the scenes, so if you can make it past cheesy sfx and Francis Ng at his most smarmy, it's definitely worth having a look at Stephen Chow's early brilliance.

Mood sick Tags: dramas, stephen chow, wuxia

I did finally decide to watch this one all the way through. Mostly after reading how Stephen Chow managed to make "enemies" of Johnnie To and Danny Lee in the aftermath of this movie. The former vowed never to work with him again, and he has not, and the latter apparently wasn't pleased about the appropriation of his name for Chow's character, which culminated in the message on the wall "Lee Sau-Yin, I will kill your whole family."

This is the second and last movie Chow was in directed by Johnnie To, and like that first one (Justice My Foot), it's mildly entertaining, but decidedly unfunny. In it, Chow plays Dragon Fighter Lo-Han, a belligerent god that raises a bunch of havoc in heaven, only to get sent to Earth to redeem 3 unrepentant sinners; a begger, a whore and a killer. That is, they've been at their respective vices for 9 lives. If he can do that, his own transgressions will be forgiven and he'll be promoted. If not...well. Anyway, that's the gist of it. He has a magic fan and that's all the magic he can have. Oh, and he also has Tat following him around in retard-mode, not doing a whole lot.

Mostly Chow just spends his time making fun of people, kicking them in the face, and trying to keep the killer among the scoundrels from killing the other two. It gets a bit muddled towards the end, but like I said, it really wasn't all that funny. However, while in Mad Monk mode, Chow reminded me an awful lot of Jack Sparrow, and it makes me wonder if those people ever saw this movie. So, I suppose, in the end, I was only in it for his oddly attractive scruffyness and to add another tick to my list of Stephen Chow movies I've watched. So I figure maybe Chow did whatever he did to put Johnnie To off his breakfast to keep him from making more boring movies like this.

Mood cynical Tags: comedies, stephen chow, wuxia

Apparently continuing with the movies before he was a star...well, that's mostly because that all that's left of his filmography that I haven't watched, lol. Anyway, this was effectively Stephen Chow's first film, and as such, it's not a comedy, but rather the tried-and-true cops vs robbers story. Chow plays a car thief who gets mixed up with some violent bank robbers. Then he gets caught by Danny Lee's maverick cop character. Danny Lee wants to use him as a snitch to get to the robbers, but instead he effectively gets Chow framed for murder while going behind the back of his irritating superior.

That is...essentially the plot. Just add the inevitable showdown and trick ending. As for the other stuff, to me, it seemed like Danny Lee's character was terribly inept. And I still haven't decided if that was on purpose, if they were trying to be funny, or what. Stephen Chow, on the other hand, was awfully good as a punk in way over his head. He was equal parts false bravado and scared kid, but undeniably good at stealing cars. As Love HK Film put it, he possesses a range here that everyone forgot he had. Actually, it's getting easier and easier for me to say that he's just a damn good actor. He has so much charisma and is so expressive, that he can easily make you believe whatever it is he's playing. How else could he get audiences to suspend their disbelief for 10+ years of nonsense comedy?

Yeah, all these early movies WITH Stephen Chow (as opposed to Stephen Chow movies) just make me more and more convinced of what a legend he is.

Mood anxious Tags: action, stephen chow

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