by ·Comments Off on The Mermaid (2016, Stephen Chow)

An extremely silly movie that falls back on the ol’ “villainous developers destroying old beloved thing to build new thing for rich people” plot. In this case, the lead evil developer Liu Xuan (Chao Deng, the albino from Detective Dee) is convinced to halt his project and save the mermaid community after falling for mer-Shan (“Jelly” Lin), but his partners (led by his girlfriend, CJ7‘s Kitty Zhang) double down on the mermaid-killing and Liu has to stop them.

Mermaid attack:

Effects-filled fantasy with interspecies love and a strong environmental message becomes the highest-grossing movie in the country – so this is China’s Avatar. Fun movie, valuable less for its story than its random jokes and fun side characters.

Octopus (Show Lo of Journey to the West):

Framing-story scam artist (Yang Neng):

Rich Guy With Jetpack (Jifeng Zheng):

Police Sketch Artist:

by ·Comments Off on Royal Tramp I & II (1992, Jing Wong)

Trying to clear my head of CJ7, I grabbed the first Stephen Chow movie I could find at the store, and hit paydirt. Not as artistically ambitious as most of the movies I like, but as entertainment it is supreme, better than Michael Bay’s filmography to date and probably a thousandth as expensive. Plus these are only two of the six films Wong is credited with directing in 1992 alone. Take that, Mr. Bay.

I’d check the IMDB every ten minutes during part one trying to keep characters straight and to locate superstar Brigitte Lin… finally figured out that she shows up at the very end (the final shot!) of pt. 1 to set up her starring role in pt. 2. But then she’s not even that big a deal in 2 – it’s another jumble of too many characters (sometimes crossdressing to make it even more confusing for me). Just a ton of penis jokes, more than I think I’ve ever heard in one place before. Supposedly very clever wordplay in the dialogue, but I don’t guess that translated very well in the subs. I found it funny anyway. Not the greatest most showoffy action scenes, but they’re alright. Just so much going on, impossible to get bored while watching this. Trying to lay out all the plots and alliances here would take longer than re-watching the movies, but in short…

Stephen Chow is Wei Shu Bo, works at a brothel or someplace, rescues the lead dude (Chan) of an anti-government organization, joins their group and is sent to the emperor’s palace to do some shit, but befriends the emp (Ning) and his sister (Princess Kim). In each movie he tries to protect them from a traitorous super-powerful white-haired dude, first Obai then Fung (who works for King Ng of Ping-Si whose son Prince Ng is to marry Kim, who is in love with Stephen Chow, who is also having sex with Brigitte Lin and the Swan twins, but I get ahead of myself). Actually Chow is powerless but lucky throughout part one (the empress or queen, the one who later transforms into Brigitte Lin, kills Obai but Chow takes credit), working as apprentice to eunuch Hai, then when Chow has sex with Lin in pt. 2 he gets most of her powers. Chow has a friend Dor Long who shows up a lot, and there’s a girl named Ah Or or maybe Sister Bond who I never figured out who she was and nobody else seems to know either. Oh and Lin’s teacher the one-armed nun is a big deal in the first half of pt. 2.

Stephen Chow had been in 30 movies by now so I assume he was pretty well known. He started his writer/director career a couple years after this.
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Lin starred in Police Story, Zu Warriors and Peking Opera Blues, Swordsman II & III, New Dragon Gate Inn, Bride With White Hair, then she pretty much stopped acting after doing two Wong Kar-Wai films and getting married in ’94.
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I didn’t get screenshots of the first movie, but the queen was Sharla Cheung (costarred with Stephen Chow in a bunch of things), the eunuch was Stephen Chow fave Man Tat Ng (also in Happy Together), and Obai (hilariously credited as O’Brien on IMDB) was Elvis Tsui of the Sex & Zen movies and a hundred others.

The emperor’s sister, Chingmy Yau (below), costarred with Jet Li in some other Jing Wong films in the 90’s as well as the HK version of Street Fighter. The emperor, Siu-Lun Wan, hasn’t been in much else. The mysterious Sister Bond, Sandra Ng Kwan Yue, has been in a hundred movies with titles I recognized from the other filmographies I looked at.
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King Ng is Paul Chun (appeared with Chow Yun Fat and Jackie Chan movies back in the 70’s), his son the prince (who gets castrated by the princess if I haven’t mentioned) is Ken Tong (of a bunch of movies with knockoff titles of more famous movies, incl. a semi-sequel to Royal Tramp starring Tony Leung).
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Lan Law, the one-handed nun, has been acting since the 50’s, appeared in Wayne Wang’s Eat a Bowl of Tea.
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The puppetmaster Fung, Shi-Kwan Yen, was in a lot of stuff in the 70’s, some high-profile films in the 90’s, and hasn’t done much since Iron Monkey in ’93.
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Oh wait, forgot to mention the best part. At the end of part one, it freeze-frames on Brigitte Lin, and the credits come up, declaring “PEPSI / SEVEN-UP”. A soda advertisement in the credits!

by ·Comments Off on CJ7 (2008, Stephen Chow)

I started off the year talking about how there are so many great movies I’d like to see, it’s stupid to waste time watching bad movies… see also “The Finding Forrester Effect“. And here I am watching two bad ones in a row (this and Doomsday). Sure both viewing decisions were vaguely auteur-based since I’ve liked work by these directors before, but wasn’t Finding Forrester itself directed by a renowned film auteur? Oh well, there is no discovery without risk.

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Chow plays a poor, uneducated, overworked, widowed single father. On top of that, his son is bullied at school, failing his classes, and can’t play sports because his shoes are falling apart. On top of THAT, Chow falls off a building at his construction job and dies. and his son cries and cries, and so does his nice teacher, and so do the only other people in the movie theater besides myself.

On the other hand, there are poop jokes and dream sequences, and the kid has a cute flubbery alien that his dad found at the dump.

Back on the first hand, the alien is beaten and squished and drowned and exploited and abandoned. Finally it kills (?) itself to resurrect Chow, god only knows why.

Movie alternates between bland and cruel. When it’s not making one of its main characters suffer, it’s not doing anything particularly exciting or interesting either. The good parts (most of them involving two extremely oversized middle-schoolers) are few, and not good enough to make this a movie worth watching.

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It’s rare that we get a foreign film here in Atlanta less than two months after its opening date in its home country. I guess this didn’t play the festival circuit and was maybe pre-sold for US distribution after the 1-2 punch of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. Anyway, it closed in a week and we’ll hopefully never hear from it again. Better luck next time in Kung Fu Hustle 2…

by ·Comments Off on The God of Cookery (1996, Stephen Chow)

Official New Year’s Eve Movie of 2006/07. Means our 2007 will be full of award-winning food, harsh competition, street fights, amazing bouncing meatballs, redemptive plastic surgery, obsessive crushes, big-money revenge schemes, meditation, and Chinese people.

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Martin says if we liked this, we need to see The God of Gamblers, The God of Gamblers II, The God of Gamblers III, The God of Beggars and The Gods Must Be Crazy. All in good time. Myself, I’d rather start with Fight Back to School (which Videodrome actually has).

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Katy liked it, and says it’s a joke on the Iron Chef show.