With the release of Shaolin Soccer in 2001, the HK film industry revealed to the world his best comedian from the nineties: Stephen Chow Sing Chi, also know as the King of 'Moleitau', a Cantonese word to describe his non-sensical humour. Either you hate it, either you love it, but nobody can surely stay mute before such absurdity.

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Stephen Chow Sing Chi
In the seventies and the eighties, stars of HK comedies were the Hui brothers (Michael, Sam & Ricky), Karl Maka (the bald Kadojac in the Aces Go Places saga), or Richard Ng (the guy with moustaches who strongly believed in his invisibility and his invincibility when wandering around naked in Mister Vampire 3, Winners and Sinners & My Lucky Stars). At this time and even nowadays, the Cantonese comedy genre has been actually ignored outside the HK borders, because this type of local humour may have appeared a bit too heavy or cynical. On the other hand, action stars from HK such as Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh or Jackie Chan have been internationally acclaimed.

With the release of Shaolin Soccer in 2001, the HK film industry revealed to the world his best comedian from the nineties: Stephen Chow Sing Chi. His is one of the most paid local actor and his is also know as the King of 'Moleitau', a Cantonese word to describe his non-sensical humour. It is a very special facet of the Cantonese sense of humour, which peculiar logic makes it difficult for a non-Chinese audience. Non-sense, Cantonese play on words and insults, local slang and below-the-belt jokes have discouraged distributors to export that kind of local wonder. Either you hate it, either you love it, but surely nobody can stay mute before such absurdity. Chow's talent and poetry have managed however to make this genre acclaimed all over Asia and eventually all over the rest of the world.

From Tragedy to comedy
Stephen Chow Sing Chi (sometimes Chiau Sing Chi) was born in 1962 in Hong-Kong. Chow's admiration for Bruce Lee started very early in his teen. He was influenced by Lee's philosophy and films and decided to take on martial art training and to try his luck in show business. Chow didn't manage to enter the local TV channel TVB drama classes where his mate Tony Leung Chiu Wai learnt his craft. As a matter of fact, he ended up hosting a child programme called 430 Space Shuttle for 5 years. He then got small roles in TV series. By the end of the eighties, he alternated TV series (listed below) with small roles in movies. In 1988, he appeared for the first time in a feature film called He Who Chases After The Wind with Alex Man from who gave him his first acting tips.

Chow's next role was more important, with Final Justice, a typical Danny Lee copper flick, his silver screen career could really get started. He even won the Best Supporting Role Award at the  25th Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan. Stephen Chow carried on a while with pure action movie genre, which was very popular at the time in HK. He appeared in Jet Li's The Defector and John Woo's Just Hero. Funny enough, these three roles showed Stephen Chow as a youngster trapped by various series of life events and who couldn't control his fate. Young Chow wanted badly to achieve and to control his career in order to become a big and successful star.
In 1990, Chow has the good idea to team up with local acclaimed directors Wong Jing and Jeff Lau. That would be an understatement to say that the resulting films, respectively God Of Gamblers 2 and All For The Winner, were huge successes, grossing more than HK$ 40 million each at the local box office, a long way ahead of one of the last Hui Bros. film Front Page. Moleitau comedies became Chow's favourite film genre and the genre where he could evolved the best.

Chow & Co.
Chow understood quickly that he had to team up with the very best of local artists to gain success. Some of the most memorable directors he worked with were Wong Jing, for 8 movies mainly displaying his farcical and toilet humour skills, Lee Lik Chi for 7 films, Jeff Lau for 4 films, Johnnie To, Gordon Chan and Ching Siu Tung (mostly to choreograph action). His best accomplices were undoubtedly Lee Lik Chi and Jeff Lau with whom Chow made his best film to date (God of Cookery, King Of Comedy and Shaolin Soccer with the first one and All For The Winner and A Chinese Odyssey 1 & 2 with the second one).

As a king of comedy, Chow had various sidekicks at his service and some of them were pretty loyal. Ng Man Tat first worked with him on the serious crime drama Triad Story and has followed him in more than 15 movies ever since. Ng Man Tat is a middle-aged man with grey hair, grey eyebrows and grey moustaches and he is considered by aficionados as Chow's lowbrow stooge by excellence. The one he can heavily insult, beat up, spit on but also count on to make the audience giggle. Alternatively Nat Chan Pan Cheung replaced Ng Man Tat as Chow's scapegoat in some movies but he never really reach the same results as the pitiful and laughable old boy.
As for female sidekicks, even if Sandra Ng teamed up a few times with Chow, early nineties, as the little duckling, Sharla Cheung Man brought a touch of femininity and sometimes eroticism to eight of Chow's movies in the first half of the nineties. She was replaced from 1995 onwards by another HK popular actress, Karen Mok Man Wai. She has contributed to Chow's three last movies (God Of Cookery, King Of Comedy & Shaolin Soccer) considered by many as his more mature and best directed features. Stephen Chow even dared to make Karen Mok look tomboy-ish or even ugly in numerous occasions, which didn't seem to bother her (see her interview).

In the long run, Stephen Chow's success has permitted other actors and actresses to emerge such as Ng Man Tat or Karen Mok, and more recently Cecilia Cheung and Vicky Zhao Wei. Cecilia Cheung's very first role as a heavily-made-up prostitute dressed as a high school girl in King Of Comedy is unforgettable.

God of cinema
Since his success with All For The Winner (1990), Chow consistently ranked at the top of the box office and he became the number one top-grossing artist of the nineties. Box office figures are eloquent: from 1990 to 1997, at least two Stephen Chow's movies ranked amongst the top five movies of the year. 1992 was a particular good year since the five first movies were all from HK number one clown, grossing more than HK$ 210 millions in total! (Justice, My Foot!, All's Well Ends Well, Royal Tramp, King of Beggars & Royal Tramp II). Not only the entire Asian audience has overwhelmingly supported Chow for many years but he is also well acclaimed by film critics. Stephen Chow was nominated five times in a row Best Actor at the Annual Hong Kong Film Awards from 1990 to 1995. In 1995 he won the awards of Best Actor and Film Of Merit for A Chinese Odyssey by the HK Film Critics Society and he won the Film Of Merit award for Forbidden City Cop the following year. Stephen Chow won also the Best Director and Best Actor awards for Shaolin Soccer at the 2002 Hong-Kong Film Festival.

King of parody
Stephen Chow wasn't able to slow down his taste for 'moleitau' and he tried to mix it with different kind of film genres. He parodied internationally acclaimed movies such as Lethal Weapon with Curry & Pepper, Leon the Professional with Out Of The Dark or Kindergarten Cop (starring Arnold Scwhazenegger) with Fight Back To School. The latest, directed by Gordon Chan in 1991, deals with a SDU member who goes undercover in a high school in order to retrieve the police chief stolen pistol. It was so popular that Chow made two more sequels. In Fight Back To School 3, he parodied Basic Instinct with the help of Anita Mui playing the role of Sharon Stone. Chow carried on his home-made remakes of all kind of films with the Kung Fu comedies Fist of Fury 91 and Legend Of The Dragon, in which he paid a tribute to his idol Bruce Lee. He has always considered him as a model in life.
"Bruce Lee's wushu theories heated up my heart like a fireball, helping me through many difficult times" he explained in an interview given to Reuters in May 2002.
Chow made period films as well with the help of well-acclaimed HK directors Gordon Chan (King Of Beggars) and Johnnie To (Justice My Foot!).

King of comedy
In all these genres, king of comedy Chow excels in the art of non-sensical visual and verbal gags, in fast speeches and funny faces. It was therefore not surprising to see in HK theatres in 1995 a parody of Hollywood clown Jim Carey's The Mask: 60 Million-Dollar Man. If the first half of the movie doesn't convince you, the second half is a must seen when a mad scientist resurrects the hero suffering from an explosion that let only his mouth, brain and penis intact! His body is then recreated and has the ability to transform into everyday life objects such as a hose, a Hoover, a toilet seat, a microwave… It's totally non-sensical and absurd all along, a bit like in Tex Avery's cartoons. Chow even dared to parody the dance scene between Uma Thurman and John Travolta from Pupl Fiction!

E.g. Chow 007
Fond of parodies and spy movies, Chow had to try the James Bond films. In From Beijing With Love (1994), he portrays an ex-secret agent who now sells delicatessen. He is re-hired by the secret services to find out who has stolen a very precious dinosaur skull. In fact, he's been chosen for his misbehaviour and incompetence. Obviously, like an inspector Clouzot from the Pink Panther, he'll manage to avoid with much luck all traps set up by other spies. In this James Bond spoof, everything is laugh at: the music, Q and his gadgets (the torch only working with solar energy), bloody gunfights (where our hero digs up a bullet from his leg with a pickaxe). As this movie ranked third at the local box office with more than HK$ 37 millions, Chow decided to co-directed a year later another 007 film spoof.

This time, Forbidden City Cop takes place at the Forbidden City in ancient times. The whole thing is an accumulation of absurd and heavy gags that somehow work together. Chow is a security agent in the Imperial court. His is unlike his colleagues; they are very strong and gifted in martial arts. He is in fact a witty inventor (who first invented cannon balls, helicopters and multi-speed devices for conjugal bed). He cannot convince the Emperor of the utility of such devices, he has to hide and eventually he becomes a gynaecologist. He however still wants to be inventor and got help from his wife (Carina Lau). He ends up eluding, thanks to his inventions and his brain, various plots against the Emperor involving the Roswell alien, super villains and a faceless monster disguised as a whore.

Chow monkeys around
Chow Sing Chi's hilarious movies are numerous (more than 30 in 12 years). The common point between all his movies is that the hero's behaviour is generally driven by his thirst for success, fame and money. Two Chow's movies are however worth seeing first: Royal Tramp and A Chinese Odyssey. Both are set in ancient China and both have two parts, that is to say a total of 4 films. They both sum up perfectly well Chow's genius when he goes wild and crazy. In Royal Tramp, gags are often very heavy but always very funny, action scenes are incredible (choreographed by Ching Siu Tung) and romantic sequences are wonderful. The movie sense of humour is based on various misunderstanding and scatological gags.

A Chinese Odyssey is more ambitious. Based on the Monkey King Chinese legend, Chow is Joker, the chief of a group of pitiful thieves. As he might be the Monkey King reincarnation, two female evil spirits (Spider Woman & Boney M!) try to unmask him in order gain eternal life. The Pandora Box, the first instalment has some hilarious moments like the one where Joker is chased by a giant female spider (a bit like in the Wicked City), he is fortunately saved by a clumsy Ng Man Tat. There is even a sequence when Joker has the ability to come back a few seconds back in the past (like in Groundhog Day by Harold Ramis, 1993) but he is always late to save his lover. Action (choreographed by Ching Siu Tung) and humour are therefore the main assets of the movie, whose plot is sometimes a bit confusing. You'll eventually find a lot of elements already present in the wonderful Shaw Bros. version of Journey To The West made in the sixties. The second instalment is called Cinderella and it just carries on the story of the first chapter. It isn't as hysterical as the first instalment but still worth watching.

Chow reaches maturity
Despite his tremendous talents of humorist and clown, Chow wants to move on and to try more ambitious films. After chain movie-making, Stephen Chow has started to re-think of his way to make movies. He takes part in scriptwriting and film direction. He has found a new formula with God Of Cookery (1996). It basically consists in developing the dramatic elements of the story rather than inducing laughers at all cost. Moreover, Chow has become more and more critical towards the Chinese society in general and its venality in particular since the God Of Cookery. His characters primarily money-minded discover that love is important as well.
Chow roots an acerbic critic of the HK society into his moleitau. Although he reveals the HK society's shortcomings with much exaggerations, he usually makes fair observations and analysis of the situation.

In 1999 Chow made King of Comedy, a bittersweet comedy that was a big new thing in the career of HK number one clown. He portrays a sort of modern Buster Keaton, a passionate character with the head in the clouds and who is somehow different from Chow's previous roles. King of Comedy could be a sort of autobiography since Chow tries his best during the entire movie to be a real actor and to show to the rest of the world his fine talent. He even criticised the local film industry. The drama is more present and even overtakes the usual comedy aspect of Chow Sing Chi films. The characters show their inner torments. They are more human than in any other 'moleitau' movies Chow has made so far.

Two years in production later, Stephen Chow is back with a vengeance and with less tortured characters. Shaolin Soccer is therefore less cruel than King Of Comedy, less subtle than God Of Cookery, but it has profited from the experience of Actor-director Chow. He created for instance very touching but amusing characters.

International man of comedy
Shaolin Soccer was internationally acclaimed and successful, despite an unnecessary distributor's cut from Miramax. It ranked first at the 2001 HK box office. Shaolin Soccer tells the story of a group of former monks from the notorious Kung-Fu temple of Shaolin, who try to survive in modern HK. They decide to play football by using their great martial-art power. Shaolin Soccer gives a new point of view on the tradition of Kung-Fu films and shows with humour that martial arts are not strictly equal to mere violent fights. Filled up with energy, self-derision and irony the movie is a new turn in Chow's career.

Chow's finally reached one of his goals, he gained international fame and recognition. He has greatly evolved from the young Chow in Final Justice. He is now at the head of a film production company. A sequel to Shaolin Soccer is amongst his future projects. He is definitively not ready to let down the local film industry even if to get films off the ground will take much effort and time at the moment in HK.

Text written by Thomas, with the help of Jean Louis Ogié & Laurent Henry, November 2002.

Sources:
- "Shaolin Soccer' Director Plans Another Action Film", Interview by Carrie Lee, May 31, 2002, Reuters, Hong Kong
- The Chow Sing Chi Homepage: http://phobos.spaceports.com/~singjai/
- The Chinese Movie Database: http://www.dianying.com/en/
- The Hong-Kong Film Critics Society website: http://www.filmcritics.org.hk

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FILMOGRAPHY

Actor Shaolin Soccer (2001) Tricky Master, The (1999) King of Comedy (1999) Lucky Guy, The (1998) All's Well End's Well 97 (1997) Lawyer Lawyer (1997) Forbidden City Cop (1996) God of Cookery, The (1996) Out of the Dark (1995) Sixty Million Dollar Man (1995) Chinese Odyssey Part 2 - Cinderella, A (1995) Chinese Odyssey Part 1 - Pandora'sBox, A (1995) Hail the Judge (1994) From Beijing With Love (1994) Love On Delivery (1994) Mad Monk, The (1993) Fight Back to School III (1993) Flirting Scholar (1993) Royal Tramp (1992) Fight Back to School II (1992) Justice, My Foot! (1992) Royal Tramp II (1992) Fist of Fury 1991 (1991) Legend of the Dragon (1991) God of Gamblers II: Back To Shanghai (1991) Crazy Safari (1991) Banquet, The (1991) Magnificent Scoundrels, The (1991) Fight Back to School (1991) Tricky Brains (1991) Love is Love (1990) When Fortune Smiles (1990) Curry and Pepper (1990) Sleazy Dizzy (1990) My Hero (1990) God of Gamblers II (1990) Just Heros (1989) Final Justice (1988) Dragon Fighter (1988) He Who Chases after the Wind (1988) Faithfully Yours (1988)

Director Shaolin Soccer (2001) King of Comedy (1999) God of Cookery, The (1996) From Beijing With Love (1994) Producer Shaolin Soccer (2001) Screenplay Shaolin Soccer (2001) King of Comedy (1999) God of Cookery, The (1996) TV work Final Combat (1989) The Last Conflict (1988) My Father's Son (1988) Happy Encounter(1987) Power Eleven The Nuts On The Brink The Justice Of Life It Runs In The Family The Vacation Of Life Angels And Devils The Price Of Growing Up Mo Min Kap Sin Fung Back To The Beyond The Tribulation Of Life Behind Silk Curtain

 

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