King of Comedy

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Ian Stanley reviews

King of Comedy
Distributed by
Universe Laser (HK)

    Cover

  • Cert: IIB
  • Cat.no: 5236
  • Running time: 89 minutes
  • Year: 1999
  • Pressing: 2000
  • Region(s): 0, NTSC
  • Chapters: 8 plus extras
  • Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
  • Languages: Cantonese & Mandarin
  • Subtitles: English, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified).
  • Widescreen: 1.85:1
  • 16:9-Enhanced: No
  • Macrovision: Yes
  • Disc Format: DVD 9
  • Price: £8.00
  • Extras: Cast & Crew Interviews, Press Conference, Gala Premiere, NG Footage, Cast & Crew Bios, Theatrical Trailer, Trailers for Gorgeous, Hot War & Rush Hour.

    Director:

      Stephen Chiau & Lee Lik-Chee

Screenplay:

    Stephen Chiau, Fung Min-Hang, Erica Lee, Tsang Kan-Cheung

Cast:

    Wan Tin-Sau: Stephen Chiau
    Lau Piu-Piu: Cecilia Cheung
    Cuckoo To: Karen Mok
    Unit Manager: Ng Man-Tat
    Rika Niushina: Megumi Onina

To quickly establish Stephen Chiau’s popularity and importance in Hong Kong, I’ll draw an accurate (if lazy) comparison and say that he could be described as their answer to Jim Carrey. His films are usually released with a lot of fanfare in HK, and he can also count such megastars as Jackie Chan amongst the people who are happy to cameo in his films (Chiau also cameos in Jackie Chan’s HK movie Gorgeous). Incidentally Stephen Chiau almost seems on the verge of breaking through into the American market, with the release of his latest (2001) HK comedy film, the rather lauded Shaolin Soccer.

The reason why he hasn’t yet broken through with this film, and the reason you’ve probably never heard of it, is down to the US Studio that has bought the International distribution rights, Miramax. However, this is a discussion for another time, for now, onto The King Of Comedy.

When we meet Wan Tin-Sau (Stephen Chiau) he is a failed actor, not even that really, a failed ‘extra’ in fact, who is hanging around the set of action heroine Cuckoo-To’s (Karen Mok) latest movie. Figuring himself a professional actor who just hasn’t yet broken through, he is often chased from the set due to his ill-fated attempts to unnecessarily spice up his performances. In fact, he is such a failure that he’s not even allowed to pick up a lunch box on his frequent trips off the film-set, a basic right of every extra. When not (briefly) on set he runs a community centre where he teaches acting classes for free.

Lau Piu-Piu (Cecilia Cheung) is a nightclub hostess (read: type of ‘prostitute’) who, along with her colleagues, can’t convince the clients that they are college girls in the thrall of first love with them. So the hostesses head ‘en masse’ to the community centre for the free acting lessons and, after being initially sceptical, Piu finds they are helping her with her work. So she alone returns alone for more lessons, and so begins a sometimes edgy, sometimes sweet but always offbeat and amusing romance.

A move from the ‘John Travolta Book of Seduction’.

The synopsis above sounds about as funny as death, but it’s hard to put into words what works on the screen, especially when it’s as surreal as the movie here often is.

This is a shamelessly feel-good movie, a story of the ‘Under-Dog’ coming good, but it works and it works well. In fact, Tin-Sau and Piu-Piu could both be seen as underdogs, people who’ve lost their way in life and have grown weary, until they find in each other a reason to change. A movie like this stands or falls depending on what you think of the main characters, if you hate both, or either of them then you don’t care what happens. It’s a credit to how well written and played the two leads are that you are rooting for them to get together, plenty of rom-coms can’t even get this right.

This kind of role is old-hat for Chiau, a great many of his comedies run along the same Campbellian lines, guy’s life going great, guy’s life turns to crap, guy struggles and gets it all back (or not). This movie is a bit of a departure as, when we met Wan Tin-Sau, he already has very little of note in his life, other than his ‘professional’ work ethic. Chiau is on form here and mines Tin-Sau’s quirks for as many laughs as possible and also plays the later, more serious moments well, evoking sympathy when the bottom drops out of his world.

This was Cecilia Cheung’s first main film role, but from her assured performance here you would never guess it. She has since made good on her promise here, turning in some stunning dramatic performances and becoming a well-respected actress. With a less gifted performer, Piu-Piu could have ended up being a really lousy, dislikeable character, but Cheung imbues her with such a good nature and a tragic undercurrent that, ultimately, it’s hard to not fall for her. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that she’s drop dead gorgeous to look at, but I digress…

Both leads share a good chemistry and it’s not hard to believe they’re falling for one another. They also gel well in the comedy scenes, their initial meeting, when Piu is mocking one of Tin-Sau’s film performances and intellectualisation of acting is a real highlight.

The rest of the notable roles are filled out with a cast of likeable, quirky and well played characters. Popular Hong Kong actress Karen Mok (looking great here) plays action heroine ‘Cuckoo To,’ Chiau film regular ‘Ng Man-Tat’ plays the film set’s Unit Manager, a man who repeatedly punishes Tin-Sau by denying him a lunch-box… Hmmmm??? Last but not least are the gang of three cheap wannabe Triads who Tin-Sau befriends, and who provide many of the movie’s funniest moments. The lead Triad is especially hysterical, wanting to be seen as hard, but looking about all of twelve!

There is humour here to suit all kinds, verbal comedy, slapstick comedy, toilet humour and surrealism, and some of the humour is very cruel. A lot of the jokes are of the running variety, the weirdest one is of a naked kid that seems to turn up everywhere (Don’t worry – nothing dodgy), this pays off in a scene with the young Triads that needs to be seen to be disbelieved.

There are also some pretty serious scenes that are, tonally, quite jarring when they appear, and don’t seem like they should be in a romantic comedy. Two of them are with regards to Piu-Piu, one being where we see why she is so guarded with her emotions, and another is an action scene that seems to have wandered in from a different movie.

As a director, Stephen Chiau seems content, for the most part, to leave the camera very still, there is not much in the way of visual flair on offer here. To be honest, though, this isn’t really the type of film that needs it. One odd thing that’s worth noting about Chiau’s films is that on occasions he deliberately leaves in botched takes. There is one such occasion in this film when Cecilia Cheung bursts into laughter at the end of the scene, it doesn’t detract from the scene, in fact, it adds an odd sense of realism to it.

Cecilia Cheung – the best thing
to EVER happen to a sailor uniform!

As per early Hong Kong discs the transfer on this disc is Non-Anamorphic Widescreen, framed at Approximately 1:85:1 and is average at best. The print used has lots of white and black marks on it and also lines running through it at a couple of points. The black level is not too good, more like dark grey and this lends the picture a washed out look at times. Also the picture is, on occasions, quite soft and lacking in detail. Some scenes, though, do look very good. It’s certainly very watchable, but if you’re expecting a Columbia/Tristar quality transfer then you’ll be very disappointed.

For the purposes of this review I listened to the original Cantonese language 5.1 Track. It’s doesn’t have a particularly vibrant or enveloping soundscape, but then again as a rom-com it doesn’t really call for it. The Rear Surrounds stay mainly silent, for the most part, only coming to life in the ‘Cuckoo To’ action movie scenes, and to pipe out some of the soundtrack’s canto-pop songs.

The English subs on this disc are good, there are quite a few spelling and grammatical errors, but this is nowhere near the worst subtitle track I’ve seen. The subtitles seem quite literal as well, the translation can seem quite coarse at times but this just adds to the movie’s charm.

The extras are pretty good on this disc, but sadly none of them have English subs of any kind.

First up we have various EPK style interview snippets with Co-Director Lee Lik-Chee and stars Stepen Chiau, Karen Mok and Cecilia Cheung. Frustratingly, rather than being edited together into a whole you have to select the snippets from a menu, even more frustratingly the makers of the DVD have taken the time to translate the question on the menu into English but have then not subbed the answer!?! We then come to footage for what looks like a joint ‘Press Conference’ (2:46) of this movie and also the Jackie Chan movie ‘Gorgeous.’ We then move onto the section titled ‘Gala Premiere’ (3:33) which is footage from the night of the premiere of this movie. It works more as an example of how strangely movies are tied in with product placements in Hong Kong (something riffed on in the movie itself)… These three supplements are presented full screen.

We then come to the most generous video supplement ‘NG Shots,’ (21:01) which is essentially a 21 minute ‘Gag Reel’ with a couple of music videos thrown in. Even if you don’t speak Cantonese this is pretty amusing stuff as it not only covers dialogue fluffs but also physical pratfalls, how long you’ll keep watching though, depends on how tolerant you are of this type of extra. This supplement is presented in Non-Anamorphic widescreen.

To round out the extras disc we have the Theatrical Trailer (2:32) along with trailers for the comedy ‘Gorgeous’ (2:05), the action movie ‘Hot War’ (2:01) and Hollywood movie ‘Rush Hour’ (2:20). All of these are presented in Non-Anamorphic widescreen. Finally we have brief text biographies of stars Stephen Chiau, Cecilia Cheung, Karen Mok, Ng Man Tat and co-director Lee Lik-Chee.

King Of Comedy is not a perfect film by any means, some of the plot points, make no sense, some seem forced and a, quite violent, action scene seems uncomfortably shoehorned in. For all that though, this is a fun, undemanding romantic comedy that should appeal equally to both sexes. The picture is perfectly watchable (but could be improved on), the sound is serviceable and a decent set of extras rounds out the package nicely. This can be picked up dirt cheap now and I would highly recommend that you do so.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL
Review copyright © Ian Stanley, 2004.

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