The New King of Comedy (2019)

The name Stephen Chow immediately conjures fond memories of his classic comedies like Shaolin Soccer (which I must have watched over 10 times) and Kung Fu Hustle. Since then, Stephen Chow has resigned to be behind the camera as director to his rare films. If we are lucky we get to watch one Stephen Chow creation a year, usually during the Chinese New Year period. While his recent movies were less inspirational, they nevertheless still shine above others with his unique storytelling style that mixes humour with some sort of social message, and some sentimental ingredients thrown in for good measure so you end up shedding tears from both the laughter and the drama!

The New King of Comedy pays tribute to one of Stephen Chow early works The King of Comedy 20 years ago. As I have not seen the original before, I have approached this new film as a stand alone feature with no early reference to compare with. The plot is simple enough, an aspiring actress struggles to make it as a leading actress as she faces countless rejections and humiliation from family, friends and fellow colleagues. The underlying message is heavily drummed in to the audience right from the very first scene .. "never give up on your dreams, and your hard work will pay off eventually". I guess Stephen Chow has decided against subtlety as he age ..

As usual, Stephen has chosen to cast fresh unknown in the lead, mainland China actress E Jingwen who was perfect playing the quirky, naïve underdog. Her character, named Dreamy, is subjected to numerous hilarious situations as she willingly accepts roles as an extra and happily accepts the opportunity. Whether Jingwen becomes a big star after this outing remains doubtful however, as she is no beauty plus there is always a saturation of new faces in China which makes its really difficult to stand out. There are many Stephen Chow moments in the movie and his humour and sentimental instinct are still very much intact thankfully. However, I did not find the movie consistently entertaining and at times, some of the slapstick humour came across as forced and ultimately not funny. I am referring in particular to many of the scenes involving supposedly the more famous comedian actor, Wang Baoqiang, who is perhaps most famous for his smash comedy hit Lost in Thailand way back in 2012. I feel he overacts his scenes every time making it feel forced and frankly annoying. Dressing up Baoqing in a Snow White outfit in an unlikely idea for a film, feels like a very desperate attempt for laughs. Another thing unusual about this film is that the dialogue this time is almost entirely in Mandarin! Stephen Chow's brand of comedy has always been uttered in the much cruder and flowery Cantonese!

So all in all, I found this movie experience to be yet another uneven mix. I appreciated the moments of Stephen Chow humour and style but cringed during the very unfunny moments as well. Ultimately, I shouldn't complain too much as Stephen Chow movies are getting rarer and rarer these days. Like rare treasures and animals in the brink of extinction, we need to embrace them with their unconditionally with imperfections and all!