University De Macau

UNIVERSITY DE MACAU

UNIVERSITY OF MACAU

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION

Stephen Chow — the King of Comedy in Hong Kong

“Laughter in Disguise” and “Seeing beyond Believing”

Shen Chen (Ives)

M-A9-5506-0

Supervisor: Prof. Tan See Kam

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Macau

August 2011 DECLARATION

I declare that this thesis represents my own work, including where due acknowledgments are made, and that it has not been previously included in a thesis, dissertation or monograph submitted to this university or to any other institutions for a degree, diploma or other qualifications.

Signature _

Acknowledgments

The conceptualization of this thesis, the refinement of its content, and its eventual production have benefited from the contribution of numerous people. I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to extend my sincerest appreciation to each and every one of them.

Biggest and broadest thanks must go first to my supervisor Prof. Tan See Kam whose motto “flexibility in thoughts and creativity in deeds” have and will be inspiring and influencing me for good. He enthused me with the study of movies, deflated, deflected and sharpened my ideas, and assisted me in a number of inquiries at the heart of the research explored in this thesis with his healthy skepticism, his illuminating criticism, his shrewd advice, his extreme attention to detail and his commitment to seeing the thesis through.

I am also deeply in debt to Prof. Chen Huailin, whose rigid, but rigorous inculcation of knowledge imparted nerves of steel and immunity to trials and tribulations to me; Prof.

Timothy Alan Simpson, who is open to argument on assignments and papers; Prof. Wu Mei, who is easy-going in life and meticulous in academics; Prof. Liu Shih-diing, whose critical communication invested me with critical thinking to distinguish “the wolf in sheep’s clothing”, and Prof. Ting Yi-feng, from whom I know how to “keep my cool” and “play it cool” in the presentation in that she is the coolest teacher I have ever seen. Nor can I forget

Jenny, our secretary, for her concrete identifiable contributions.

Finally, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to all those who, in one way or another, helped me complete the thesis.

iii

Abstract

This thesis is an interpretative attempt to explore the form and content of Stephen

Chow’s Hong Kong movies, which are famous for his non-sensical levity. Known in

Cantonese as mou-lei-tou and wu-li-tou in Mandarin, this levity expands the realms of comedy genre. Stephen Chow’s comedies dissect the fraught relations between Hong Kong and Mainland China, showing how Hong Kong struggles and negotiates with Mainland China in the matter of national affiliation, political allegiance and cultural citizenship. The handover of Hong Kong in 1997 from Great Britain to the People’s Republic of China will be viewed as a watershed, according to which, a wide spectrum of Stephen Chow’s movies are covered and analyzed in this thesis. This thesis engages with semiotics to decipher the stills extracted from

Stephen Chow’s movies within the frame of postmodernism. It argues that the attitudes and perceptions of Hong Kong toward Mainland China, as seen in and through Stephen Chow’s movie corpus, have been transformed from being negative and pessimistic to something comparatively more positive and optimistic, transfigured from the deep-seated concepts or stereotypes to being more open and liberal, and transmuted from the horror for and macabreness toward Mainland China to gradual mergence and assimilation with and into each other. In terms of Stephen Chow’s movies, the correspondence between Hong Kong and

Mainland China has come a long way and has been making their way toward peace, harmony and inclusion.

Key words: Movie/film/cinema, Hong Kong movies, Comedy, Postmodernism, Semiotics

Table of Contents

Declaration…………………………………………………………………………...……..ii

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………….………iii

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..……iv

Table of Contents………………………………………………………………...….……v

Introduction…………………………………………….....…………………………..……1

Literature Review…………………………………………………………………..……..2

Movie/Film/Cinema?...... 3

Hong Kong Movies…………………………………………………………....………..6

Comedy………………………………………………………………………...……..….9

Postmodernism……………………………………………………………….………..36

Semiotics……………………………………………………………...………..……….43

Method…………………….……………………………………………..…………………48

Research Question………………………………………………..…………….……….51

Data Analysis…………………………………………………...………………..……….51

Discussion and Conclusion…………………………………………...………………85

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..………..87

Introduction

Pier Paolo Pasolini, an Italian movie director, once said: “As a movie director, what I grab hold of and master at my command, since the birth of arts, is the most glamorous art form, the only and the most ‘realistic’ lingua franca in the world.” (陆绍阳, 2009, p. 12) [This is my translation on 意大利导演帕索里尼说过，作为一名电影导演，他所掌握的是自艺

术诞生以来最有魅力的艺术形式，是全世界唯一共同的，最“真实”的语言。] “The

creation of a film is, in part, a structure of educated guesswork and creative repetition”

(Kolker, 1998, p. 14). Movies are made and targeted to the audience and will survive only as

far as its viewers find it acceptable — no matter it is a feature, diverting or entertaining, or

documentary, characterized as the portrayal of reality. Movies, as the seventh art, satisfy our

basic instinct to delineate reality, portray the world around us, and voice our opinions in a

covert or overt way.

The objectives of the study

The Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 is a stain in China’s strike toward

democracy. The handover of Hong Kong from Great Britain to the People’s Republic of

China in 1997 is a fatal watershed in the relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland

China. Against this background, this thesis dissects Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies, which

are the epitome of postmodernism. The dissection “requires researchers to politicize the social

problems by situating them in historical and cultural contexts, to implicate themselves in the

process of collecting and analyzing data, and to relativize their findings” (Charmaz, 1995 as

cited in Lindlof & Taylor, 2002, p. 52).

Stephen Chow’s movies, falling into the category of comedy, which “[hinge] upon

the rules of social and cultural behavior in force at a given time and place” (Weitz, 2009, p.

15) and “[welcome] the extravagant, the exaggerated, the larger-than-life” (Lowe, 2008, p. 2),

are often involved in the politics of representation: “Who and what we laugh at, and why, has

implications in terms of both how we see others and how we define ourselves” (King, 2002, p.

129).

“One of the key preconditions of the postmodern condition is the proliferation of

signs” (Collins, 2000, pp. 759), in which, presence stands for absence. Postmodernism, as

John Hill (1998) explains, does not simply interpret old materials and representations as a

kind of depthlessness, but also employs them as critical ingredients to deconstruct and subvert

themselves as well as construct and develop new ones through reorienting artistic and cultural

discourses (p. 102). Using postmodern esthetics, Hong Kong’s attitudes and perceptions

toward Mainland China, as portrayed in Stephen Chow’s movies, are transformed into icons,

indices and symbols, which, in turn, are re-worked, re-constructed, re-positioned and re-

developed to re-voice their opinions toward Mainland China.

The Significance of the study

Semioticians would regard films as texts, which “can be approached, experienced, in reaction to the sign[s]” (Barthes, 1977, pp. 158). Stam, Burgoyne and Flitterman-Lewis (1992) support this stance when they see the film-text as a social construct rather than as a mere emulation of reality (p. 191).

In this thesis, the semiotic approach is employed in the analysis of the film text.

Contrary to the traditional accentuation on the character and plot of movies, semiotics focuses on the filmic signifiers, putting them under the analytical microscope that, to some extent,

“renders film analysis less naïve, less caught-up in the make-believe world of the story of the film” (Stam, 2000, p. 147). The movies can then be scrutinized shot by shot, image by image, so as to explore and discover the meanings behind each shot and image. This scrutiny and discovery of meaning is “an active process” (Fiske, 2011, pp. 43-44) and “can never be analyzed in an isolated fashion” (Barthes, 1994, p. 158).

Literature Review

Movie/Film/Cinema

What is Movie/Film/Cinema?

“If poetry is what you cannot translate . . . then ‘art’ is what you can’t define”

(Monaco, 2009, p. 24). So too is the movie, which, received as the seventh art, was born in

December 28, 1895.

What is the first thing that pops up in your mind when we talk about movies?

Obviously and naturally, the idea of movies as a form of “entertainment” is in the forefront of people’s mind. For many, “A film is what we see when we go to the cinema (or the movies) or watch a videocassette or a television broadcast of a film” (Kolker, 1998, p. 11). However, we could enjoy a film on line, on our portable video devices, cellphones or any other gadgets in this cyber era, which is no longer confined to the theater or certain devices and equipment.

That answer to the question seems quite simple, concise and straightforward, but it only scratches the surface. In fact, the “deep” answer would go into “the heart of the complexities of the institutions, the practices, and the viewing of movies” (ibid.).

Berys Gaut thinks that “film is an art, not simply the recording of an art: communication occurs via the mode of presentation of content, not simply via the presentation of different contents” (2010, p. 43). In other words, it is how films present the content that sets communication into motion, not simply what they present, during the process of which, “a person’s beliefs, understandings, and values are all activated within the context of film viewing” (Kolker, 1998, p. 12).

Rey Chow (1998) interprets the film as “a transcultural phenomenon, having as it does the capacity to transcend ‘culture’ — to create modes of fascination which are readily accessible and which engage audiences in ways independent of their linguistic and cultural specificities” (p. 174).

From Christian Metz’s point of view, “Cinema is a vast subject, and there are more

ways than one to enter it. Taken as a whole, it is first of all a fact, and as such it raises

problems of aesthetics, of sociology, and of semiology, as well as of the psychology of

perception and intellection. Whether good or bad, each film is, first of all, a piece of cinema

(in the way that one speaks of a piece of music)” (1991, p. 3).

Movies, as a kind of self-constructed presence teeming with stories, characters, and emotions, serve “the function of all storytelling”: they entertain, inspire and perhaps even teach us to cope with problems (Voytilla, 1999, p. 1).

The movie, film and cinema are “more [about] an attitude than an action” (Monaco,

2009, p. 24). They, though constituting an integral part of our lives, are difficult to define, distinguish and dissect in stable terms: they manifest an intelligibility that is not essentialist in characters, or reducible to any essence (Stam, 2000, p. 35).

Parallels and Contrasts among Movie/Film/Cinema

In linguistic terms, “film”, “cinema”, “movie” are the three synonyms in English that

are often used to refer to the seemingly same thing. However, niceties and subtleties do exist

among them to help us know, differentiate and understand them.

In the United States, film, concerning “its relationship with the world around it”

(Monaco, 2009, p. 252) is “reserved for serious intent” (Kolker, 1998, p. 11).

Cinema, encompassing “the entire institution of filmmaking, film distribution, film

exhibition, and film viewing” (ibid.), deals with “the esthetics add internal structure of the

art” (Monaco, 2009, p. 252).

Movie, taking place of cinema in the United States, functions as “an economic

commodity” (ibid.).

The nuances among these three tightly knit facets are vividly enlarged upon by James

Monaco (2009) as “‘movies,’ like popcorn, are to be consumed; ‘cinema’ (at least in

American parlance) is high art, redolent of esthetics; ‘film’ is the most general term with the

fewest connotations” (ibid.).

Indeed, we don’t need to coin a new term to indicate the generalized production of

audiovisual communication and entertainment although the boundaries of the meanings of the

three words, over the years, have expanded, gradually yet inexorably. The contemporary

movie/film/cinema can be seen as a synthesis of the three facets mentioned above that

encapsulates the economy of consumption. The semiotic employment, application,

construction and deconstruction of the esthetics and internal structure thus becomes a tool, an

apparatus for observing, mirroring, reflecting, even insinuating the world around it. In this

thesis, I use the terms — film, cinema, and movie — interchangeably.

Glamor of Movie/ Film/ Cinema

“A film is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand” (Monaco, 2009, p.

178). This is the same as saying: a film is unique because it is not unique.

Films, as “heir to all the antecedent arts” (Stam, 2000, p. 35), are viewed as “the contemporary form of mythmaking, reflecting our response to ourselves and the mysteries and wonders of our existence” (Voytilla, 1999, p.1). “Films are not exact copies of reality”

(Gaut, 2010, p. 42); so it gives us the feeling that we are looking at our reflection in the water.

The power of films lies in that they have “the appeal of a presence and of a proximity that strikes the masses and fills the movie theater” (Metz, 1991, p. 5). The glamor of films appertains to the notion that “films can be representations” (Scruton, 1983, p. 42). To put it in another way, films could touch the heart chords among audiences — the projected images bridging the gap between the art form and the masses.

Because of the “plasticity of its recording capacities” (Gaut, 2010, p. 42), films could

convey thoughts in different ways through selecting different optical points of view, adjusting

different lenses, moving different cameras, adopting different film stocks, updating different

techniques of editing, allocating different aspect ratios, and so on.

Hong Kong Movies

Undeniably, the development of Hong Kong films is one of the success stories in the

history of film. “The development of cinema in Hong Kong cannot be dissociated from the

development of cinema in the Chinese cinema” (Teo, 1997, p. 3). The development and

evolution of Hong Kong films will be enlarged upon in this chapter.

The early history

Hong Kong, as one of the cradles of Chinese cinema, produced, in 1909, two comedies: Right a Wrong with Earthenware Dish and Stealing the Roasted Duck. Both are adapted from the treasury of Chinese operas and produced by an American business named

Benjamin Brodsky, who later established the Asian Film Company in Shanghai.

Li Minwei, who collaborated with Brodsky to found the Sino-American (Huamei)

Film Company, also made a great contribution in setting up another two important companies,

China Sun (Minxin) in 1922 and United Photoplay Service (Lianhua) in 1930 that dominated and influenced the “center of filmmaking in the Chinese-speaking world” at the time (Teo,

1998, p. 551) — the nascent film industries of Hong Kong and Shanghai. Later with the advent of sound technology, Hong Kong films became the “production centre of Cantonese- dialect movies” (ibid.).

Hong Kong was transformed into a production fertile ground for “national defence films” (ibid.) when the anti-Japanese war exploded in 1937. These movies called on and exhorted the Chinese populace to take up arms and fight against the Japanese. Shanghai

filmmakers who fled to Hong Kong added to this economy of cinematic patriotism. They

formed the first wave of migration from Shanghai filmmakers to Hong Kong.

Post-war renaissance

“The years between 1946 and 1949 were crucial in laying the foundations for Hong

Kong to replace Shanghai as the ‘Hollywood of the East’” (ibid.) Two waves of exodus flooded to Hong Kong during this period, which became the transition hub of filmmaking for talent fleeing Shanghai.

First, immediately after the war, actors and directors who had elected to stay on in

Shanghai under Japanese occupation were accused of collaborating with the enemy.

These filmmakers, including veteran directors Zhu Shilin, Yue Feng, Bu Wancang,

Ma-Xu Weibang, Li Pingqian, and producer Zhang Shankun, took off for Hong Kong.

The second influx of Shanghai talent into Hong Kong took place in 1947 and 1948 as

the civil war raged on the mainland. This time many of the directors were

communists or sympathizers fleeing white terror campaign launched by the

Kuomintang government. (ibid.)

The Cantonese cinema

Cantonese cinema embraced its golden age in the 1950s, which was injected more

“social substance and progressive thinking” (ibid., p. 552) by a campaign initiated by the left-

wing movement. However, with the establishment of the Union Film Company (Chung-luen)

in 1952, Cantonese cinema had gradually reached its heyday during the next two decades.

Cantonese movies, primarily a popular mass medium consisting of comedies, opera

films, martial arts action movies, and melodramas, carried “the image of being a ‘fast-food’

cinema: cheap, mass-produced, easily consumed and discarded” (ibid.). In a word, quality

bowed to quantity. The cinema reached saturation-point in 1965 that presaged the decline of

Cantonese cinema in the wake of economic crisis (ibid.). 7

The decline had been ascribed to a more important factor that was “the rise of local

Cantonese-dialect broadcast television in 1967, which siphoned off audience support from

Cantonese movies and allowed Mandarin movies to enjoy predominance” (ibid.). However,

Cantonese movies regained in popularity in 1973.

Generational change

The Hong Kong New Wave was ushered in by the generation of filmmakers, born after the war, who grew up during the 1950s and 1960s; many of whom went abroad and studied films. Since then, Hong Kong films have won international recognition.

It was not until the mid-1980s that the question of “1997” – the year when People’s

Republic of China shall take over Hong Kong a Special Administrative Region, reared its ugly head. This question was considered by some directors, for example, Yim Ho, Leong Po- chih and so on. “In the 1990s Hong Kong cinema entered a period of uncertainty” (ibid., p.

553).

China and 1997

The change of sovereignty in 1997 marked the period to British colonial rule and the beginning of a new era in the history of Hong Kong, which became a Special Administrative

Region of the People’s Republic of China.

This political watershed has overshadowed almost all aspects of life in Hong Kong,

including its cinema. Indeed, how the relations between Hong Kong and China have

been represented in films has been one of the more ostensible themes in the study of

Hong Kong cinema since the 1980s. However, it is also possible to look at the way

Hong Kong cinema has handled its relationship with China over a longer period, and

this will shed light on aspects of the history of film studies of Hong Kong. (Leung,

1998, p. 554)

From the 1980s onwards the Hong Kong cinema has been in a period called “Post-

1997 Consciousness” (ibid.), a period when the Hong Kong cinema finally began to notice, pay attention to and care about this politically important issue, and so express, covertly and overtly, its sentiments on the matter.

For many years, the handover served as the focal point for nearly all analysis of Hong

Kong cinema. Between the time of the Joint Declaration in 1984, when Hong Kong’s

return to China was announced, and 1997, when it was realized, Hong Kong films

were inevitably seen as reflecting the welter of feelings of the Hong Kong people

towards the momentous change before them. The sensibility that predominated in

mainstream Hong Kong cinema was High Romanticism: its 'outlaw heroes’. . . .

mourned its impending loss. But as the time of the Handover drew closer, there was a

marked shift in tone. Now the Hong Kong film turned anti-romantic, anti-heroic,

cynical and even despairing. (Collier, 2007, p.137)

How to construct the attitudes or sentiments of Hong Kong people toward Mainland

China has been the perennial theme in Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies that are influenced by the Cantonese action movies in the 1960s, which “contained a fine sense of parody that would lay the foundations of the post-modern humour of later films” (Teo, 1998, p. 553).

Comedy

The instant Stephen Chow’s movies are mentioned, they are naturally and spontaneously subsumed under the category of comedy. Why not action movies, horror ones or science fiction ones? The concepts “genre” and “genre films” will be expatiated upon and illuminated in the following pages.

Genre

What are genres? Are they just “ways of grouping movies by style and story” (Berry,

1999, p. 25)? Are they stylistic and narrative patterns, selected, shot and repeated to cater to 9

the taste of “sovereign film consumers” (ibid.)? Are they “elixir” of box office that is replicated by film companies to maximize their returns, which has proved remunerative in the past?

Genre isn’t a word that pops up in every conversation about films – or every review –

but the idea is second nature to the movies and our awareness of them. Movies belong

to genres much the way people belong to families or ethnic groups. Name one of the

classic, bedrock genres — Western, comedy, musical, war film, gangster picture,

science fiction, horror — and even the most casual moviegoer will come up with a

mental image of it, partly visual, partly conceptual. (Jameson, 1994, p. ix)

Genre, “defined as an empirical category that serves to name, differentiate, and classify works on the basis of the recurring configurations of formal and thematic elements they share” (Moine, 2008, p. 2), is “a collection of shared rules that allows the filmmaker to use established communicative formulas and the viewer to organize his own system of expectations” (Casetti, 1999, p. 271).

Ten claims about genres conducive to better understand the classically traditional studies on film genres are presented by Rick Altman (1999) in a straightforward manner.

• Genre is a useful category, because it bridges multiple concerns.

• Genres are defined by the film industry and recognized by the mass audience.

• Genres have clear, stable identities and borders.

• Individual films belong to wholly and permanently to a single genre.

• Genres are trans-historical.

• Genres undergo predictable development.

• Genres are located in a particular topic, structure and corpus. 10

• Genre films share certain fundamental characteristics.

• Genres have either a ritual or an ideological function.

• Genre critics are distanced from the practice of genre. ( p. 14-28)

Meanwhile, figures of speech are used to further identify it.

• genre as a blueprint: a formula that precedes, programs, and patterns

industrial production;

• genre as structure: as the formal framework on which individual films are

founded;

• genre as label: as the name of a category central to the decisions and communications of distributors and exhibitors;

• genre as contract: as the viewing position required by each genre film of its audience. (ibid., p. 14)

Steve Neale (2000) explains that no matter how they are defined, compartmentalized and labeled, genres do not only consist of films but also of “specific systems of expectation and hypothesis that spectators bring with them to the cinema and that interact with films themselves during the course of the viewing process” (p. 158). In a word, genres render filmic elements easy and explicable for viewers to recognize and understand.

Apart from its “descriptive and classificatory” (Moine, 2008, p. 98) function that

“[situates] and [ranks] recurring narrative, ideological, and aesthetic forms and elements within cinematic production as a whole” (ibid., p. xi), the genre can also be “interpretive”

(ibid., p. 96). That means significance of “what is happening on the screen: why particular events and actions are taking place, why characters are dressed the way they are, why they

look, speak, and behave the way they do” (Neale, 2000, p. 158) can be found in the

interactions between works, and between works and how they are produced and received.

In actuality, how a genre appears and evolves is molded, formed, changed and

influenced by social, cultural and cinematographic environment because development they

depict in the movies is “in tune with and reflective of the unique tenor and experience of the

age” (Voytilla, 1999, p. 1).

Genre Films

Grant (2003) states simply that genre films, which is “categorized with reference to a

culturally familiar rubric” (berry, 1999, p. 25), are “those commercial feature films which,

through repetition and variation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar

situations” (p. xv). “[T]he essence of genre is the fundamental recipe of repetition and

difference” (Mortimer, 2010, p. 2), so it can also be viewed as “anathema to creativity and

artistry” (ibid., p. 1).

Genre films, relying on “preordained forms, known plots, recognizable characters,

and obvious iconographies” (Sobchack, 2003, p. 106), temporarily relieve “the fears aroused

by a recognition of social and political conflicts” (right, 2003, p. 42) and help “discourage any

action that might otherwise follow upon the pressure generated by living with these conflicts”

(ibid.).

Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies, as one of the most popular cinematic genres in

Hong Kong, can be regarded as a hybrid of the non-sense and comedy. Both of them, to a

greater or lesser extent, can be found in many genre films, featuring a narrative centering on

the process of innuendo and subversion, and, being a comedy resulting in a happy ending.

In his almost G-rated movies, we will see the same characters comprised of Stephen

Chow himself as male protagonist and a motley crew as buffoon characters, the same narrative trajectory focusing on good overcoming evil, the same witty and lambent dialogue 12

with new female protagonist crowned “Miss. Star” (星女郎) that means the lucky young lady

is selected by Stephen Chow.

Therefore, the genre of Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies can be described as a

medley of three closely knit ingredients: a narrative that reflects, reveals and insinuates the

conflicts or the reality of the society; a domain of “transformation and fantasy” (Deleyto,

2009, p. 45) that constructs the narrative articulation; and laughter as the typical “selling

point” that is the corollary of the narrative articulation.

Comedy

Monaco (2009) notices that Comedy, along with other six activities: History, Poetry,

Tragedy, Music, Dance and Astronomy, is recognized by the ancients as art. Each of them is governed by its own muse with their own rules and aims, and is counted as medium or vehicle to delineate the universe around us. They, pervading with the aura of mysteries, could help us understand the mysteries of existence (p. 24).

Comedy, as one of the seven arts since the ancient times, is from Greek komoidia,

which is interwoven with a complex cultural history.

In the first century BC Cicero describes comedy as a mirror of manners. Many later

writers have agreed. During the Italian Renaissance Baldesar Castiglione saw comic

writing as the mode which could ‘express better than the rest, the trade of man’s life’.

In Elizabethan England Ben Jonson, in Every man out of his Humor, quoted the

Ciceronian definition with approval and rejected romantic comedy in favor of what

was ‘familiarly allied to the time’. In the eighteen century the critic John Dennis

declared, ‘Comedy is nothing but a picture of common life, and a representation of

humors and manners.’ (Nelson, 1990, p. 138)

The modern usage of Comedy, in contrast to its older use which attached more

importance and significance to harmony and reconciliation than wit or hilarity as the essence

of comedy: “comedies were tales which began obstacles standing in the way of happiness but went on to show these obstacles being overcome” (Nelson, 1990, p. 1), encompasses two concepts: one is the laughter and the other, less obvious, is “the movement of a story towards an ending characterized by harmony, festivity, and celebration” (ibid., p. 22) and, according to N.J. Lowe, “covers all formally marked varieties of performed humor, whether scripted or improvised, group or solo, in any medium: theater, film, television, radio, stand-up, and various hybrids and mutations of these” (2008, p. 1). Through extension and expansion, it could also be applied to novels and other non-performance texts, which share recognizable and distinguishable traits of plot, theme, or tone with the classical tradition of comic drama and are utilized as a casual synonym for ‘humor’.

The domain of the comedy is a “special world” (Mulkay, 1988, p. 8) in societies where being serious is assumed to be of convention, canon and norm in that one attribute which is shared by most, if not all, comedy and defines its popular appeal, is of its relative neutrality, safety, and non-menace (King, 2002, p. 2). Based on that, comedy is awarded a

“license” or “passkey” to dabble in some taboo areas that are off-limits for other movies. In other words, comedy, not usually taking entirely serious, is still viewed as the quintessence of light relief or just entertainment that is also the dominant interpretation in contemporary usage although it has not always been the case: “A comedy might initially be defined as a work that is designed to provoke laughter or humour on the part of the viewer” (ibid.).

Effective comedy, like thrillers, uses surprise and suspense to form, build and develop comedic atmosphere. In comparison with thrillers which utilize surprise to shock, comedies harness it for laughs (Voytilla, 1999, p. 236). In contrast to thrillers which manipulate suspense to keep audiences glued to their seats, comedies apply it to explode bigger laughs that will make the viewers split their sides (ibid.). Surprise, featured as the unexpected, unusual or insane, will challenge your mindset and imagination, or a sudden inversion of plot, fate or fortune etc., plus suspense, which helps the audience expect greater payoffs (ibid., p.

237) are closely intertwined to be a winning combination in Stephen Chow’s movies to seduce laughs from the audience.

Surprise produced by Stephen Chow often “kills” the audience’s suspense in a non- sensible and unimaginable way. In King of Beggars, Su Can, in order to win the title of “Wu

Zhuang Yuan (武状元)” which means the No. 1 in martial arts, takes a series of tests before the final round: one-on-one fight. Audiences take it for granted that it is a snap for Su Can to pass the weightlifting test with full score because he passes all the previous tests with flying colors. Su Can seems to muster up his energy and stand prepared to lift the weights with an exaggerated gesture, but he wholly gives up without even lift the weights up an inch for the sake of saving his energy strategically.

Figure 1: Su Can is trying to lift the giant weights in King of Beggars.

In Flirting Scholar, Tang Bohu picks a paintbrush and dips it in an ink-like liquid based on which, viewers infer that Tang Bohu will show us his spectacular painting skills, but the story below differs greatly with the appearance of bunches of grilled chicken wings. As a matter of fact, the brush is used to smear the ink-like liquid, which, in fact, is the soy source, over the chicken wings. In another scene, Tang Bohu, as the head of the Top Four Scholars in

Jiang Nan, is incited by the other three scholars, who are jealous of Tang Bohu having eight raving beauties as his wives, to show his skills in how to start a small talk with a girl he does 15

not know and then asks her out. They target on a “lady” sitting on the bridge whose back can

only be seen. From “her” back contour and Tang Bohu’s ravished air hypnotized by “her”

handkerchief, a consensus is reached among audiences that “she” must be ravishing. When

“she” turns around and appears in front of us, however, what we see is that a guy with bristles,

who dresses up as a girl, is picking his nose.

Figure 2: A close-up is projected to the ravishing “lady” in Flirting Scholar.

In Forbidden City Cop, royal agent coded as 00Fa (00 发) himself, not to mention the viewers, thinks that he will be awarded the Best Actor in an Academy Award-like ceremony.

However, his sense of excitement and viewers’ anticipation are both poured cold water on when the anchor-like monk announces that the Best Actor goes to 00Fa’s father-in-law.

Figure 3: The comparison on facial expression between 00Fa and his father-in-law

when the Best Actor goes to his father-in-law in Forbidden City Cop.

In the scenes above, waves of laughs will be exploded among audiences through

dashing their anticipation or challenging their mindsets that is achieved by the reversal of the

plot, the misapplication of props, the hybrid of both genders and the U-turn of Character's fate.

In this sense, Stephen Chow’s movies are effective because laughs are everywhere.

Essence of Comedy

Voytilla (1999) jokes that deconstructing comedy can be as discouraging as cracking the mystery of the Sphinx (p. 236). “To analyse comedy, the cliché goes, is to destroy it”

(King, 2002, p. 4). When we talk about Stephen Chow’s movies, the first word pops up out of our mind is comedy. Why is his movies viewed and understood as comedy? It is too perfunctory, superficial and naïve to frame his movies as comedy just because his movies are the “maw” of laughter that could make us laugh or at least amuse us. As L. J. Potts says: “I cannot help thinking that to identify comedy with laughter is to begin at the wrong end. . . . so comedy is too complex to be merely funny” (1957, p. 18). There, surely, is something deeper and more both in the surface behavior and in the essence expression of comedy. The following “explosives” will help us “destroy” it although “comedy is an extremely personal

Journey, again compounding the mystery of its success” (Voytilla, 1999, p. 236).

Laughter

It is without doubt that in some senses, Stephen Chow’s movies are characterized by

his inimitable and unique laughter, so what is laughter?

Generally speaking, laughter is the typical product of comedy as the cry or tears is the

signature element of tragedy. “The generation of laughter is the fundamental narrative

dynamic within any form of comedy” (Mortimer, 2010, p. 3) and “We know comedy works

when we hear the laughter” (Voytilla, 1999, p. 236). Undeniably, laughter is hailed as the

incarnation or “public face” of comedy. However, laughter itself does not suffice to define whether or not a movie is a comedy. Laughter, “considered one of the most extravagant physical effects one person can have on another without touching them” (Weitz, 2009, p. 3), is “desperately needed in a world dominated by the spirit of seriousness, by fanaticism, intolerance, and fear” (Nelson, 199o, p. 1). Meanwhile, laughter partly hinges upon social and cultural conventions, traditions and background, so that is why “laughter is always the laughter of the group” (Bergson, 1980, p. 64), who sees laughter as one way composed in larger measure of distinctions between self and other to describe and define themselves (King,

2002, p. 144).

Nelson (1990) points out that laughter is often of disorder, malice or vindictiveness (p.

2). People laugh when they feel superior.

When we laugh, we usually laugh at someone or something: ‘Nothing’, Nell muses in

Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, ‘is funnier than unhappiness.’ It has often been observed

that people enjoy laughing at other people’s physical deformities and at the

misfortunes, especially bodily misfortunes, which befall them. (Nelson, 1990, p. 3)

The cause of laughter is sudden exaltation at a triumph of our own or an indignity

suffered by someone else. . . . More specifically, Hobbes seems to see laughter as an

expression of unfounded pride: those who laugh most are those who are momentarily

released by laughter from awareness of their own lack of ability. We laugh at those

who have stood above us, but who gratify our wish for superiority by falling from

their pedestals. (ibid., p. 5)

That is to say laughter, as Nelson concludes (1990), could satisfy or gratify our inner impulses or psychic release that is usually held back (p. 4).

Consequently, this sheds light on why a lot of glamorous women in Stephen Chow’s movies are deliberately put on an unusually ugly face. The following are the classic cases of these “transformed”, even “deformed” beauties.

Figure 4: Gong L Figure 5: Gong Li acting as Qiu Xiang who is kicked to

distortion in Flirting Scholar.

Figure 6: Mo Wenwei (Karen Mok) Figure 7: Mo Wenwei (Karen Mok) performing as a

female hooligan named Huo Ji (Turkey in

its literal meaning) in The God of Cookery

. 19

Figure 8: Zhao Wei Figure 9: Zhao Wei in Shaolin Soccer playing

as a steamed-bun cook.

Compared with their superstar profile, Gong Li in Flirting Scholar, acting as Qiu

Xiang who is a maid in Hua Fu, is beaten by the villain to unrecognition. Mo Wenwei in The

God of Cookery, performing as a female hooligan who loves Stephen body and soul, is marred a scar near her right eye and her buck teeth. Zhao Wei, who uses tai chi to make steamed buns in in Shaolin Soccer, is stained by her bush-like long hair which covers her moon’s cratered surface-like face. What happened to them is not so much deformities as abnormalities that are beyond the audience’s psychic tolerance, resistance and resilience.

Based on those cases above, those celebrities who were once placed on a pedestal are now

“normalized”, de-idolized and inferior to us. That is where the laughter pops up when we see these scenes.

Humor

“Comedy can lead an audience to humor but cannot force them to laugh” (Weitz,

2009, p. 64). Laughter is generally perceived as the axiomatic evidence and vehicle of humor, but “not all laughter is the fruit of humour. . . . humour and its corresponding laughter can also be liberating” (Bremmer and Roodenburg, 1997, p. 2).

“Humanity is the only species with a sense of humor” (Palmer, 1994, p. 1) as Apte

(1985) discovers that human beings are endowed with a mental framework felicitous for

perceiving experiences in nature and in surroundings abounding with cultural symbols for the aim of joy and recreation (p. 177).

What in the world is humor? Humor, as one of a wide of variety of stimuli to which a biologically involuntary reaction – laughter responds, is used by Bremmer and Roodenburg

(1997) as “the most general and neutral notion available to cover a whole variety of behaviour: from apophthegms to spoonerisms, practical jokes to puns, farce to foolery” (p. 1). In crude terms, humor is counted as any message, which, aiming at producing laughter, could be transmitted and demonstrated in what we do, what we say, what we write, what we see and what we listen.

Weitz stresses that “‘Humor’ is a social transaction between at least two people”

(2009, p. 2) through which laughter or diversion is intended to be elicited between, for example in movies, a performer and audience.

Tough “Humour is wide-ranging, and covers anything from the belly-laugh to the

inward smile” (Lamb, 1990, Forword) and a whole variety of communicative

potential and effect. . . . humor is a trait of an interlocutor, exhibited in a discourse or

of any work of art which reflects its possessor's or creator's wittiness, playfulness,

"philosophicalness", and in his ability to spot the incongruous and funny and to state

matters implicitly and wittily in the form of discourse in order to elicit in the recipient

delight, involuntary inner or outward smile or laughter, sympathy or approval. (徐立

新, 2003, p. 18)

Clues are shown to what really matters in our society and culture by humor which

“mirrors deeper cultural perceptions and offers us a powerful device to understand culturally shaped ways of thinking and feeling” (Driessen, 1997, p. 222) in that “all humor involves negations, absurdities, and darkness about our lives . . . the conflicted way we cope with this darkest of all dark realities” (Hobby, 2010, p. 57).

Hopfl (2007) also adds that humor “violates trajectories, breaches the notion of inevitability and disposes of social convention” (p. 33), so it is believed that humor could serve the “social function of correcting deviant social behavior” (Hill, 1988, p. 41).

Since humor is so abstract, we have to think of it in more than one facet. As Ziesing

(2001) explains “understanding humor requires a number of cultural reference points, including history, customs, games, religions, current events, taboos, kinship structures, traditions, and more” (p. 8). In a word, humor is culturally specific. Robert Solomon (1997) puts more flesh on it that “all humor is to some extent ‘racist’, not in the vile sense of demeaning some ethnic or racial group but rather in the innocent . . . sense that all humor is to some extent context and culture-bound” and “humor is probably the most difficult feature of another culture . . . . Humor is the last frontier to be crossed in the complete understanding of another culture” (as cited in Ziesing, 2001, p. 8).

“Almost all humor is based on contradictions and incongruity” (Sorensen, 2008, p.

171), because of which, language or turns of phrase, in turn, can best interpret humor. The relationship between language and humor is revealed by Thomas C. Veatch (1998) as follows:

Language is often implicated in humor. Humor may play off of lexical ambiguity (as

in puns), or make use of linguistic ill-formedness or stigmatized forms, dialect

features, etc. (as in ridicule using mimicry), or may use linguistic arguments (that is,

logically fallacious lines of reasoning whose apparent sense is derived from linguistic

factors like ambiguity, metaphor, idioms, formal similarities), etc. Mimicry for

humorous effect may make specific use of linguistic features characteristic of a

dialect or of an individual's speech pattern, or may impose artificial or exaggerated

intonation patterns or voice quality. Listeners who view the speech patterns of

another as unusual or different may laugh at them. Grammatical errors or differences

can be the focus of humorous expression. (as cited in Ziesing, 2001, p. 8)

Apart from this kind of “perfidy of language” (Nelson, 1990, p. 128), humor grounded on language may also proceed from a sense of psychic release, arising from which sexual jokes are the most obvious exemplars that stand the test of time (ibid., p. 124).

Usages of language, to put it more specifically, “play on words” that “literaliz[es] metaphoric expressions or produc[es] intentional nonsense and thus overthrow[es] established meanings and dominant values (Lai, 2001, p. 242)”, are not only the conspicuous feature of

Stephen Chow’s movies, but also the fount of the laugher in his movies. F-words or expletives are sometimes used blatantly and nakedly in his movies. In Hail the Judge, which is about how a trivial and low-ranking royal official named Bao Longxing acted by Stephen

Chown, through his wits and courage, does the justice and rights a wrong for a woman whose whole family is killed by a top official’s son, “Up yours” as an insulting or offensive term of abuse is frequently shot from Bao Longxing’s mouth to “address” those corrupt officials. This is the direct and explicit psychic release of dissatisfaction, distain and defiance toward those so-called authorities. Yin Yang Ren in Hail the Judge is euphemistically used to insinuate and satire that one of the officials called Li Weixin is a eunuch. Yin and Yang, which is in essence contradictory, here refers to the male and female. “Yin Yang Ren” sarcastically implies that

Li Weixin is the kind of “creature” categorized between the male and female. It takes a sideswipe at the fact that he is a eunuch – an incomplete man even if he is now in favor with the Empress dowager. In Royal Tramp, “Fan Qing Fu Ming”, as the slogan of the secret resistance named Earth and Heaven Association (天地会), which aims at reestablishing the

Ming Dynasty by overthrowing the reign of Qing Dynasty, is “contorted” and “insulted” in a simple, blunt and flagrant way as regaining the wealth and women that once belonged to us from the control of Qing Dynasty. Here the meaning and essence of “Fan Qing Fu Ming” have been simplified, subverted, cheapened and relegated from a noble, superior and serious national cause of toppling the Qing Dynasty to a quite mediocre, inferior and vulgar bandit- like behavior — fighting for money and women.

It is this kind of language style — the insult masquerading as compliment and

lambentness lurking behind seriousness, that does justice to Stephen Chow’s sense of humor

— “folk humor . . . that defend[s] ordinary people’s creativity in unofficial forms” (ibid., p.

244).

Figure 10: “Yin Yang Ren” addressed by Bao Longxing to the eunuch Li Weixin in Hail the

Judge.

Imitation of Inferior People

“Comedy is 'a mimesis inferior people'” (Lowe, 2008, p. 2). Weitz (2009) interprets comedy as seeking involvement into or connection with the audience’s daily life and caring more about their quotidian concerns (pp. 12-12). Since comedy deals with the inferior classes of people and “claims mass, populist appeal” (Lowe, 2008, p. 2), chords can be struck and the emotional interaction and reaction can be provoked among them.

The roles Stephen Chow plays in his movies are always ordinary, common, even

inferior which are close in identity and cognition to us that could express our inner voice and

appeal covertly, obliquely and implicitly as the man of the people in his movies. In King of

Beggars, Beggar So, once as a man-about-town, was ousted by the Emperor into being a

beggar with his father. As a vagrant, he suffered severely and “savored” the life of the most

indignity — eating dog’s food, which was totally obloquy and stigma. However, he finally

became the head of beggars and dropped some punch lines to the feckless Emperor: “It is you that determines the amount of beggars in the county. Only ghost wants to be a vagrant if you are a sapient Emperor of responsibility.” That voices the inner wish of the mass that they long for a leader of capability, integrity, responsibility and sedulousness on state affairs.

Figure 11: Su Can is eating dog’s food in King of Beggars.

In Lawyer Lawyer, Chen Mengji, as a lawyer who wanted to save and right a wrong for his apprentice, challenged the British legal system in virtue of his wits and casuistry in

Hong Kong. He vented his dissatisfaction toward the British judge by saying: “As if he forgets that Hong Kong is just lent to them, it will be returned sooner or later.” It demonstrates the people’s burning desire of Hong Kong’s handover to Mainland China in

1997.

Figure 12: Chen Mengji is defending for his apprentice in the court in Lawyer Lawyer. 25

Golden Straight Men

As for Lowe (2008), a range of “specialist buffoon characters” (p. 2) is one of the remarkable features for comedy.

Apart from Stephen Chow’s excellent acting ability and performance talent, the golden stooges in his movies further complement and consummate the sense of humor and elicit more laughter from the audience, among whom Li Jianren is the most unforgettable

“buffoon Character” with his branded gesture - picking his nose, which leaves the audience an ineradicable impression. Others are Tian Qiwen, Lin Zicong and He Wenhui.

Li Jianren, as the Stephen Chow's former classmate in junior high school, is famous for his role as Ru Hua in Hail the Judge, which literally means someone is as beautiful as flower.

Figure 13: Li Jianren Figure 14: Ru Hua acted by Li Jianren in Hail the Judge.

Tian Qiwen, nicknamed “Frog”, is a Hong Kong actor and also works in Stephen

Chow’s company responsible for image promotion, movie production and so on.

Figure 15: Tian Qiwen as the gatekeeper in Shaolin Soccer.

Lin Zicong, nicknamed “Fatty Cong”, is a versatile Hong Kong actor and movie director.

Figure 16: Lin Zicong is eating pop potato in Shaolin Soccer.

He Wenhui was scouted in Guang Zhou by Stephen Chow who wanted to select actors and actresses for his movie Shaolin Soccer.

Figure 17: He Wenhui is taking a bath in Kung Fu Hustle

Their alternative, exaggerated, even “distorted” appearances, facial

expressions and gestures add more comedic effects to Stephen Chow’s movies. In

some senses, they “sacrifice” themselves to entertain us.

Happy Ending

Comedy, “representing the resurrection of the god-hero and the triumph of spring over winter” (Nelson, 1990, p. 28), wins a reputation for “All’s well that ends well” through sudden and unlike reversal of fortune, for example, ending happily, falling in love with each other or getting married (Weitz, 2009, p. 10).

Stephen Chow’s movies can be the best epitome of this aspect. In Legend of the

Dragon, with the incredible hit and the irregular trajectory of the ball, A Long finally won the professional snooker player with the skills blended into his martial arts and fell in love with his beloved. In Justice, My Foot, Song Shijie, wits against wits, punished officials who were

corrupted, nepotistic, and helped the innocent regain her reputation. Justice had been served.

In King of Beggars, Beggar So defeated the one who tried to oust the emperor from power

with Eighteen Dragon-subduing Palms and saved the life of the feckless emperor. He also

won the heart of his boo. In Hail the Judge, Bao Longxin, as the Bao Zheng’s corrupt

descendant, at length, sentenced the rapist and murderer to death, made those officials, whose

strong suit is to line their own pockets, get their just deserts, and restore his ancestry Bao

Zheng’s fame as a just and upright official.

Those movies all end consummately that the villains get their just deserts. Good

overcomes evil. The male and female protagonists fall in love with each other or enjoy

marital bliss. That all reveals people’s desire toward the positive, the optimistic and the

pleasant, and their abhorrence toward the negative, the pessimistic and the nasty which are

rooted in human’s nature. We laugh for the blessing of the good and the contempt of the bad.

Comedy, in essence, is a serious act. Comedians usually wear a poker face. Comedy

can solely be “savored” and "digested" within specific contexts, including how we expect and

assume the world in which we live because “nothing is just comic: things are comic in

particular ways and for particular reasons” (King, 2002, p. 4).

Comedy Related Forms

Satire, parody, irony, farce, gross-out, screwball, romantic comedy, drawing room comedy/comedy of manners, dark comedy, spoof, lampoon, and send-up are the main forms of comedy. Here satire, parody, irony and farce will be attached more importance to.

Satire

“As social or moral evaluation begins to sharpen, we enter the domain of satire”

(Nelson, 1990, p. 25) Geoff King (2002) argues that “satire is comedy with an edge and a target, usually social or political in some way” (p. 93). Satire, used as a way to shoot criticism of “oppressive or totalitarian regimes” (King, 2002, p. 93) and to “discourage vice and folly

by means of ridicule, which gives pain to the victim” (Nelson, 1990, p. 23), is targeted at

social or moral values and seriously approaches the subject in order to “expose absurdity,

self-absorption, extreme or entrenched political ideology, and hypocrisy” (Graves and Engle,

2006, p. 32). “Some kind of reference is implied, more or less explicitly, to institutions of the

real world, a fact that is responsible for its potentially more serious modality” (King, 2002, p.

107).

Satire, laughter derived from which mixes an element of “anger or moral disgust”

(Nelson, 1990, p. 25), may be “the only way in which internal social or political criticism can

reach an audience” (King, 2002, p. 94).

Parody

Parody, aimed at formal and esthetic conventions, tries to shed light on the gap between the expressed and the implied. Parody is more than sheer imitation because there are subtleties between the target text and the utterance or general cultural practice that could be recognized (Weitz, 2009, p. 178).

In general, satire and parody both tend to harness ridicule as a way of commentary.

Irony

Irony, as an indispensable structural constituent for conventional comedy, “operates in the gap between the said and the unsaid” (Weitz, 2009, p. 171) that challenges the concept of “absolute truth or authority” (ibid.) by the disguised utterance. That lends itself to “all manner and sphere of utterance, from private conversation to public speechmaking, from political cartooning to literary writing — and, of course, to drama” (ibid., p. 172).

Farce

Farce, allowing “the disguised fulfillment of repressed wishes” (Nelson, 1990, p. 25) and “affords an escape from living, a release from the pressures of today, a regression to the

irresponsibility of childhood” (Bentley, 1991, p. 298), is a kind of comedy that is the least to conceal or masquerade the fact. What lies beneath farce is the sheer aggression, to put it precisely, the retaliation, which involves no moral justification (ibid., p. 296).

Mark A. Graves and F. Bruce Engle (2006) point out that humor in farce emanates from “mistaken identity, disguise, and other improbable situation” (p. 30), for instance, cross- dressing and gender-bending.

Few comedies are pure and immaculate in that different forms of comedy absorb into and blend with each other to suit to various narrative situations, sometimes “creating even more diverse subgenres” (Graves and Engle, 2006, p. 30), among which, Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies stand out a mile.

The popularity of Stephen Chow's non-sense movies lies in his personal unequaled performance, in which the humor stems from his non-sensible physical antics, and his laughter-elicited dialogue, in which jocular repartee or reality-reflecting lines prevail. As for what Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies are, he once answered as follows: “I am not the granddaddy of non-sense movies, which cannot superficially defined as mind-blowing performance or irregular patterns of behavior. It has its own structure and regularity that cannot be detected easily at a glance. We may live in different ages and grow up within various backgrounds, but actors in each era sure have non-sense performance with their own styles. As for my non-sense style, it just absorbs, digests and restructures the kernel of what those previous non-sense actors did, then it makes a hit within such background during such a time.” (My translation) (朗天，2003, p. 55)

Obviously, the background and the point of time mainly refer to the social atmosphere saturated with skepticism and horror toward Mainland China that is generated in the wake of Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and subsequent Hong Kong’s handover to

Mainland China in 1997.

To put it clearly, satire and irony are mainly and frequently employed in Stephen

Chow’s movies. They are blended with, integrated into and assimilated into each other, the distinction between which has been blurred and gradually shaded into each other. Under the baptism of Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and Hong Kong’s handover to Mainland

China in 1997, Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies are the ones that utilize satire, encompassing “the use of exaggerated character types, overblown situations, and allegory”

(Graves and Engle, 2006, p. 32) that lay the foundation for his movies, and irony, providing the weapon to challenge and defy the so-called authority and absolute power, to give the mass, the inferior and the powerless a chance to voice their inner needs, and to flout, challenge and violate the elite, the superior and the powerful through the behavior and the dialogue of lese- majesty.

In this sense, Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies are not purely crazy and non- sensible without any logic. The rhetoric of Stephen Chow’s movies is of “nonsense and

‘festive speeches,’ free and jocular, destructive and creative” (Lai, 2001, p. 244). It is not exclusively born for laughter, instead of the sensible in non-sensible clothing that take up laughter as arms to make sense of the world. His movies look at ourselves, our foibles and our follies, our pities and our pains, in a humorous way.

Stephen Chow

— King of Comedy:" Actually, I am an actor!"

Figure 18: Ying Tianchou in King of Comedy 32

Stephen Chow grew up in a distressed family awash with his parents’ squabbles on

family trivialities, as a result of which, his parents divorced when he was seven years old, and

his mother had to feed and support his sister and him by working part-time.

In 1988, LEE Sau-Yin, who is a Hong Kong actor, director, screenwriter, film producer and presenter, met this young man in the dancing hall, whom he had longed for cooperation with and invited him to play a role in Final Justice. As for the question of pay,

Stephen Chow replied without hesitation: “I feel deeply honored to have a role in a movie directed by you, money is nothing.” For this role, he was awarded the best supporting actor at the Golden Horse Awards. It is a good demonstration that he has a good nose for opportunities.

Figure 19: LEE Sau-Yin

— From Beijing with Love:" I think love exits between you and me, but I’m wrong.

It’s only business!"

Figure 20: Stephen Chow 33

From 1980s to early 1990s, small-scale movie companies, such as, Jing's Production

Limited by Wong Jing, Wong Kar-wai’s Project House and Film Work Shop from Tsui Hark, sprang up, which provided those who are a tough-to-crack nut to collaborate with a suitable and appropriate way to maximize their creation and innovation freedom.

It is now Stephen Chow’s turn to turn a brand-new page in his life – treading into the business community. In the recent ten years, he had been in his efflorescence in personal performance, experience on the scene and expression on comedy with strong appeal bawling out with ambition and the lust to encroach upon every bit of profit, Star Overseas, as taken it for granted, was established in 1996, from which, six movies, including God of Cookery, King of Comedy, Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle, CJ7 and Jump, were conceived and produced.

Later, he bought out EMCOM International Limited, renamed Bingo in May 27, 2010, which revealed his aspiration to establish Stephen Chow’s "Time Warner Inc.”.

Now Stephen Chow, from an actor to a director, from an entertainer to a boss, runs his own company. After enduring the ups and downs of show business, he has become a businessman of the real McCoy. He has completely metamorphosed from an extra to the leading man, from an unidentifiable star in eclipse to a shining household name.

When shooting the movie King of Comedy ten years ago, he once said:” Laughter will make the world better. Based on that belief, we still continue our movie enterprise. ” (My translation) (铸秦， 2010，p. 30)

Laughter has and will still be used as weapons to modify, improve and develop this callous world into a warmer and better never-never land.

Postmodernism

What is Postmodernism?

“Most of us are reluctant to identify a time when the postmodern era began — we prefer to mumble apologetically that it is more a state of mind than a distinct historical event”

(Jencks, 1991, p. 23). The postmodern era, in which we need to choose incessantly, is the one

“when no orthodoxy can be adopted without self-consciousness and irony” (ibid., 1996, p. 27).

Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies are tagged as the epitome of post-modernism, so what in the world is it?

Postmodernism is boiled down by Denzin (1991) as is a cultural logic of late

Capitalism that is saturated with resentment, wrath, isolation, anxiety, poverty, racism, sexual discrimination and nostalgia and draws an indistinct line between the present and the past (p. vii) although it is a contradiction in terms — “How can something be post, or after the modern when the modern represents the present, or recent moment” (ibid., p. 2)?

Terry Eagleton (1996) argues that “postmodernism is a style of culture which reflects something of this epochal change, in a depthless, decentred, ungrounded, self-reflective, playful, derivative, eclectic, pluralistic art which blurs the boundaries between ‘high’ and

‘popular’ culture, as well as between art and everyday experience” (p. vii). It means that “the traditionally valued qualities of depth, coherence, meaning, originality are evacuated and disordered amid the random swirl of empty signals” (Baldick, 2004, p. 201).

Postmodernism, as a notoriously problematic, equivocal, controversial term describing the “absurd and meaningless confusion of contemporary existence” (Cristante,

2010, p. 181), is claimed as “denial of presence” (Cahoone, 2003, p. 10). It is safe to comprehend the concept of postmodernism as “an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place. In that case, it either

‘expresses’ some deeper irrepressible historical impulse (in however distorted fashion) or effectively ‘represses’ or diverts it, depending on the side of the ambiguity you happen to favor” (Jameson, 1991, p. ix).

Characteristics of Post-modernism

It is difficult, even impossible, to wrap up what postmodernism means, but there are some features of postmodernism that could help us identify it.

Postmodernism is characterized by various forms of “pastiche or stylistic

multiplicity” (Connor, 1997, p. 199). Pastiche, as Jameson argues, is a “neutral mimicry

without parody’s ulterior motives” (1984, pp. 64-65), which means that pastiche does not

involve any sense of criticism as parody does.

The form of TV advertisement is imitated In Flirting Scholar by Tang Bohu and Ms.

Hua to promote their poisons, Han Xiao Ban Bu Dian (含笑半步癫 which means you cannot

smile and walk or you will die) and Yi Ri sang Ming San (一日丧命散 which means you will

die in one day). And in order to save Qiu Xiang, Tang Bohu makes up a “rap” with the

household tools, for example, candles, drums and cymbals as the instruments to voice how

miserable he is. In Forbidden City Cop, an Academy Award-like ceromony is interspersed

with the movie as a trick to deceive the villain. In Shaolin Soccer, a musical- like show is

presented by “Mighty Iron Leg”with people from evey walk of life, ranging from thebutcher

to the white collar.

Figure 21: Both Tang Bohu and Ms. Hua make TV advertisement to promote their poisons in Flirting Schola.

Figure 22: Tang Bohu is singing a “rap” with the household tools in Flirting Scholar.

Figure 23: 00Fa’swife is awarded the Best Actress in Forbidden City Cop.

Figure 24: “Mighty Iron Leg” performs a musical with people from evey walk of life in Shaolin Soccer.

Here various styles, for instance, TV promotional advertisement, Chinese-style rap, musical, are emulated, adopted and expressed in Stephen Chow’s movies without any critical sense. It, surely beyond people’s imagination, is just for fun.

The second feature of postmodernism is “avid distain for originality” (Hitchcock,

2007, p. 219) or to “deny the primacy or original power of the ‘author’” (Hebdige, 1988, p.

191) by rearranging the “already-said” (ibid.).

Do you believe that in A Chinese Odyssey, Master San Zhang, who is loquacious, is

the son of the incarnation of Pig and Spider Monster? The incarnation of Monkey King, who

wants to save the life of his beloved, uses the Paradox's Box (similar to time machine) to go

time travelling. The immortal (菩提老祖) in this movie thoroughly subverts the image of the traditional one — righteous, brave, all-powerful, etc. Instead, the immortal portrayed here is sordid, selfish and weak. In Flirting Scholar, Tang Bohu is not only well versed in Qin, Chess,

Poetry and Painting, but also an expert in martial arts. In Royal Tramp, Chen Jinnan, the head of the secret resistance named Earth and Heaven Association (天地会), is portrayed as an interest-centered man who revolts for money and women, not the traditional hero image with strong nationalism and patriotism.

Figure 25: Pig is trying to protect his wife – Spider Monster and their son – Master San Zhang in A Chinese Odysse.

Figure 26: The incarnation of Monkey King find the Paradox's Box in A Chinese Odysse.

Figure 27: the sordid immortal in A Chinese Odyssey.

Figure 28: Tang Bohu is preparing to fight with the villain in Flirting Scholar.

Figure 29: Chen Jinnan is explaining the underlying reason for “Fan Qing Fu Ming” in Royal Tramp.

The third characteristic of postmodernism, which is also the symbolic laughing stock in Stephen Chow’s movies, is gender-bending or cross-dressing. Gender bending is an inalienable part of his movies. Li Jianren, one of his buffoon characters mentioned above, is well-known and well-received by his typical image “Ru Hua” on the screen. He almost appears in every film shot by Stephen Chow although it is just one scene or lasts a few second.

Sometimes, he is dressed up like a woman. In Forbidden City Cop, 00Fa, in order to obtain information and investigate secretly, dresses like a woman and creeps into the brothel.

In Shaolin Soccer, he makes a change that women are dressed up into men, not always the men, so Zhang Bozhi and Mo Wenwei have hilarious mustachioed.

Figure 31: Li Jianren acting as one of the royal concubines in Forbidden City Cop.

Figure 32: 00fa disguising as a woman in Forbidden City Cop.

Figure 33: Li Jianren acting as a student who admires Stephen very much in the God of Cookery.

Figure 34: Zhang Bozhi and Mo Wenmei acting as men in Shaolin Soccer.

To sum up, the success of Stephen Chow’s postmodern movies are grounded on the adoption of different styles that is interwoven with his movie stories, subversion of the classic that constitutes his movie plots and alienation of both genders. The three parts as the symbols of his movies are not inalienable.

Semiotics

What is Semiotics?

We are living in a world that is filled with signs. However they are ordinary, they do exist and influence our lives. In order to discover and dissect those signs, we need the help of semiotics. Signs are everywhere, so is semiotics. In short, semiotics is the study of signs.

“A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be

part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology

(from Greek semeion, ‘sign’). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws

govern them” (Saussure, 1996, p.16).

“Semiotics is the study of signs. On that and little else, all semioticians seem to agree.

Specifically, it is the study of semiosis, or communication — that is, the way any sign . . .

functions in the mind of an interpreter or convey a specific meaning in a given situation”

(Wray, 1981, p. 4).

Semiotics, dubbed by Eco as “the study of lies” (1976, p. 7), is concerned with

“meaning-making and representation in many forms” (Chandler, 2002, p. 2) and “focuses its

attention primarily on the text” (Fiske, 2011, p. 38).

Sign

A cloak, a BMW, a cup of tea, a gesture, a wink, a piece of rap, a movie image, a tree,

a magazine — these are all objects of heterogeneity. What do they share in common? They

are at least all signs.

Signs, never really telling “the whole truth” (Danesi, 2002, p. 17), are something

physical that can be perceived by our senses, referring to something other than itself and

being recognized by its users that it is a sign (Fiske, 2011, p. 39).

In brief, “a sign is something present that stands for something absent” (Leeds-

Hurwitz, 1993, p. 6).

The Sign as a Triadic Relation

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) was recognized as “one of the greatest figures in the history of semiotics” and as “the founder of the modern theory of signs” (Weiss & Burks,

1945, p. 383).

Figure 35: Charles Sanders Peirce

He sketches out a triangular relationship between the sign, external reality (or

something the sign refers to), and the users for studying meaning. Peirce accounts for his

model as follows:

A sign refers to something, instead of itself — the object and is grasped by

someone that means it could influence the mind of the user — the interpretant who, however,

is not the user of the sign (Fiske, 2011, p. 40). Meaning is “the result of the dynamic

interaction between sign, interpretant, and object: it is historically located and may well

change with time” (ibid., p. 44).

Sign

Interpretant object

Figure 36: Peirce’s elements of meaning.

The Sign as a Bilateral Model

Nonetheless, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), as the undisputed founder of modern linguistics, takes a slightly different point of view.

Figure 37: Ferdinand de Saussure

De Saussure sees the sign as a “binary phenomenon” (Danesi, 2002, p. 31) that means a sign is consisted of two tightly knit parts — signifier and signified. The signifier, which can be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted, refers to the sign’s image that we can perceive. The signified that is absent is the mental concept to which it refers and which is common to all members shared with the same culture (Fiske, 2011, pp. 41-42).

sign

composed of signification external reality or meaning

signifier plus signified

(physical (mental

existence concept)

of the sign)

Figure 38: De Saussure’s elements of meaning.

The relationship between signifier and signified is “conceptual and determined by

social convention” (Danesi, 2002, p. 31). That means the signifier has no natural connection

with the signified.

Categories of signs

In order to explore and explain how signs convey meanings, three categories of sign

are produced by Peirce, each of which represents a different relationship between the sign and

its object. They are icon, index, and symbol. The relationship among them can be modeled as

follows. icon

index symbol

Figure 39: Peirce’s categories of sign-types.

An icon is a sign bearing a resemblance to its object, which is often self-evident in

visual signs, e.g. pictures.

An index, bearing no resemblance to its object and standing in a causal relation, is a

sign with a direct existential connection with its object, e.g. warmness is an index of sun;

running nose is an index of a cold.

A symbol is a sign that stands for something hinged upon convention, agreement, or

rule, e.g. a language.

Signification

Roland Barthes, one of de Saussure’s followers, first establishes a systematic model through which meaning, residing neither in an object nor in a particular individual but in social relations, could be analyzed.

Denotation

It, as the first order of signification, refers to the obvious and surface meaning of the sign. It depicts “the relationship between the signifier and signified within the sign, and of the sign with its referent in external reality” (Fiske, 2011, p. 80).

Connotation

Connotation is the second order of signification, in which meanings are becoming subjective because “interpretant is influenced as much by the interpreter as by the object or the sign” (Fiske, 2011, p. 81). Compared with denotation, it describes the interaction, as John

Fiske observes, that occurs “when the sign meets the feelings or emotions of the users and the values of their culture” (ibid.).

Myth

Myth, normally referring to false ideas, is to “naturalize history” (Fiske, 2011, p. 84) and “are actually the product of social class that has achieved dominance by a particular history: the meanings that its myths circulate must carry this history with them, but their operation as myths makes them try to deny it and present their meanings as natural, not historical or social” (ibid.).

Method

What exactly is text?

The concept of “texts,” etymologically “tissue” or “weave,” are the material traces, such as, movies, television programs, magazines, advertisements, clothes, tattoos, even the process of watching movies, from which we produce interpretations of meaning of something.

In other words, “a text is something that we make meaning from” (Mckee, 2003, p. 4).

Texts, constituting a “parasitic message designed to connote the image” (Barthes,

1977, p. 25), are “neither scientific data nor historical documents” (Hartley, 1992, p. 29) but are “empirical evidence”, which are “interpreted to know and understand how people make sense of the world around them in particular cultures at particular times” (Mckee, 2003, p. 3). 46

“A film’s text is not the ‘list’ of its operative codes, then, but rather the labor of constant restructuration by which the film ‘writes’ its text, modifies and combines its codes, playing some codes off against others, and thus constitute its system” (Stam, 2000, p. 146).

However, no text can only represent the world accurately, truthfully, realistically without bias. There are always alternative representations that are equally accurate, truthful, realistic and unbiased.

The viewers or interpreters’ experience and response which is influenced by the culture he or she lives in, their cultural beliefs, understandings, values and individual resistance work together to pile up a volcano from which the film text is erupted.

Difference between text and work

The following differences that help us distinguish the text and work are illuminated by Barthes (1977) as follows:

1) Text belongs to the methodological field, but the work is a part of substance;

2) Text, responding to or against certain rules, can be materialized which is a process of demonstration, but the work can be seen in library, in theater and so on;

3) Text, only existing in the movement of discourse, is held in language, but the work is held in our hand;

4) Text can be only savored in the activity of production, but the work is the derivative of the text (pp. 156-157).

What is textual analysis?

‘Textual analysis ’traces its long-term antecedents to biblical exegesis, to nineteenth-

century hermeneutics and philology, to the French pedagogical method of close

reading (explication de texte), and to American New Criticism’s “immanent” analysis.

Its short-term antecedents include Levi-strauss’s work on myth, Umberto Eco’s study

of the “open work,” Roland Barthes’s distinction between ‘work’ and ‘text,’ and

Althusser’s ‘symptomatic readings.’ (Stam, 2000, P.145)

Textual analysis, which is defined by Alan Mckee as a methodology, a data-

collecting process, is a way for researchers to collect information about how we make sense

of the world around us and to understand how various cultures and subcultures make sense of

who they are, and of how they fit into the world (2003, p. 3).

Performing textual analysis is like making an investigation in the crime scene. The information or data that is hidden or covered should be hunted out, sieved out and sifted through, based upon which our educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations on text can be made.

Why do I choose images?

This thesis will zoom in on fixed images as guinea pigs. The elements, such as, color light, people’s appearances, dress and behavior, could be selected, sifted through and analyzed one by one because they are stationary.

The images I have selected and chosen in this thesis are not arbitrary, but are politically pegged to the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the July 1997 handover of Hong Kong by the British government to the People’s Republic of china.

Sampling Strategy

Here theoretical construct sampling is employed that is one of the qualitative sampling strategies, guided by purposeful sampling, which are not based on procedures of random probability, in which every element of a population has an equal and independent chance of being selected.

Theoretical construct sampling means that persons, activities, events, or settings

selected and driven by a theoretical interest should be correspond to the criteria of key 48

constructs. To put it simply, theoretical interests are the foundation stones upon which

samples are built and developed.

Research Question

How do Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies portray Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the relationship between the two geo-political entities?

Data Analysis

A successful comedy is judged by how properly, how profoundly, how cleverly it

delineates and portrays the world around us. How Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the

relationship between them are portrayed in Stephen chow’s non-sense movies will be

explored and analyzed through the following nine movies. They are All for the Winner (1990),

Justice, My Foot! (1992), King of Beggars (1992), Royal Tramp (1992), From Beijing with

Love (1994), Hail the Judge (1994), Forbidden City Cop (1996), Lawyer Lawyer (1997) and

Shaolin Soccer (2001). The year 1997 will be the dividing line to discover, distinguish and

discern the changes in the relationship between Mainland China and Hong Kong portrayed in

the movies.

All for the Winner (1990)

Plot: A young man called Sing who is from Mainland China wants to visits his uncle in Hong Kong. His uncle soon dicovers Sing’s supernatural ability which can help Sing see things covered inside something, like a box and get the cards he wants by rubbing them. He decides to take advantage of Sing’s supernatual abilitiesand hatches a scheme that could make him rich. Thus, Sing becomes a gambler. With his supernatual abilities, it is a snap for Sing to win other gamblers. Finally, Sing evolves into a new God of Gambling.

Figure 40: Sing is trying to buy a drink in a vending machine in Hong Kong.

A the above figure shows, it seems as if the location is at the border of Hong Kong with few people and three taxis there. Some houses loom up in the mountain. Against the backdrop of the open square, Sing appears with a trunk and a duffel bag. He stands in front of a vending machine and tries to figure out how to use it. Without question, Sing’s hick-like style that hs been stereotyped as the representation of Chinese and weird behavior of not knowing how to use vending machine sell his identity out that he is from Mainland China.

The scene shows that he is an “alien” in Hong Kong.

Figure 41: Sing pinches a coin and tries to insert it into the slot.

Here a close-up is focused on a 2-cent coin that Sing tries to insert into the slot of the

vending machine, which only accepts HK$ 1.00, 50 cents and 10 cents. This coin is the 50

Chinese currency which is obviously useless for this vending machine It connots that

Mainland China, represented by Sing and his coin, is also not “suitable” for and welcome by

Hong Kong, symbolized by the vending machine. They are incompatible.

Figure 42: A policeman comes and asks Sing what happened.

Figure 43: Sing tries to explain to the policeman. The following is their dialogue.

Sing: Comrade! I have no Hong Kong dollar. (同志,我没有港币)

Policeman: Who is your comrade? Don’t see me wear uniform? Call me Sir! Hong Kong people are stuck in deep water now, so we don't have time to help you. (谁跟你同志啊,你没看见我穿制服吗?叫我长官. 香港人都自身难保了,哪有闲功夫帮你啊.)

In China, “comrade”, commonly used among cadres of CCP for addressing each other, is a quite political rhetoric, which draws attention to an aspect of political affinity. Here

when Sing addresses the policeman as “comrade” with a glimmer of hope that he could help

him, the policeman corrects him with an air of distain on the spot and asks him to call him

“Sir”, which is a typical way of calling a policeman in Hong Kong. The sentence “We Hong

Kong people are in deep water now.” vividly portrays the sense of crisis and horror facing

the Hong Kong people when Hog Kong will be handed over to Mainland China after they

witness the butchery in 1989. From this perspective, it is inferred that Hong Kong, to some

extent, excludes Mainland China. It also shows there is an abyss between them in political

culture and cognition.

Justice, My Foot! (1992)

Plot: Lawyer Song Shijie, in order to help a woman who gets wronged, fights with those feckless corrupted officials. However, those officials complicit in this case protect each other by their power. Finally, Song Shijie serves the justice in virtue of his wits, eloquence and casuistry.

Figure 44: Four characters “官官相卫” (meaning officilals help and protect officials) written on a folded fan.

With the complement of blood-like sunset, four characters “官官相卫” (meaning

officilals help and protect officials) written in blood are more conspicuous and horrible in the

whole image. This close-up for the four characters is not so much to imply the political

affinity as to nakedly expose their nepotism in official power in Mainland China.

Figure 45: The four officials are discussing how to cope with Song Shijie in the court.

Here the light shed upon them is different. The slightly dim light is cast on the three lower- rank officials that means they are the black sheep in the government. The bright light shed upon the high-rank official signals squeaky cleanness of him. The three lower- rank officials stand around and discuss with him that shows they are the same — they are all the

“political”colleagues, so now they should help each other and defeat our common enemy. No matter what we did, the official dignity cannot be challenged by the hoi polloi. Dark lght and bright light are separated, contrasted, but assimilated, around which the concept of “officilals help and protect officials” is portrayed vividly.

Figure 46: They stand prepared to re- judge the case.

As the figure shows, three fifths pf the whole space is taken up by the four officials in the first picture. A close-up is given to the high-rank official’s bust. His facial exprssion is so serious that connotes that he represents the so-called tradition, power, authority that are not allowed to be challenged by the populace because officials and the rabble are different. It diffracts the fact or phenomenon in Manland China that “officials” and “the masses” are two concepts. They are antithetical.

Figure 47: The officials are licking Song Shijie’s boots.

The location as the figure shows is in a private place. The three lower-rank officials do not only massage Lawyer Song, but also his ego because they hope he could cut them some slack. They, taking up almost the whole picture, squat like dogs that is quite far removed from their previous images in the courtroom — powerful, authoritative and 54

paramount. This is, maybe, the essence of “officials” — be nice and talk sense to them, they might bite you; be bad to them, they become tame. They are just dogs.

King of Beggars (1992)

Plot: In order to conquer his beloved’s heart, Su Can, as a spoiled son of a wealthy general in Guangzhou, wants to win the title of “Martial Arts Champion”. But the fact that Su is illiterate is revealed by Zhao Wuji, who is ambitious and wants to be the emperor. After knowing that Su cheated in the examination, the emperor decrees that Su and his father be beggars for good. Against trials and tribulations, Su finally becomes the King of Beggars. He defeats Zhao Wuji and save the life of the no-count emperor. At the same time, he wins the heart of his beloved as well.

Figure 48: When taking examination, Su Cai is sleeping and the other one is cheating on the exam.

The scene shown in the figure above happens at the examination room. Two young men are taking exams in two compartments. The similarity between them is that they both have something to do with the official. They are the so-called “The Second Generation of

Officials” (官二代). The difference between them is that Su is sleeping and the other is cheating on the exam. The proctor, as one of Su’s father’s friends, replaces the original empty exam paper with a new one written with answers. Obviously, they can go into the next round because of their family background. On the one hand, it denotes that those feckless “The

Second Generation of Officials” (官二代 ) are all parasites, depending on their family relations; on the other hand, it connotes that in Mainland China, the trend of fraud and nepotism are prevalent especially among the Communists and their family members.

Figure 49: The official accounts for that why he regrets betting all his money on Su Cai.

There is gamble on the final winner — Su Cai or his opponent, whose uncle has higher official rank than Su’s father. Although the official acted by Chen Baixiang, who is a famous Hong Kong Master of Ceremony and comedian, believes that Su Cai will win, but when he knows who his father is, he wants to eat his words. “Lineage” is not so much connected with gene as associated with the political background or wealth. Who will win depends on their “political lineage”, not on their abilities. To put it simply, the champion is selected by the powerful family background and relations.

Figure 50: Su Cai is explaining how to solve the problem of the gang of beggars. These four pictures are all treated by dark light that can set off the atmosphere of

seriousness. The voiceover is that you emperor is the veritable King of Beggar. Your

character, quality, contribution and achievements decide the size, amount and nature of the

beggars. The fewer beggars, the more sapient you are. It connotes that if the government of

Mainland China is really good, why is the surge of complaints, protests and dissatisfaction

continuously flooded from the people and not welcome by Hong Kong?

Royal Tramp (1992)

Plot: Wei Xiaobao, a small fry from brothel, who, by accident, becomes the student of Chen Jinnan — the head of a secret resistance named Earth and Heaven Society, is assigned a task to steal Forty-two Sutra in the Forbidden City. In the palace, he meets and develops unbelievable friendship with the Emperor Kang Xi. He helps Emperor Kang Xi depose Ao Bai and expose the identity of the fake Empress Dowager.

Figure 51: A motley crew are shouting the slogan "Fan Qing Fu Ming" (which means reestablishing the Ming Dynasty by overthrowing the reign of Qing Dynasty)

Figure 52: Chen Jinnan is explaining why the resistance "Earth and heaven Association" wants to use this kind of stupid men. The following are their dialogues.

Chen Jinnan: Xiaobao, you are a smart guy, so I can speak to you in a smart way. But I can do that to the people outside. (小宝, 你是个聪明人,我就用一个聪明的方法跟你说说话,外面的人就不行.)

Wei Xiaobao: I don’t understand! (不明白)

Chen Jinnan: Those who are educated and can tell the right and wrong are all becoming officials in imperial court, so we should take advantage of some stupid guys if we want to fight against the Qing Dynasty. In order to use them, instead of the truth told to them, religious form should be adopted to hypnotize them and make them believe what they do is morally right. Fan Qing Fu Ming, like Amitabha, is nothing more than a slogan. Qing Dynasty, plundering our money and women, bullies us, so we are against it. (读过书和明事理的人,大多已在清廷里面当官了,所以如果我们要对抗清廷,就只可以用一些蠢一点的人, 58

对付那些蠢人,就绝对不可以跟他们讲真话,必须要用宗教形式来催眠他们,使他们觉得所作的事都是对的,所以反清复明只不过是一句口号,跟阿弥陀佛没分别, 清朝一直欺压我们汉人,抢走了我们的银两和女人,所以我们要反清.)

Wei Xiaobao: We just want to get back our money and women, so we are against Qi Dynasty. It is none of our beeswax that whether we re-establish Ming or not. We are the same. I can relate it. (要反清抢回我们的钱和女人,是不是? 复不复明根本就是脱了裤子放屁,关人鸟事.行了,大家聪明人,了解. )

In the first figures shown above, a group of plebeians, consisting of a motley bunch ranging from butcher to monk, are shouting “Fan Qing Fu Ming”. They are those silly people who are taken advantage of by Chen Jinnan. Indeed, the slogan “Fan Qing Fu Ming” has no more deeper meaning to them. They are ignorant. The so-called loyalty or devotion they show is just slavish. They do not think by themselves about whether or not the things they do are worthy. They do what they are told to do. In some senses, they are just cannon fodders. They are fooled by someone who does those things to satisfy their own desires and interests. This may insinuate that people in Mainland China are fooled and taken advantage of by the

Chinese Communist Party, who wants to control people’s mind and never wants them to think, reflect and muse by themselves.

Figure 53: How eunuch Hai Dafu changes his facial expressions after he reads the letter written by Emperor.

The facial expressions changed from disbelief to fawning-over smile by the eunuch

Hai Dafu reflect his worship to the absolute power when he knows that Wei Xiaobao has been the student of the Emperor (天子的门生). Hai Dafu begins to make up to Wei Xiaobao when he gets the support from the Emperor. Through contrasting the two figures, it is easy to

connote that if you could be associated with the official in some aspects, you will be respected because you have “power” to depend on. In the past, you are my servant, but now you are my master because you get power or relationship with big shots. This kind of sheer worship toward absolute power is an innuendo for Mainland China where civil servants are no longer servants, but master because they have the paramount power.

From Beijing with love (1994)

Plot: Frankly speaking, this movie is quite politically biased. The name “From

Beijing with Love” itself is sarcastic. In fact, it is from Beijing with terror and horror. In the movie, Stephen Chow, coded as “00Qi”, is a special agent, to put it accurately, a back-up one whose weapon is not a pistol, but a knife, to put it precisely, a chopper. Because of his short- circuited ability, the general who is the villain in the movie assigns him to do a mission impossible — to get a dinosaur’s skull back. With the help of Li Xiangqin from Hong Kong who was once the pawn of the villain, aiming to kill “00Qi” and make him be left holding the bag, “00Qi” kills the scum of the nation and conquers Li Xiangqin’s hearts.

Figure 54: The general is answering a call from the Premier.

As the figure shows, this is a typical office of a top official in Mainland China. A profile of ex-President Mao Zedong is hung in the middle of the wall that takes up a conspicuous focal point in the whole picture. It represents the absolute power of the central

government. To put it in another way, it can be called “Big Brother”. It seems to remind people that the CCP will spare no expense to keep their power.

Figure 55: The general is sizing up and assessing a speacial agent.

When the general tries to select the next agent, he depends not on the personal talents and abilities, but on the political lineage and background. That agent is the descendent of the martyr, so he is absolutely trustworthy. It is the innuendo toward nepotism which is a common phenomenon in Mainland China. That also implies that the so-called political background determines the extent to which he or she would be loyal and devoted to his or her country. It can be viewed as hereditary system in mask.

Figure 56: The general is encouraging “00Qi” in their base.

A national emblem is clearly seen in the two figures above. In their secret base, a group of scientists in white are making research on all kinds of killing tools, whose behavior is rationalized by the emblem of nation hung in the wall. Just like the figure of speech used by the top official, “00Qi”, those scientists and other ordinary people are just a piece of napkin or shorts. If they function well, use them. If not, get rid of them. Life is not respected in this respect. People are regarded as an object, not human being made up of flesh and blood. This is the veritable connotation of the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Figure 57: The money given by the geberal is different. For "00Qi", it is for suits, but for Da Wenxi, it is for mlik tea. 62

“The private sponsor two hundred RMB for ‘00Qi’” to buy a decent suit” versus “ten cents to ask Da Wenxi who is “00Qi”‘s partner to buy a cup of milk tea for him and not to forget the change” represents and reflects the relationship between “nation” and “individual”.

To buy decent suits means you should not in-dignify or lose face for your country. Everything germane to your country is the most important and crucial even if it is petty. To buy a cup of milk tea and not to forget the change means that it is your private business and you should settle it even if “ten cents cannot buy a cup of milk tea”. The interest of the country is paramount. That can account for the fact that why Tiananmen Square becomes battlefield in order to keep the society stable.

Figure 58: The general is contacting Li Xiangqin through a call installed on the toilet.

The light changing from dark to bright corresponds to the sea change of villain’s facial expressions. The dark background complements the general’s tricky nature, who, in fact, is the mastermind behind the scene. When “00Qi” sees him, the light is turned into being bright that reflects his character of hypocrisy and double-dealer. That may be what the typical 63

image of a Communist official is in most of Hong Kong people’s eyes after they witness the bloodbath in Tiananmen Square and when there are only three years left for the handover.

Figure 59: A blind guy is sentenced to death.

A guy is sentenced to death because he is sued for reading the confidential documents of National Defense, but that doesn’t hold water because he is blind. He is innocent and gets wronged. In order to conceal truth, he must be sacrificed. With connotation to the holocaust in

1989, some cop outs are made up or invented in order to eschew the taboo area. That would

stir up and reduce the sense of confidence of Hong Kong people toward Mainland China.

After all, no one will trust a country that is unwilling to tell the truth.

Figure 60: “00Qi” bribes those officials to get released.

These three black-and-white pictures are “00Qi”’s retrospection on how he rescued himself. One hundred plus a pack of cigarettes seems the winning combination to be as thick as thieves with those “thieves”. If you want to know someone in China, a cigarette is a better open sesame. To grease the police’s palm with one hundred RMB signals that on the one hand,

bribery and corruption is so deeply entrenched and permeable in China; on the other hand, a life is worth one hundred RMB. One hundred RMB could buy a life. It is way cheap.

Figure 61: “00Qi” prepares to take the final fight with the vilain.

In contrast to the four Characters “忠党爱国” (meaning loyal to your party and love your country) occupying the noticeable position in the frame, which is the first principle for a

Communist, it is the sheer ridicule and sarcasm to the general in armor, who is a Communist.

The line “The mass will not lead a better life if you, the Devil, rule China.” is the inner voice of Hong Kong people. They make use of the general, standing for Communist Party, to express their dissatisfaction and their sympathy toward the ordinary people in Mainland

China.

Figure 62: “00Q” in uses his choppr to kill the evil general.

“00Qi”, in the movie, always uses his chopper as his weapon that destroys the traditional image of a special agent using pistol. This chopper exactly exposes the nature as a

"butcher" — cruel, callous, and chilling. The four characters “民族英雄” (meaning national hero) is given a close-up with the John Hancock of “Xiao Ping” who is the decision maker for the pogrom. This is purely satire for its creators without any decoration. And that is why this movie is never played in CCTV6 (the movie channel).

Hail the Judge (1994)

Plot: Bao Longxin, as the descendant of Bao Zheng, is not an upright official, but a

corrupt one. When he tries to right a wrong for a woman whose whole family was killed by a

top official's son, his life has been threatened. By accident, he meets the Emperor in the

bordello, so he gets the chance to re-judge the case. Finally, the bad guys get their just deserts.

Figure 63: A description of the place where Bao Longxin works.

Dark surroundings, dust covering the ground and falling from the plague, a mouse on the rampage, and a rickety plaque inscribed with four Characters “公正廉明” (meaning justice, uprightness, incorruptibility and openness ) vividly do justice to this Ya Men, in which a corrupted official lives. Self-evidently, it has been for ages that no one has come.

Even if they come here, justice may not have been served. Because the palgue inscribed with

Justice, Uprightness, Incorruptibility and Openness, which are the ground rules for a Ya Men, is a shaky one with chinks and cracks, the first principles for the Ya Men will be challenged.

Corrupt officials, unjust legal system with their distorted judgments in China are the perennial

problems concerned by Hong Kong. If Hong Kong comes back, will justice still exist in Hong

Kong?

Figure 64: Bao Longxin’s father wtites a character “廉” (which menas incorruptibility) for him.

The Character “廉” (meaning incorruptibility) takes up the middle position of the whole picture. In comparison with the simple shelter in which Bao Longxin’s father lives, who was once a notorious corrupt official, this character can easily be associated with another character “穷”(meaning penury). Being an incorruptible official is tantamount to destitution.

In other words, wealth belongs to those corrupted officials. That also reveals their ulterior motive of being an official that is not to serve the people, contribute the country, but to generate wealth by their rank, power or authority, and political relationship etc. This phenomenon is also applied to Mainland China which is “notoriously” famous for its bribery and corruption.

Figure 65: Eunuch Li Weixin brings a “Royal Shirt” to the villain.

The “Royal Shirt” (黄马褂) brought by an eunuch called Li Weixin (李违心), whose name can best exemplify how corrupted officials develop that is to say something against their will and nature, is not only the symbol of royal power, but also the representation of royal relationship. It means that if you wear the “Royal Shirt”, you, in some senses, are connected with the royal. You get support from the royal relations. In this aspect, this is still the portrayal of political relationships or affinity on official ranks. Officials should help officials.

Figure 66: War of words between Bao Longxin and Li Weixin

The eunuch Li Weixin vs Bao Longxin, in essence, is the Formalism vs Essence.

Here “Empress Dowager” can be interpreted as your loyalty to your party and your devotion to your country. The difference between Bao Longxin and the eunuch Li EWeixin is that the former does it, but the latter is all talk. Many officials in Mainland China rarely or never practice what they preach. To be loyal to the Communist Party and love the country is just a

catchword. It has no special meaning to them. The only advantage of that catchword is to help

them be the official climbers.

Forbidden City Cop in (1996)

Plot: As one of the four royal special agents, 00Fa has no invicible martial arts like his other three fellows do. With the camouflage as a gynecological doctor,he likes inventing some ingenious gadgets. The villain, in order to conquer the country, tries to kill all the doctors so that no one will be cured. With the help of those inventions, 00Fa finally dashes the scheme and saves the whole country.

Figure 67: Fours swordsmen and heroes

Compared with the traditional images of Ye Gucheng, Ximen Chuixue, Hua Manlou,

and Lu Xiaofeng, the profiles of the four famous swordsmen and heroes portryaed here are

satirized, ridiculed and e-gaoed. Compared with Ye Gucheng who is cheap-looking, Ximen

Chuixue is a bald man. In contrast to Hua Manlou whose appearance cannot matched with his

title “Don Juan”, Lu Xiaofeng is a funny fat guy. Those four famous knights-errant from

various Chinese swordplay novels are “transformed” into ugly and deformed ones despite

their exquisute reputations. This kind of anti-hero sentiment is the corollary of the case of

1989. People get sick and tired of those so-called “heroes”, who, once the heroes of the whole

nation, turned the Tiananmen Square into the slaughterhouse.

Figure 68: the crimes the four swordsmen and heroes commit

Some legal terminologies are used here, such as, unlawful assembly, into private off- limits, disorderly conduct in public place. He even gives them the bird. The four swordsmen and heroes who represent Mainland China and try to fight in the palace are stopped by 00Fa who is a royal safeguard for protecting the palace, the incarnation of Hong Kong. That connotes Hong Kong is still a “private” place belonging to Great British although there is only one year left for handover. Now you still have no right to exercise the sovereignty in

Hong Kong. Do you want to repeat the history of 1989 in Hong Kong just like the four so- called heroes suing for “misconduct in public place”?

The God of Cookery (1996)

Plot: Chow, as a selfish, conceited and haughty chef who has forgotten the kernel of cookery, is set up by his opponent who even wants to kill him. A female hooligan called

"Turkey" sacrifices herself to save him. Fortunately, he is rescued by an abbot, and he also learns exceptional cooking skills in the kitchen of Shaolin Temple. With the profound 73

understanding on the essence of cookery, he finally wins in the “God of Cookery” competition.

Figure 69: The monk is kiiled by the abbot because he says something unpleasant about the abbot.

The monk died in an exaggerated way just because he says something bad about the abbot. Shaolin Temple as the symbol of China stands for the traditional authority that is not allowed to deny and defame. The abbot as the head of the Temple is the token of absolute power — Communism Regime. Don’t try to say anything bad, unpleasant or nasty about the government, or you will meet you maker like the monk. It is easily connected with the massacre in 1989.

Figure 70: A depiction of how the Eiggteen Bronzemen punish Stephen 74

The Eighteen Bronzemen are the quintessence of Shaolin Kung fu, whose responsibility is to protect the whole temple. They are the incarnation of justice and equality, however, which is a far cry from the Eighteen Bronzemen portrayed here. They are not Kung fu experts, instead that they use stools to beat Chow. A close-up is focused on one of the

Eighteen Bronzemen who is of ferocity, fiend and fierceness without any sign as a monk.

They are just the “violence machine” of the abbot representing the central government. When the handover is just around the corner, it is connoted that the sense of horror looms large upon

Hong Kong people. They fear that the “violent machine” will be used again to keep the authority by CCP.

Lawyer Lawyer (1997)

Plot: Lawyer Chen Mengji, in order to save his apprentice — Huan who is set up for murder by his half-brother, who is unwilling to share with Huan the heritage, challenges the

British legal system by his wits, courage, and sophistry. At length, Huan is saved and the villain suffers poetic justice.

Figure 71: Lawyer Chen Mengji is whispering with his wife.

Lawyer Chen Mengji is complaining to his wife in a whisper that it seems as if Hong

Kong is a part of Great Britain, but not a colony that will be handed over. The whole picture 75

is treated with the dim lighting, but with which a contrast is made by the sunlight shining through the window at the other opposite side of the picture. This treatment of light demonstrates that Hong Kong will finally be handed over to Mainland China — “the light at the end of the tunnel”.

Figure 68: The judge says that what Lawyer Chen Mengji just said can be ignored because it does not correspond to the legal procedures.

The judge panel taking up the four fifths of the whole picture symbols the British

Legal system that is unchallengeable. A close up is given to the judge in red and periwig who stands for the authority of the law, which is paramount. Hong Kong, now, is still the colony of

Great Britain so everything, judged by the law of Great Britain, should correspond to the legal procedures, or they are invalid. Hong Kong now is still ruled by the law of Great Britain.

Figure 72: Lawyer Chen Mengji is hotly debating with the judge about the legal item.

Observed from the figures above, Lawyer Chen Mengji is the focal point, who challenges the legal system of Great Britain by playing tricks on the legal terminology. That

“law is law, which cannot be changed easily and everything should jibe with the legal procedures” reversely jibes at the law itself. This is not so much to challenge the law of Great

Britain as to distain it. It connotes that the legal system of Great Britain is longer valid in

Hong Kong soon that, in this sense, expresses the longing for the handover.

Shaolin Soccer (2001)

Plot: “Mighty Iron Leg” bumps into “Golden Leg” Fung, who is a crippled former football star and whose career was end by accepting a blank check. They combine the martial arts and football together and form a team called Team Shaolin with Sing’s other friends.

With the Shaolin kung fu, it is a cinch for go to the final round. Pumped up with illegal drugs,

Team Evil is almost invincible. At length, encouraged by love, “Mighty Iron Leg” makes the last kick and they win.

Figure 73: A close-up for one-Yuan coin

A close-up is focused upon the brand-new one-Yuan coin, which is standing firmly on the ground by being clamped in a crack. This one Yuan coin is the Chinese currency, not the traditional Hong Kong dollar. The one-Yuan coin, obviously standing for Mainland China, is rooted firmly on the ground that connotes that Mainland China, or the influence of it has been gradually accepted by Hong Kong.

Figure 74: “Mighty Iron Leg” is talking about and eulogizing Shaolin kung fu.

Kung fu from Shaolin Temple, in one sense, is a symbol of Mainland China, through which, people around the world know about China. Here “Mighty Iron Leg” speaks highly of the Shaolin kung fu and tries to eliminate the common misunderstandings toward it — killing skills or only used to fight. He hopes that commoners can get a more sweeping and profound cognition on it. , As a matter of fact, what his voiceover is that we should also take a new insight toward Mainland China. Every coin has two sides. We should not always concentrate on the negative aspects, instead, the positive respects should also be attached significance to.

Figure 75: “Mighty Iron Leg” tries to re-promote kung fu.

As the above figure demonstrates, the location is in the portal of Times Square which occupies the middle space of the whole picture. However, It is not in Hong Kong, but

Shanghai. Here it looks so like Hong Kong that people cannot help confusing it with Hong

Kong. It might be called the “Hong Kong” in Shanghai, or Hong Kongnized Shanghai.

Shanghai has been re-designed as Hong Kong like kung fu blended into kung fu soccer. Hong

Kong style has been gradually merged into China and vice versa with the connotation that

they are inalienably mixed with, blended into and assimilated into each other.

Discussion and Conclusion

Semiotic theory, as an analysis mechanism, is adopted and applied to dissect the text

— still images extracted and refined from ten movies, in which Stephen Chow acts as a leading role. The relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China portrayed in the movies is changed from distain and horror to facing reality, from bete-noire to gaining currency and from ostracism and incompatibility to assimilation and conflation.

The change in relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China can be detected

through the contrast between two coins, standing for Mainland China, which is separately

used in Stephen Chow’s movies. Two-cent coin in all for the Winner cannot be used in the

Hong Kong's vending machine that obviously reflects the incompatibility of Mainland China

with Hong Kong. Hong Kong and Mainland China are poles apart. We Hong Kong are

unwelcome you yokel from Mainland China. However, one-Yuan coin in Shaolin Soccer

stands upright on the ground that embodies that Mainland China, to some extent, has been

accepted by Hon Kong. “One Yuan” could not only be used to buy things in Hong Kong, but

also enjoys wide currency in Hong Kong.

The change in relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China can also be

traced from the two different depictions on Shaolin and Shaolin Kung fu, which is the

incarnation of the authority in China. In The God of Cookery, those Shaolin monks are not

martial arts experts, but a professional gang of skinheads who are of skin-deepness, violence

and barbarism. They are just the "violence machine” for consolidating the hegemony of the

abbot. Nevertheless, in Shaolin Soccer, the merits of Shaolin Kung fu are extoled. The image 80

of Shaolin has been exalted and sublimated. The disparity delineated in those two movies corresponds to the change in relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China from being demon-ized to perceiving China form brand-new perspectives.

Future Research

Two broader contexts — colonial rule (by Great Britain before 1997) and “One

Country, Two Systems” (by Mainland China after 1997) — should be taken into account.

These two different regimes, polities and ideologies inevitably affect or influence Hong Kong filmmakers and their opinions, attitudes and perceptions toward Mainland China that, in turn, impact on them by osmosis in choices of shooting angles, camera movement, movement in the shot, off-screen sound and so forth. In addition, different directors have their own styles and skills. The movies selected here are directed by different directors, such as, Jeffrey Lau

Chun-Wai and Corey Yuen Kwai in All for the Winner, Johnnie To Kei-Fung in Justice, My

Foot!, Gordon Chan Kar-Seung in King of Beggars, Lee Lik-chi and Stephen Chow Sing-Chi in From Beijing With Love, Wong Jing in Hail the Judge, Vincent Kok Tak-Chiu in

Forbidden City Cop, Joe Ma Wai-ho in Lawyer Lawyer, and Stephen Chow Sing-Chi in

Shaolin Soccer.

In this sense, they are not intrinsically coherent in styles, structures and “ulterior motives” that, in some measure, cannot embody and reflect the relationship between Hong

Kong and Mainland China logically.

Undeniably, Stephen Chow’s movies as an inalienable part of contemporary Hong

Kong cinema have been influenced by the previous Cantonese cinemas which, steeped in a fine sense of parody, paved the way for the postmodern humor of Chow’s non-sense movies

(Teo, 1998, p. 553). Future research additionally needs to pay attention to: (1) how previous

Cantonese comedies affect Stephen Chow’s movies; and (2) how the traces of those

Cantonese cinemas could be scented in Stephen Chow’s mou-lei-tou movies.

In addition, Stephen Chow’s mou-lei-tou movies have been subtitled in both

mandarin and English, but the original ones are in Cantonese in which Cantonese slangs are

“[un]translatable” (Lai, 2001, p. 242). In order to better grasp his mou-lei-tou movies, to

dissect the Cantonese version of his movies is a must.

Nowadays, a lot of Mainland China-produced comedic films are labeled nonsense movies which obviously copy the format of Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies to attract audiences. Are they really and truly the sensible movies in non-sensible clothing or just laughter-eliciting and box office-centered cash cow? In other words, are those made-in-

Mainland China comedic movies influenced by Stephen Chow’s non-sense movies and in what way are they affected? Can Mainland China cultivate and develop its own “Stephen

Chow”? These questions will be accentuated upon and try to be answered in the future study.

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