PENGARAHAN III (AFV 3172)

FILM AUTEURS - REVIEW

6 November 2019 (Wed)

 An auteur is an artist, usually a film director, who applies a highly centralized
and subjective control to many aspects of a collaborative creative work. The director
was considered to be the most important among the people working on a film. The
directors who bring the film to life and use the film to express their thoughts and
feelings about the subject matter as well as a worldview as an auteur. Auteurs can
use lighting, camerawork, staging and editing to add to their vision.

There are many filmmakers we celebrate in this vein, but some become lost
or forgotten and some like Hong Kong director, actor, writer and producer Stephen
Chow are just plain underrated.

Stephen Chow

Stephen Chow was born in 1962 in Hong Kong to working class parents. He
began his career as a temporary actor on television. He graduated from TVB's acting
classes in 1982.

Stephen went on to start a successful career in television, starring in a kids’

program called Space Shuttle 430, and eventually transitioning to more dramatic
roles before breaking onto the big screen with his first feature film, Final Justice.
 FILMOGRAPHY (STEPHEN CHOW) TOP 2

Year English Title Chi. Title Role Award

2001 Shaolin Soccer 少林足球 Director,  Blue Ribbon Award for Best Foreign
Producer, Language Film
Screenwriter,  Golden Bauhinia Awards for Best Film
Action  Hong Kong Film Award for Best Film
 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director
Choreography,
 Hong Kong Film Award for Best New
Actor Director
 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor
 Golden Bauhinia Awards for Best Director
2004 Kung Fu Hustle 功夫 Director,  Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival for
Producer, Silver Scream Award
Screenwriter,  Boston Society of Film Critics Award for
Composer, Actor Best Foreign Language Film
 Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
for Best Foreign Language Film
 Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best
Foreign Language Film
 Golden Horse Award for Best Feature
Film
 Golden Horse Award for Best Director
 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Film
 Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for
Best Foreign Language Film
 Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for
Best Foreign Language Film

Stephen’s brand of action comedy was in a school all of its own. The action is
as over the top as we can possibly get, especially with later films like Shaolin Soccer
and Kung Fu Hustle using CGI to exaggerate the action to Dragon Ball Z levels of
absurdity.

KUNGFU HUSTLE SHAOLIN SOCCER

 The comedy combines everything from Looney Tunes style slapstick.
Example, there’s a foot chase between two characters in Kung Fu Hustle that could
be straight out of a Roadrunner cartoon. Rapid fire screwball dialogue, deadpanning
characters, and comedy so broad that the fruit is not just low hanging, it is touching
the ground, which means that sometimes the jokes are a little cheap and very mean
spirited.

Example scene of Kungfu Hustle

This is all due to Stephen Chow adopting and perfecting a school of thought
and comedy movement called “Mo Lei Tau,” a Cantonese phrase that translates
roughly to “coming from nowhere” or “makes no sense.”

Stephen developed the idea into something far more farcical and illogical than
anything that came before it. Mo Lei Tau is characterized by the fact that things
happen for no reason. Fights can break out over nothing, people can burst into song
and dance, characters break the Fourth Wall and story threads get picked up and
dropped for no reason. It has its roots in the films of the Hui Brothers, a trio of
siblings that would mix kung-fu and comedy to wild success in Hong Kong.

Stephen Chow’s protagonist and story structures are very similar from film to
film. The protagonist usually played by Stephen himself, it is a low-class narcissist
trying to prove or accomplish something beyond his means.

The movie usually has them ending up attaining physical or spiritual Buddhist
like or in the case of Journey to the West, actual Buddhist enlightenment ascension
to obtain these means Besides, usually with the help of a woman. This focus on low-
class characters is important to Stephen given his lower class upbringing and the
class system within Hong Kong and China as a whole.

The characters may be narcissists, but their arcs usually have them endearing
themselves to the audience by the end of the film.
 A prime example is the ending of King of Comedy where the two main
characters fall in love with each other. In order to have these ridiculous digressions
and surprises, Stephen has developed a simple and reliable story telling method.

“The king of comedy”

Stephen Chow multiple collaborations with his regular sidekick, Hong Kong
comedian actor Ng Man Tat is best remembered for his comedic roles on the silver
screen.

The two have been in many movies together, many lament how the comedic
duo which has made us laugh for years seems to have fallen out of touch.
 Movies are released very differently today than they were in 2004. Fans of the
Stephen Chow-Ng Man Tat would be happy to know that the comedy auteur is open
to working with the veteran actor again someday. Ng Man Tat admitted that it has
been a while since he last spoken to Stephen, though admitted that the director did
invite him to play a role in Stephen’s movie. It is noted that Ng declined the offer due
to health problems.

REFERENCES: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Chow