The New King of Comedy

新喜剧之王

China/Hong Kong, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 91 mins.

Director: Zhou Xingchi 周星驰 [Stephen Chow].

Associate directors: Qiu Litao 邱礼涛 [Herman Yau], Xiao He 肖鹤, Huang Xiaopeng 黄骁鹏.

Rating: 4/10.

Black comedy about a never-say-die film extra is the weakest directorial outing by Zhou Xingchi [Stephen Chow] in a decade.

STORY

Zhuhai city, Guangdong province, southern China, the present day. Desperate for a job, Rumeng (E Jingwen), 30, a wannabe actress who’s toiled away as an extra at Shudian Film City 竖店影视城 for over 10 years, takes a two-day booking on a horror film as a corpse with a hatchet in her head. At a birthday dinner for her father (Zhang Qi), he freaks out at her lack of self-awareness that she’s a failure and ends up kicking her out of the house. Her fiance Charlie (Zhang Quandan), who dreams of becoming a wealthy businessman, encourages her to try out for the title role in the international coproduction Snow White: Bloodbath in Chinatown 白雪公主  血溅唐人街. On a friend’s recommendation she goes to a marketplace quack for some “western” cosmetic surgery but that goes disastrously wrong. She ends up cast as a stunt double. On the same film is former child star Ma Ke (Wang Baoqiang), now a temperamental has-been, who has a small part as Snow White transformed into a man. Rumeng puts on a brave face when her roommate Xiaomi (Jing Ruyang), who has no interest in being an actress, gets the lead role in a film by a well-known director (Miao Yilun) after being spotted in the street. She decides to work even harder, including being a courier inbetween jobs as an extra, especially as Charlie still needs RMB20,000 for his start-up company. But after being humiliated by her childhood hero Ma Ke in one of his on-set tantrums, she realises she’s reached rock bottom. Then one day, in a trick played by Snow White‘s director (Cai Zherui) in which she plays a part, Rumeng sees Ma Ke himself humiliated and sacked. Tubby fellow extra Li Yang (Huang Xiaopeng), who’s always fancied her – and turns out to be independently wealthy – offers her RMB200,000 to solve all her problems but she nicely turns him down. After being humiliated by both Xiaomi’s director and Xiaomi herself, and then discovering that Charlie is not all he seems, Rumeng finally decides to give up and do other things. Then, some time later, Ma Ke makes a sudden comeback when a video of his sacking goes viral.

REVIEW

A wannabe actress endures countless humiliations as an extra without advancing her career a jot in The New King of Comedy 新喜剧之王, a love/hate letter to his chosen profession by Hong Kong’s Zhou Xingchi 周星驰 [Stephen Chow] that’s his weakest directorial outing since CJ7 长江七号 (2008). Unrelated in plot to his 1999 hit King of Comedy 喜剧之王 – apart from centring on a struggling movie extra – it’s more a female take on the same theme but with a much nastier sense of humour in which the wannabe’s lack of self-awareness is the central and only point. As a Chinese New Year attraction it’s so far managed to hawl in only RMB617 million – which would be a more than respectable amount for a film without Zhou’s name but is way down on his previous Mermaid (2016) with its mega RMB3.4 billion take.

In some respects New King is closer to I Am Somebody 我是路人甲 (2015) – the sprawling drama by Er Dongsheng 尔冬升 [Derek Yee] about extras working at China’s Hengdian World Studios – but with a much tighter running time and a sense of humour that Er’s movie fatally lacked. But with a script that has nothing new to say on the subject, and is ragged to the point of laziness, the film’s only point of interest is a plucky performance by Mainland actress E Jingwen 鄂靖文 (aka E Bo 鄂博) as the human punch-bag who just won’t give up.

The setting is Zhuhai city, just across the border from Hong Kong, where, at the fictional Shudian Film City, 30-year-old Plain Jane wannabe Rumeng (literally, “like a dream”) is still plugging away as a jobbing extra after more than a decade and still driving directors crazy with questions on context and motivation. Desperate for any job, she takes a two-day assignment as a corpse in a horror film; as the makeup can’t be taken off overnight she turns up to her dad’s birthday dinner with a hatchet in her head – arguably the film’s funniest joke – and ends up being kicked out of home. When she then decides, at her fiance’s urging, to audition for the lead role in international coproduction Snow White: Bloodbath in Chinatown, some quack cosmetic surgery leaves her looking more like an Evil Sister.

Such jokes are not new in Zhou’s movies – remember the physical humiliations of actress Zhao Wei 赵薇 in Shaolin Soccer 少林足球 (2001)? – and his humour has always had a ridiculous side bordering on the brutal. But even in the early stages there’s a lack of sharpness in handling the jokes that soon becomes endemic. When manic Mainland comic Wang Baoqiang 王宝强 enters the picture 20 minutes in, as a temperamental has-been in drag, the screenplay quickly loses any sense of shape, with Wang taking over the film for long stretches. It’s the kind of production in which the crew must have had a lot of laughs on set but doesn’t seem half so funny when allowed to ramble on screen. And though, as in King of Comedy, humour is not the sole driver, the human drama here is superficial at best.

In King of Comedy, with Zhou himself in the main role, the saving grace was the wannabe’s over-weening arrogance; in New King, the protagonist is equally un-self-aware but basically a nice person, which gives her constant humiliations a rather nastier edge. Harbin-born E, 30, who’s done some theatre as well as supporting roles in comedies like the Wake Up Master 醒醒吧 franchise (2017) and Road & Angel 马路与天使 (2018), does her best with a part that’s little more than a victim of a profession that brings out the worst in people. It’s notable that the film’s most trenchant scene (shot in a single, three-minute take) focuses on Wang’s character rather than hers – his shock that she’s actually given up and left the profession rather than endure any more punishment, a decision that he sees as invalidating his own struggles.

Other characters mill around in the script by Zhou, Hong Kong journeywoman Jiang Yuyi 江玉仪 [Ivy Kong] (Mermaid), her compatriot Li Sizhen 李思臻 (Mermaid) and Mainlander Zhao Bojun 赵博君. There’s a sympathetic fellow extra who’s dumped halfway (played by Huang Xiaopeng 黄骁鹏, one of three associate directors, including veteran Qiu Litao 邱礼涛 [Herman Yau]), Rumeng’s parents (led by her ranting but supportive father, nicely played by Zhang Qi 张琪), a duplicitous boyfriend (Zhang Quandan 张全蛋, aka Lai Yuheng 赖宇哼) and an unreliable roommate (Jing Ruyang 景如洋), but all basically do their turns rather than being properly developed throughout the screenplay.

Photography by Iranian Canadian d.p. Saba Mazloum, who did notably rich work on Night Peacock 夜孔雀 (2015), Wine War 抢红 (2017) and The Game Changer 游戏规则 (2017), again distinguishes himself here, adding texture to scenes that otherwise have little in the dialogue. Music relies heavily on extracts from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, which kind of fits the protagonist’s dreamy make-up but is deeply unoriginal. The fictional studio Shudian, in which the film is set, is a wordplay on the real-life Hengdian complex south of Shanghai, with shù 竖 (“vertical”) substituted for héng 横 (“horizontal”). Yep.

CREDITS

Presented by China Film (CN), The Star Overseas (HK), Shanghai New Culture Film (CN), Alibaba Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Yuejiang Film (CN), Edko Films (HK), Dream Sky Entertainment(CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Hangzhou Quanxing Shidai Culture Development (CN), Beijing Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Dadi Century (Beijing) (CN), Beijing Jinyi Jiayi Film Distribution (CN), Shanghai Film Group (CN).

Script: Zhou Xingchi [Stephen Chow], Jiang Yuyi [Ivy Kong], Li Sizhen, Zhao Bojun. Original story: Zhou Xingchi [Stephen Chow]. Photography: Saba Mazloum. Editing: Yang Qirong. Music: Huang Yinghua [Raymond Wong Ying-wah], Zheng Jiajia. Production design: Chen Jinhe [Raymond Chan]. Art direction: Gao Zhuolin. Costume design: Bai Yiting. Visual effects: Luo Weihao (Different).

Cast: Wang Baoqiang (Ma Ke/Marco), E Jingwen (Rumeng/Dreamy), Zhang Quandan (Chali/Charlie), Jing Ruyang (Xiaomi/Mimi), Zhang Qi (Rumeng’s father), Yuan Xingzhe (Rumeng’s mother), Huang Xiaopeng (Li Yang/Young), Cai Zherui (Snow White director), Miao Yilun (Chen, Xiaomi’s director), Zhou Yunshu (Ma Ke’s assistant), Guo Yang (chat-show host), Tian Qiwen (man with foot stamped on).

Release: China, 5 Feb 2019; Hong Kong, 5 Feb 2019.