The New King Of Comedy (2020) - Movie Review

Stephen Chow’s King Of Comedy is a certified classic. One of the most refined examples of Chow’s unique style of Eastern slapstick, it’s basically one of those films that anyone interested in the acting craft needs to watch, as it covers a pretty wide variety of ‘method’ acting, it’s got some of Chow’s best gags (I’m still giggling at the stuntman-on-fire scene as I’m writing this), and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll feel good after watching it. It is, at the time of writing this, my favourite Chow film. Or, rather, it was… until I saw its spiritual successor.

Journey To The West: The Demons Strike Back (2017) - Movie Review

Even considering the filmmakers that I’ve already covered on this blog, Stephen Chow might be one of the single weirdest that I’ve come across. I say this because, from the works of his that I’ve seen, his cinematic expertise seems to lie in two very different and very conflicting thematic styles. He tends to stick to his own brand of martial arts shenanigans, as influenced by the Shaw Brothers as he is by Tex Avery, resulting in some incredibly energetic and cartoonish action scenes. Alongside that, he has a habit of injecting elements of Buddhist philosophies and a rather nuanced perspective on the matters of life and love, resulting in some remarkably touching moments and end-of-film codas.

These are two worlds that really have no business next to each other, which makes it even more perplexing when he does it well. And really damn well at that; Kung Fu Hustle got the man a lot of attention when it came out and for very good reason. So, with this sequel to his film Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons, and Stephen Chow’s script being utilised by director Tsui Hark, how does this clashing of energy levels turn out?