The Cinema of Stephen Chow

Stephen Chow Sing-chi is a renowned Hong Kong star and director, known for his blockbusters and local comedy. This volume explores his stardom and authorship, offering new interpretations of his films and highlighting their aesthetic power, economic significance, and cultural impact.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 03 October 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Stephen Chow Sing-chi, one of Hong Kong cinema's most enduringly popular stars and among its most commercially successful directors, is the subject of this in-depth exploration. In the West, Chow is renowned as the ground-breaking director and star of global blockbusters such as Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and Shaolin Soccer (2001). Among Hong Kong audiences, Chow is celebrated as the leading purveyor of local comedy, popularising the so-called "mo-lei-tau" ("gibberish") brand of Cantonese vernacular humour, and cultivating a style of madcap comedy that often masks a trenchant social commentary. This volume approaches Chow from a diverse range of critical perspectives. Each of the essays, written by a host of renowned international scholars, offers compelling new interpretations of familiar hits such as From Beijing with Love (1994) and Journey to the West (2013). The detailed case studies of seminal local and global movies provide overdue critical attention to Chow's filmmaking, highlighting the aesthetic power, economic significance, and cultural impact of his films in both domestic and global markets.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350362130