Flirting Scholar

This is a typical Stephen Chow's commedy. Inside you see all the necessary elements: jokes, love, kungfu. Well, the story is not new. This is a traditional Hong Kong/Chinese story, but the reproduction in this new style has been quite successful. I must admit that this movie has given me one and a half-hour of continuous laughing. However, this is a very "Hong-Kong-ish" movie. I think only Hong Kongese can appreciate its jokes. Because of difference in culture and inability of translating exactly, non-HongKongese may find the movie stupid and uninteresting. If only Hong Kong people rated this title, I'm sure the rating would be higher.

This is a great film for us,maybe also for those who can speak Chinese and know about Chinese culture. Of all the comedies I've seen,this one could be the best. If any could claim better,it would only be chow's another film,which I can't provide with an English name. This dude,dje2000,obviously knew nothing about China,and his words should not be on the first page of this film. Everybody has to find it not helpful,this could be the real silly thing. I'm saying this because IMDb Rates and page links are seen almost every movie site.This comment could kill the new comers.

replace it! replace it! replace it! with any of the others.

Stephen Chow is the greatest of the Four Scholars in Ming-era China. His paintings go for 30,000 taels a pop, his poetry sells like mad, he has eight wives who spend all their time playing mah-jong, and he is thoroughly miserable. Then he spots Gong Li and falls in love. She is a servant in the household of James Wong and Pei-Pei Cheng (who is very funny), so he sells himself to the household under a fake name. He quickly rises because of his scholarship, and is overjoyed when Gong Li confesses she loves his poetry and the man who wrote them. Unfortunately, she doesn't believe Chow is that man. Also, Madame Cheng hates him, sight unseen.

There are also various subplots involving Wai Lam as King Ning, and the big fight at the end is with Chia-Hui Liu, who killed Inigo Montoya's father. I mean Chow's father.

The only star to compare with Chow is Jacky Chan. However, while Chan performs his comedy stunts using practical effects and takes that often injure him, Chow's gags verge on cartoons. Chow also plays with Chinese mythology, and while I am unclear as to which legends this movie refers to, there's no need to understand the details if you have any familiarity with your typical Kung Fu movie. The details of the silly plot take up a lot of time, but there's still plenty of gags to make the audience laugh.

The previous review is quite unfair. This movie can only be understood and hence enjoyed by Cantonese (not even by other Chinese). I laughed all the way. You will, if you can enjoy this kind of lower intelligent jokes (same level as Jim Carrey's). It has so many local jokes that I missed some since I left Hong Kong for a long time. I can feel they're funnier if I stayed in HK long enough. The performance is great for Chow. It is not a good role for Gong Li. It is a comedy rather than the serious roles she is usually in. Unlike some stars such as Chow Yun Fat, she is only good at certain roles. The song at the end is great and I believe it was copied from another movie with a similar name, which is a serious version of this movie.

This is a must watch for all Stephen Chow fans and I highly recommend this for everyone that loves random comedy. The characters were compelling, the story was surprisingly not so predictable like thought from the beginning and the dialogues were well crafted. I really enjoyed this movie because it was very entertaining and there were so many new ways of making me laugh which was great.

The movie is about a noble scholar who is not pleased with his gambling wives, because they play majhong all day. Stephen Chow's character in this movie can paint, sing and write poems. Then later he and his scholar friends sees this girl whose beauty outshines all other girls near her and then the Scholars try to disguise themselves just to get near her in weird but funny ways. The girl comes from a rival family which hates his family. So he tries to find a way inside to approach her without being noticed. But there is much more than just romance and comedy, so I highly recommend this hilarious movie to everyone.

The movie wasn't as slow as I thought. Stephen Chow is just pure awesome in his genius way of making his audience laugh out loud.