Happy Birthday Stephen Chow

Stephen Chow is my favorite work­ing movie direc­tor. He started as an actor in kids TV, then moved to fea­tures, and even­tu­ally began direct­ing. His work is very char­ac­ter dri­ven and full of slap­stick and spe­cial effects. If you have never seen Kung Fu Hus­tle, Shaolin Soc­cer, or God of Cook­ery, you have missed out. I even liked CJ7.  While many direc­tors start out with fan­tas­tic vision, only to weaken over time, his work has steadily grown in energy and style. He was cast to play Kato in the Green Hor­net remake, but left over cre­ative dif­fer­ences.  If he had been in it, I would have seen the movie.  Here are some quotes.

“Right from the begin­ning of my work, I wanted to cap­ture a mass audi­ence. And I love the unusual: you never see danc­ing vil­lains. For me, there‘s a fine line between com­edy and drama; so it‘s not just played for laughs. There‘s a lit­tle romance in this story, too — some­thing for everybody.”

“I used to cry when I watched Chaplin‘s films. It was from him that I learned about the role of the under­dog. And because I‘m also from a poor fam­ily, this kind of thing moved me and I found that it also worked for the audi­ence because most of them are like me — ordi­nary guys.”

“As many peo­ple have pointed out, the scene in ‘Kung Fu Hus­tle’ where the Land­lady was chas­ing after me resem­bled the Road­run­ner, … I loved to watch car­toons and read comic books when I was small. In fact, I still watch and read a lot of them now. They give me great ideas.”

Here is the scene.