From a critical perspective: The defects of Hong Kong comedy since the 1950s

Abstract

This paper elucidates the defects of Hong Kong comedy since the 1950s with regard to five aspects: the inflexibility of structure, the obviousness of theme, the drawback of the plot, the slapstick style and the vulgarity of taste. The story and the characters are relatively stereotypical and rigid in terms of structure. The dialogue and the camera angles are straightforward and obvious in the way that they express the theme. With regard to the plot, the structural design is simplistic and lacking in depth and nuance. Their characteristic slapstick style is expressed through the liveliness and nonsense of folk discourse. They are typically in vulgar taste, which finds expression in the customs, imagery and language of carnivalesque civic culture. The Hong Kong comedy genre has a very strong aesthetic tradition and has performed brilliantly in a commercial sense, but filmmakers need to acknowledge and reflect on its shortcomings, with a view to improving the aesthetic quality of Hong Kong comedy films specifically and Chinese comedy films more generally.