Customer Reviews

Flirting Scholar

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After seeing most of Stephen Chow's movies, they can become pretty repetitious. Sort of like King of Beggars, Chow starts out rich, but then becomes poor. This time he does it on purpose. He is a famous poet and painter who wants to get a certain girl to like him. The girl is played by Gong Li, and she is only a maid, but Stephen Chow must have her. Chow has many wives already, and this is where the movie doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Gong Li is just like the wives that Chow had before. There are too many times where she shows herself to be shallow, yet Chow doesn't give second thought to this.

So anyways, the movie is not all that bad. It is filled with hilarious moments like when Chow has a poetry duel. Gong Li is nice to look at, but it frustrates me that there was no thought put into her character.

The action is limited, but good when it happens. Cheng Pei Pei has 2 fights, and it is always wonderful to see her in action. Gordon Liu shows up as a kung fu master and Leung Kar Yan also gets a fight scene.

This is not a bad movie, just not very deep. I did enjoy the ending.

3/5

Sometimes to get a good thing, you have to work for it. I mean REALLY work for it.

And that is the case for the "Flirting Scholar," in a wacky comedy-romance about a guy who has to go to ridiculous lengths to get the girl. The movie gets unnecessarily gross in places, but it's also outrageously funny, especially with Stephen Chow as the hapless title character.

Tong Pak Fu (Chow) is a famous, wealthy artist/poet/kung-fu master, with eight lovely wives. And he's miserable: His wives are rude, wreck his art and spend all their time gambling. But on a boys' day out, he sees the beautiful, kind Chen Heung (Gong Li), and falls madly in love with her. The only problem is, she can't get involved outside her household, so Tong Pak Fu sells himself as a workman.

Through luck, skill and rapping, he manages to become the tutor to the formidable Madame Wah's (Pei-pei Cheng) two sons, and in a position where he can woo Chen Heung. Unfortunately, it turns out that Madame is an old enemy of Tong Pak Fu's family, and will kill him if she finds out his true identity. Can Tong Pak Fu escape and live happily ever after with Chen Heung?

"Flirting Scholar" is basically a boy-meets-girl story, with some song-and-dance numbers and a lot of comic kung-fu. Yes, it's relentlessly silly, but once the plot gets going it's a very amusing light movie. Where else can you see Chow playing the William Tell Overture... with his pulse?

Okay, this film isn't perfect -- several of the gags wear thin after awhile, like that crazed nymphomaniac maid. And please, enough vomiting. Half the people in here throw up. And it's worth noting that whoever did the translations for the DVD box needed to spell-check. When the title is misspelled, it's not a good sign.

However, at the halfway point the plot really takes off -- though there's a subplot about somebody trying to stage a revolution, it's merely an excuse to have more comic fight scenes. And the director has some deliberate anachronisms, like Madame Wah announcing that Tong Pak Fu will be renamed Wah-shington.

Stephen Chow is really the gem in all this. He raps, he dances, he plays tables like drums, and he even sings a song about chicken wings. But he also makes us really like Tong Pak Fu, who just wants a wife who understands him. And Gong Li makes a good love interest for Chow, since her Chen Heung is sweet and beautiful, but also smart and tough.

While "Flirting Scholar" has some flaws (no more vomiting!), it's still a fun little romantic comedy. I like to eat chicken wings!

I grew up with various versions of this story since I was 3, ranging from the different Chinese operas (Cantonese, Taiwanese/Hokkien, and Beijing styles) to the ATV 1980s serious version to TVB late 1990s comedic version. I must say Stephan Chow's version is my favorite. This movie must be watched in Cantonese in order to get the maximum dose of comedy; the Mandarin audio and subtitles (English or otherwise) simply cannot be translated correctly.

What I love about it is that it is not only slapstick humor, but the script alludes to many Chinese movies, commercials, TV series (from both ATV and TVB) and operatic themes, and the overall Chinese cultural flaws. For example, at the beginning, Tong Bak Fu's mother lays a load of guilt trip on him for being ungrateful that she got him 8 wives. The "trick" his mom uses is called/translates as "First cry, second yell, third (if all else fails) suicide." Older-generation Chinese mothers do this to their kids all the time, regardless of how old their kids are (I grew up with one). Then he pretends to be sick in attempt to turn down the high government official's invitation to visit his house. He starts singing the "Chicken Wing" song and the mother and government official's butler join in....except they sing with the modern "Hong Kong Cantonese" lyrics (HK Cantonese differs from regular Cantonese in that they've invented many words and phrases that are only spoken in HK). This is a funny combo because in Cantonese opera, they usually sing long "Lamentation Tunes" (aka South Sound in Cantonese opera) in attempt to explain one's actions or sad life stories. Then the doctor reads Tong Bak Fu's pulse to determine if his illness is real. His "pulse rhythm" is musical, "The General's Command" (from Jet Li's version of Wong Fei Hung, "Once Upon A Time In China"), an ancient classical battle tune from dynasties ago. This pulse scene mocks the general ancient Eastern Chinese medical method of "feeling" or "listening" to one's pulse rate to determine the illness. This often shows up in most of the movies and TV series, which the doc is always 100% correct, there is never a misdiagnosis.

Other memorable scenes include the "temple song" (the flirting song Tong Bak Fu sings with Chau Heung in all of the Cantonese operatic versions) where the monk kicks him out before he could even finish the 1st note (what temple would let people sing inside to disturb the monks' peaceful chanting and meditation??)....the scene where he turns poetry into rap and all the girls went crazy (historically, Tong Bak Fu had innumerous girlfriends who were crazy about his poetry and paintings)....the scene where Tong and the government official's wife starts introducing all the "nutritious ingredients" in their poisonous pills like it's a "healthy food" commercial ("Die In One Day" pill and Tong's "Laugh to Death Within 7 Steps"....these long pill names show up in all Wuxia novels and TV series). As for the graphic vomit scenes, especially during the "poetry contest," it is another Wuxia series parody.

Other recommendations of this same type of humor would be All's Well, Ends Well Too (1993 version), The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993) and The Kung Fu Scholar (1994).

First of all I did not know about this movie until my best friend in China said I should see this early Stephen Chow film with Gong Li. What more do you need to get me to watch a movie?

How more Shakespearean can a comedy get than the protagnist needing to disguise himself to be near the woman he wants to marry? Did I forget to mention he is already married to several wives and he must live in his enemy's household to win the woman he wants to marry?

You must see the scene the protagnist and another person compete to be more pitiful so that they will be chosen to be a servant by Gong Li. While I have given some clues to the storyline you really must see to enjoy the comedy.

The detractions are the subtitling to English and that in a couple of spots it slows down, luckily for not too long, but that even happened in the Bard's comedies.