The Most Depressing Movie This Lunar New Year Was The New King of Comedy
Why this CNY film by Stephen Chow pierced deeper than I thought.
In case you weren’t aware, ‘Chinese New Year (CNY) films’ are a genre of movies that are released on the first day of the Lunar New Year. They’re similar to the Hallmark Christmas movies in that they are meant to be crowd-pleasing B-movies for the entire family, but comedic instead of sappy.
Just like the Hallmark Christmas films, though, CNY films are guaranteed to make money. The market for CNY films is so profitable that they can attract huge movie stars, from Jackie Chan, to Maggie Cheung, to Andy Lau, to headline them. They also tend to originate from Hong Kong, Singapore, and China.
The Hong Kong-Chinese produced From Vegas to Macau trilogy of films that started in 2014 and ended in 2016 had a cast that included *takes deep breath* Chow Yun-Fat, Nicholas Tse, Carina Lau, Nick Cheung, Shawn Yue, Li Yuchun, and Jacky Cheung. And these films revolved around comedic gamblers with feuds, with scenes that included evil liars and laser bubbles!
So, yeah, these superstars did not sign on for the plot. And I don’t have an issue with them making movies for money (aren’t we all doing our jobs for the same reason?), but I just needed all of you to know the premise of CNY movies.
You watch it to laugh, and then go home. No deep thinking needed.
Another star that’s been heavily associated with CNY films is Stephen Chow. He might be more well-known for his wuxia comedy films, such as Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, and The God of Cookery, but he’s also a popular director of comedy dramas, such as King of Comedy, which was released 20 years ago, and is the basis of the New King of Comedy, which came out on the first day of the 2019 Lunar New Year.
The Differences Between The Original and The Sequel
The original film focused on the trials and tribulations of a background actor, extra, or temporary actor, played by Chow. However, it’s full of the visual gags and random acts of cartoon violence that Chow is famous for.
In the 2019 version, he’s behind the camera instead, directing fresh face E Jingwen and veteran actor Wang Baoqiang in an updated and gender-swapped version.
Instead of the film veering off into ridiculous spy territory, as per the original, though, The New King of Comedy focuses on how hard it is for someone to pursue their dreams.
The main character spends 75% of the time getting bullied and treated like crap for believing that hard work is the key to success, only to get her big break in the last half hour. And while the film still incorporates a boatload of visual gags and the actors do a superb job balancing comedy and tragedy, this film felt…just way too real for me.
It actually took me a few days (okay, the entirety of the Lunar New Year) to recover from this film, because it had pierced to the heart of hustling mania in 2019:
Hard work (which can be ridiculous and abusive) doesn’t always lead to success.
The protagonist Ru Meng is kind, polite, hardworking, a doormat, and always willing to take the crappy job if it lets her have exposure.
Sound familiar?
While I’m not half as nice as her (and definitely not a doormat), I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt parallels between Ru Meng and my life. Watching her struggle to get her face in front of directors who judged her (and dismissed her) based purely on her looks, I remembered all the internships I did in order to get experience.
What those internships taught me was that it was not about how hard you worked; it was instead about who you knew, and what you were willing to leverage to get ahead. You could be the most prepared person in the room, willing to lug heavy boxes everywhere, but it didn’t matter because your bosses were still going to prefer the one who was unprepared, underdressed, and late, just because they smiled more, or had more camera-ready faces that would attract attention.
Do I sound bitter?
Probably.
In the film, Ru Meng is betrayed by the ones closest to her, as they sell out for fame and fortune. I’m not going to spoil the entire film here and tell you who does it, but it comes easy to them, as they’re basically handed everything on a platter. In return, they treat Ru Meng like crap, because she’s not useful to them anymore.
What this film reminded me was: gone are the days when hard work was the most important distinguishing factor in getting ahead. Even for Ru Meng, her big break only comes along after she’s literally bleeding and when she’s used as a tool for humiliating an arrogant actor into quitting.
Is that scene funny?
Yes, it is.
Watching an arrogant character get his comeuppance is hilarious, but seeing her get nothing out of it is way too familiar to many of us out there.
The reason that Ru Meng even gets any credit is because someone takes the video and puts it online, and she goes viral. Yup, it’s not that she had long-suffering supporters of her work, and they saw how hard she worked. She basically…was in the right place in the right time, and her fame comes at the expense of another person.
The directors, studios, and people in power get no criticism.
Let me guess: you’re going to say that this is a ‘Millennial Problem’.
Well, honestly, it probably is, because we’re the ones who are subjected to it now.
We’re the ones who are doing unpaid internships left and right, and have trouble finding jobs while holding a ton of student debt from rising costs and inflation.
Yes, as a baby boomer, you might have gone through the same level of abuse and shit to get to your level of power, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there were less educated people when you were growing up. Actually, there were less people of your age group, period. If you were educated and young, jobs opened up. Immediately.
Just watch Ru Meng. She’s been an extra for 10 years, and hasn’t gotten anywhere. This situation sounds more than familiar to anyone of us, who are the generation used to contract, part-time roles, where there are minimal benefits (because companies don’t need to fight for candidates anymore; the demand and supply chart has flipped the other way).
You can hustle, and let people step on you any chance they get (because you need to ‘pay your dues’), but, in our day, yearly bonuses/promotions/company trips are the rarity, not the norm.
So, yes, watching the film was emotional for me, and it made me tear when I watched Ru Meng’s father realise the amount of shit his daughter had gone through to make her dreams come true: that’s what we all want from the previous generations before us: acknowledgement of our unique struggles, and some empathy.
But let’s get back to the film as a CNY film. I can say that it’s very funny. It is indeed very aspirational, and has been updated successfully by Stephen Chow. The acting is superb. It’s just that it might have succeeded too much in terms of being relatable as I (and my brother, and other millennials I assume) might have related to the film a little too much, making our mood somber as we exited the cinema. Part of us kept thinking that the big break Ru Meng achieved was a sham; how could it be so quick and so easy suddenly?
And in the end, that was the part that was unbelievable to me.
Originally published at onereelatatime.org on February 19, 2019.
