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

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Submitted   Aug 31, 2022
Published   Sep 21, 2022
Issue    Vol 3 No 1 (2022)
DOI   10.25082/IJAH.2022.01.003

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Moshan Guo corresponding author
Department of Chinese Studies, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

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 recognize and introspect on its shortcomings, with a view to improving the aesthetic quality of Hong Kong comedy films and Chinese comedy films more generally.

Keywords
Hong Kong comedy, civic culture, carnival, slapstick, vulgarity

Article Details

Supporting Agencies
This work was funded by China Scholarship Council (No. 201906360185).
How to Cite
Guo, M. (2022). From a critical perspective: The defects of Hong Kong comedy since the 1950s. International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 3(1), 101-110. https://doi.org/10.25082/IJAH.2022.01.003
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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