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text丨ah he

editor: ai luo

the god of cookery: look at that guy, he looks like stephen chow

on august 31, the movie "the god of cookery" was re-released in mainland china, 28 years after its premiere in hong kong.

in the past, whenever stephen chow's movies were re-screened, the audience always liked to say "it's time to pay back the movie tickets owed to stephen chow". unlike in the past, the call for the re-screening of "the god of cookery" is much weaker this time. correspondingly, the film's box office performance is weak - after 6 days of release, the cumulative box office is only more than 5.3 million, and the total box office in the mainland is expected to be 8.42 million. compared with the 2015 re-screening of "kung fu" which earned more than 25 million box office, and the 2017 "a chinese odyssey part two: cinderella" which earned more than 170 million box office, it is a far cry from the past.

faced with this situation, people can't help but sigh: doesn't stephen chow have any box office appeal anymore?

the god of cookery release poster 

perhaps, stephen chow himself has no time to think about it, because 2024 is an extremely busy year for him.

since the beginning of the year, there has been an endless stream of news about him. on january 15, the internet celebrity brothers "crazy little yang brother" posted a close photo with stephen chow, and the whole network speculated whether stephen chow would enter the live broadcast industry. then on january 29, douyin announced an exclusive cooperation with stephen chow. the two parties will jointly develop and operate the "9527 theater" and continue to launch "zhou's short dramas". in june and july, stephen chow's first short drama "golden pig and jade leaf" was launched at the speed of "one season per month" for two seasons. then in august, the movie "the god of cookery" was scheduled and re-screened, and the comedy variety show "the king of comedy stand-up season" initiated by stephen chow was launched within the month, and the short drama "a chinese odyssey" produced by him was also officially announced at the end of the month.

poster of "9527 theater" 

however, along with stephen chow's busy figure, there are various controversies behind his works: excessive consumption of personal ip, insufficient "star content" in short dramas, selling dog meat under the guise of sheep, and the film works such as "mermaid 2", "shaolin women's soccer" and "kung fu 2" have not been followed up yet...

therefore, after disappearing from the public eye for many years, stephen chow has returned to the center of attention this year. however, this time, the doubts about him outweigh the affirmation and remembrance of him.

for this reason, we can only ask the question that we are reluctant to face but have to ask: is stephen chow "making dirty money" and will he lose his reputation in his later years?

what to do and what not to do: the capital layout behind the bankruptcy mystery

it must be admitted thatstephen chow is passionate about "making money". before becoming a successful filmmaker, he is first a shrewd businessman.he never shies away from his desire for money. chai jing once asked him about his attitude towards money. facing the camera, he said frankly: of course i hope to earn more!

stephen chow was once called the "king of real estate" by hong kong entertainment. wang jing once said, "(stephen chow's) main business is not filming, but real estate speculation. he accumulated wealth very early." in the 1990s, he made a lot of money by speculating in real estate. at that time, hong kong citizens often saw him riding a bicycle around the streets, looking at houses, shops, and land.

in addition to real estate speculation, stephen chow has another financial identity - the executive director of the hong kong listed company bigo group. bigo group was originally named "ditong international" and was acquired by stephen chow in 2010. in that acquisition, stephen chow showed his excellent financial intelligence and became the largest shareholder of ditong international by converting equity.

speculating in real estate and owning listed companies helped stephen chow accumulate a lot of wealth. in 2014, when the media counted the assets of hong kong entertainment stars, they were surprised to find that stephen chow's net worth exceeded 1.5 billion hong kong dollars, making him one of the richest stars at the time. and a line in "the god of cookery" unexpectedly revealed his dream of getting rich: "four companies become eight, and then eight companies will go public, raise funds after listing, then speculate in stocks, and even real estate, and then split and list again!"

classic lines from the god of cookery 

but the capital bubble came much faster than expected. in recent years, stephen chow has been mired in "bankruptcy suspicion": failed bets, sued by his ex-girlfriend, and heavy losses at bigo group.

the so-called "failed bet" refers to a "bet agreement" that caused a sensation in the entertainment industry in 2016. the two parties to the agreement were stephen chow and new culture media group. the latter bet heavily on stephen chow and acquired the equity of a company under stephen chow at a 40-fold premium, requiring stephen chow to earn 1.04 billion net profit after deducting non-operating expenses within four years. if he fails to do so, stephen chow will have to pay cash compensation out of his own pocket and buy back the shares he sold.

the new king of comedy, which was released during the 2019 spring festival and failed both at the box office and in the public opinion, led to stephen chow's "failure in gambling". it is said that in order to fill the debt hole, stephen chow had to use his own tianbi gao mansion valued at 1.1 billion hong kong dollars as collateral.

good fortune never comes alone, and misfortune never comes alone. the following year, stephen chow was involved in a "commission lawsuit" with his ex-girlfriend yu wenfeng. yu wenfeng's father is yu jingbo, the honorary chairman of the hong kong construction company. she is shrewd and capable, and has made great contributions to stephen chow's "real estate speculation" business. stephen chow verbally promised to give her a 10% profit commission, but he regretted it afterwards and was sued by yu wenfeng. the two fought a lawsuit for ten years, and the lawyer fees alone cost an astronomical amount. it was not until the end of 2020 that the court ruled that yu wenfeng lost the case. however, although stephen chow won the lawsuit, he lost the hearts of the people and was labeled a "heartless man" by the hong kong media.

at the same time, the situation of bigo group is not optimistic. for stephen chow, managing a company is much more difficult than buying buildings to get rich. since he took over, bigo's stock price has been positive in the short term, but in the long run it has been in a loss-making state.

stephen chow acquired bigo group 

after many twists and turns, stephen chow finally realized that his most reliable tool for making money has always been himself - stephen chow is the best ip.so, starting from 2021, he chose to come back after being silent for many years: in june 2021, he cooperated with tencent video to start the cooperation with the online movie; in october 2022, he opened an instagram account and recruited people in a high-profile manner, aiming at nft; in august 2023, the animated film "the monkey king" he cooperated with netflix was launched...

since then, stephen chow began to frequently appear as a supervisor, producer, initiator, and producer, and his eagerness for quick success and instant benefits was obvious.

but if you look closely, you will find that he actually "does some things and doesn't do others" - he is just a name, but not a real person. in other words, at present,the three words "stephen chow" have long had a certain symbolic meaning, symbolizing a certain type of comedy that can attract a lot of attention.

stills from the god of cookery 

because of this, after watching stephen chow's "name-dropping" works, the audience will have a feeling of being "scammed". for example, as the producer of the web drama "golden pig and jade leaf", he never appeared in it from beginning to end. although the director and producer tried to make up for it, saying that stephen chow participated in the whole process, every rough cut of each episode was reviewed, and there were at least 100 easter eggs related to stephen chow's movies buried in the drama, the audience did not buy it and bluntly said that it was "selling dog meat under the guise of sheep meat".

this kind of "name hanging" is a kind of consumption, but also a kind of caution. compared with his hong kong counterparts who make a living by performing at various events and selling goods through live broadcasts, stephen chow is quite careful about his reputation - he maintains awe for the works on the screen and is very cautious in his creation.

"there has been no new work by stephen chow on the big screen for five years" is a clear proof of this. this is the longest gap since he entered the mainland.

thus, we can easily seethe two sides of stephen chow: on the one hand, he uses himself as a gimmick and turns his feelings into a business; on the other hand, he strives to stick to the bottom line and cultivates screen creation into a "private plot of land".

tribute vs. rehashing old stuff, why zhou's nonsense doesn't work anymore

as stephen chow frequently "appears" in films, people have helplessly recognized a reality: stephen chow's creative magic seems to have failed.

the short drama label of stephen chow and tiktok is called "9527". this set of numbers is of great significance to stephen chow and has appeared many times in his works. for example, in the movie "fight back to school", this is zhou xingxing's police code. or, in the movie "flirting scholar", this is the servant number of tang bohu after he sneaked into the huafu.

"9527" is a common slang in cantonese, which means "no guts" or "no future".the core of stephen chow's comedy brings out the playfulness and irony of small people.

classic lines from shaolin soccer 

what is"little people"? this actually corresponds to a kind of grassroots vitality, vulgar and exaggerated, with no taboos. the protagonists in stephen chow's comedies are usually "vulgar people" who are mercenary, unreliable, boastful, sweary, and love to watch porn, but the more "humble" they are portrayed, the more they can highlight their kindness and bravery at critical moments. those settings of banging heads against walls, falling into toilets, and crotches on fire are all exaggerated and nonsensical, but the failures, sadness, and struggles of those little people are extremely real and empathetic.

looking back at zhou's comedies, you will find that they are actually very brave and shocking. there is a clip of dissecting aliens in "forbidden city cop", which satirizes the "alien documentary fraud incident" of hong kong tv. the "capitalists create gods" in "the god of cookery" is a satire on hong kong society - it doesn't matter whether you have real talent or not, as long as the capital is willing to support you, you are the god of cookery. in "justice, my foot", bao longxing realized after seeing all kinds of corruption that "going to court" is just a game of backstage and relationship in the end, and justice will only stand on the side of the powerful.

however, the web drama "golden pig and jade leaf" is under the banner of stephen chow, which unfortunately loses this kind of expression. the objects of satire in the drama are mostly "big but meaningless" - the us ban on our software, japan's nuclear waste water discharge, pig-killing scams to cheat people of money... this kind of creative expression has further intensified the audience's denial of stephen chow's "name-only" works.

"golden pig and jade leaf" satirizes "japanese nuclear wastewater" and "american shooting" 

it can be said that today, due to various reasons, comedy works, especially zhou's comedies, can no longer be filmed.

because of this, many works are just paying tribute to stephen chow, and only scratch the surface. for example, there are a lot of sentimental plots in "golden pig and jade leaf": classic lines in "kung fu", the butcher knife in "from beijing with love", and the replacement of "the self-cultivation of actors" in "the king of comedy" with "the self-cultivation of anchors", etc. as netizens said, "fans like stephen chow's comedy style. no matter how many elements pay tribute to him in the new drama, what's the point if it's not funny? it's still unbearable to watch."

this is true not only for "named" works, but also for stephen chow's own directorial works. this is particularly evident in "the new king of comedy" released in 2019. in the movie, ru meng, played by e jingwen, is regarded as the "female version of yin tianchou". tributes to "the king of comedy" can be seen everywhere in the film: lunch box stalks, foot-stomping stalks, folding stool stalks, corpse stalks, "the self-cultivation of actors" stalks... even the most classic "i support you" scene in the previous work was reproduced by the heroine ru meng and her supporting actor partner li yang in the form of a play within a play, and stephen chow and cecilia cheung personally dubbed the clip. these dense easter eggs have become evidence of stephen chow's "selling feelings" and "running out of ideas".

but looking back at the past from today's perspective, you will realize that it was probably inevitable for stephen chow to reach this point today.

cecilia cheung voices the role in "the new king of comedy" 

creating gods and destroying gods is a matter of time and fate

the reason why the audience no longer buys into stephen chow is not only because of his comedies, but also a question of "choice".

nowadays, when talking about comedy creation, people often talk about the question of "are people's sense of humor getting higher and higher?"

with the development of short videos, the amount of information received by the audience has increased dramatically. the internet will push a large number of jokes to the audience, and the audience will go wherever it is funny. in the past, the audience's choices were limited. they could only catch jokes on tv or the big screen. there were only so many funny movies, tv shows, crosstalk, and sketches. now the world has changed dramatically. comedy has become more diverse, including ghost animal, talk show, manzai... every mobile phone is filled with content that can make people laugh.

the abundance of content has led to a reversal of positions: the creator's identity has been demoted, while the consumer's identity has been moved up. the issue of "choosing who to make me laugh" has become controlled by the audience. people no longer have to wait anxiously to be "fed" by those well-known comedians, but can cast a wide net and "spread" more laughter.

this means that as a creator, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a completely different entry point. similarly, this has also caused a change in stephen chow's identity to some extent - from "creating gods" to "destroying gods".

stephen chow says he is out of fashion 

in fact, this is not only a problem that stephen chow is facing, but also a problem faced by older generation creators such as feng xiaogang and zhao benshan.

on december 30, 2023, "if you are the one 3" was released but failed to meet expectations, losing to the comedy "the annual meeting cannot stop!" in the same period. many netizens asserted that "feng's comedy has come to an end, and feng xiaogang's era is over." this is very different from feng xiaogang's previous audience appeal. more than a decade ago, "feng's comedy" and "stephen chow's comedy" were both special terms.

feng xiaogang once explained to the media the secrets of "feng-style comedy", "one is reverse thinking, one is hypocrisy, and the other is that you have to quote a lot of references and link a lot of unrelated things together." but now, "feng-style comedy" is not so funny, because there are too many such settings in the field of short videos, and feng xiaogang's creative thinking is too far away from the audience. as he said, "in the past, i could write a script like "if you are the one" in a month with all my heart and soul, and i was eloquent. now it's not possible. i don't do this kind of thing anymore. sometimes i sit for an afternoon, or even a day or two, and the dialogue is not interesting."

the same is true for zhao benshan. although the "zhao family class" is still producing, and "country love" has already filmed 16 episodes, the creation is seriously stagnant. the "costume comedy" "legend of the magpie sword gate" broadcast last year is more like a flash in the pan in terms of creation, and their market share is also shrinking, and the "die-hard fans" who stay in front of the tv are becoming fewer and fewer.

poster of if you are the one 3 

contrary to this, the comedy industry is thriving: the comedy film "hot as hell" won the spring festival championship with a box office of 3.46 billion yuan, and the comedy film "catching dolls" won the summer championship with a box office of 3.254 billion yuan; the comedy variety show "a wonderful night of joy" ended with a high profile; the talk show variety show returned two years after the fifth season of "talk show conference", bringing out the grand occasion of the two programs "talk show and his friends" and "the king of comedy stand-up season" competing against each other.

their enthusiasm further highlights the loneliness and discomfort of the older generation of comedians.

ultimately, the question facing stephen chow, feng xiaogang, and zhao benshan is: is my work still suitable for today's era? can it still arouse the interest of the audience?

perhaps, for them who are over 60, instead of continuing to "take risks" in full creation and burning themselves out on the road of film and television, it would be more reliable and rational to freeze the title of "king of comedy" in the audience's memory.