Forbidden City Cop

FORBIDDEN CITY COP follows the usual mould for a Stephen Chow comedy. It has a handful of truly impressive, immersive and highly creative action sequences that showcase some wacky special effects and choreography, and it shares a couple of cast members with the '80s likes of SHAOLIN DRUNKARD which it pays homage to. These action bits are outstanding and quite hilarious. As usual, it's the bits in between that fall flat; the scenes of Chow and his wife or Chow searching for a concubine are pretty dull and not up to par. Chow is an immensely likeable presence and I just wish the bits in between the good bits were as good as the good bits, if you see what I'm getting at.

Forbidden City Cop was a movie that suprised the hell out of me. When i first saw a copy of the thing, i twisted my face up in confusion, not knowing what the hell i was in for. Lucky, i picked up a copy and about an hour and a half after chucking it into my vcr, i was still laughing my ass off. This film is the perfect mix of comedy, corruption, and sheer lunacy. The fight scene with the magnets had me in tears, and the amount of golden one-liners in the film was hilarious. In the immoral words of the Faceless Ninja: "BLAND AND FACELESS, MY SKILLS ARE UNFATHOMABLE!"

Many of the same sort of visual gags found in Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle get their first sparks here. The comedy is very broad, as usual for an HK production, and the production is uneven at times. The kung-fu is more crazy-fu and shot in dizzying super wide angle close- ups. In contrast the non-fighting portions are photographed nicely. Chow is a good comic actor following in the footsteps of notable actors like Fu Sheng, Jacky Chan and others. The relationship between Chow's character and the wife is very well done for this type of film. There are lots of anachronistic media references and sometimes the film seems more like a TV show. Much of the action seems to be influenced by Ng See Yuen's Shaolin Drunkard films of the 1980's, not that that's bad at all. Not as polished as Chow's later films but good fun.

Well, if you are familiar with Stephen Chow, then you should definitely watch "Forbidden City Cop" (aka "Daai laap mat taam Ling Ling Fat") from 1996. Now, with my interest in Hong Kong cinema, I oddly enough had managed to not watch this movie before 2020. Actually, I hadn't even heard about it prior to sitting down to watch it. Which was a mistake on my behalf, because "Forbidden City Cop" was entertaining and enjoyable, and it was a very archetypical Stephen Chow movie, for better or worse. I enjoy his movies and his comedy, so this was a nice treat for me to watch. The storyline is actually good, and it is laced with a good amount of action and comedy. Of course it is, this is a Stephen Chow movie after all. And directors Stephen Chow and Vincent Kok managed to put together a very enjoyable movie. The movie offers a wide variety of genre mixes, such as comedy, martial arts, drama and mystery, so there definitely is something for just about anyone sitting down to watch it. If you haven't already seen "Forbidden City Cop" then you should do so if you get the chance, especially if you have an interest in these types of Asian movies. My rating for this movie lands on a six out of ten stars.

What makes 'Daai laap mat taam 008' different from other Kong Fu comedies is that it's slightly more offbeat and has less kong fu. But hang on, it's funny as hell and endearing. I love the character Ling Ling Fat (Stephen Chow) and his wife Kar Ling (Karina Lau). Chow as Fat is a royal servant, an inventor, a medicine man, a devoted husband and a cop is amazing. He shows another side of his comedic talent that is very different from what he did in 'Shaolin Soccer' and 'Kung Fu'. Carina Lau displays her versatility by playing a comic role as the devoted and loving wife Kar. The relationship of the two characters is very well portrayed and is one of the highlights of the film. There are also many funny characters as I mentioned in the summary that just make the movie experience more fun. The over the top fight scenes are both comical and well shot, fitting well with the context. Yes, a lot of the scenes are done in a cheesy way, a lot of them are far fetched too but then again, it just adds to the humour. There are several laugh out loud moments and very funny twists. I am pretty sure that one will be unstoppably laughing throughout the film. I find 'Daai laap mat taam 008' to be a very refreshing comedy but it's probably the kind one would either hate or like very much.

It's hard to know what I would think of this parody of cheesy martial arts movies if it were properly translated. Would it make more sense? Are there clever jokes hidden in there? It's hard to tell. The story seems episodic, coming across as two separate stories that each end with a big fight. In terms of the non-dialogue parts, the first story has the better final fight, a crazy, often funny scene involving gadgets that gets a lot of laughs out of giant magnets. The other big action scene was less interesting. What comes through even with the bad translation is a really charming relationship between protagonist Chow and wife Carina Lau. Those scenes are really fun. Outside of one action scene and the relationship scenes I didn't care much for this. It's very lowbrow slapstick and while it's a parody of bad, cheaply made movies, it's not far from what it's mocking. But still, with better subtitles this might be a better movie than I think it is.