How Curry and Pepper showed Stephen Chow’s comedy genius before superstardom arrived
The 1990 buddy cop film was released less than three months before All for the Winner turned Stephen Chow into a superstar in Hong Kong
The prolific and universally adored comedian starred in more than two dozen films between 1990 and 1992, most of which were hits. His lowbrow jokes belied a thoughtful, intelligent performer riven with self-doubt who raked in millions of Hong Kong dollars at the box office.
His success was down to his unique brand of mo lei tau comedy. The term, which comes from the similar-sounding Cantonese phrase mo lei yau, or “without reason”, is often translated as “nonsense”, but “absurdist” expresses the meaning better.
As film historian Ryan Law wrote in his essay “King of Comedy”, mo lei tau humour is not script-based: “In mo lei tau comedy, the situation is usually normal, but the attitude and reaction of the actor is abnormal. The comedy comes from the gap between the two, between sanity and insanity.”