Introduction to the Film ‘Flirting Scholar’

Flirting Scholar《唐伯虎點秋香》(1993) is a Hong Kong film production

comedy is directed by Lee Lik-Chi（李力持）, who worked with Stephen Chow in several other films such as From Beijing with Love《國產凌凌漆》, Forbidden City

Cop《大內密探零零發》and Shaolin Soccer《少林足球》. The pair has worked

together since the early 1990s, making the mo lei tau culture flourish to become an avant-garde form of comic cinema, which later played a significant influence on the Hong Kong film and television industry.

Since the release of Flirting Scholar in 1993, Lee Lik-Chi has also directed

Flirting Scholar 2《唐伯虎點秋香 2 之四大才子》in 2010, as a sequel to the

1993 film, as well as a Chinese television series, The Four Scholars in Jiangnan

《江南四大才子》in 2014. All three of them are stories that revolve around Tong Bak Fu, a Chinese scholar, painter, calligrapher, and poet of the Ming dynasty.

There are other productions about the talented scholar, but none can be compared to the Stephen Chow version from 1993. Moreover, the film is often replayed on television as well – it is reported that in 2011 to 2015, Flirting

Scholar was shown on television over 230 times, making it the most replayed film

on Taiwan television (潘鈺楨, 2015), showing the achievements and success of the film even 20 years after it was released.

In addition to Tong Bak Fu, Stephen Chow’s early filmography includes a series of so-called ‘existing character, new plot’ films, in which Chow played famous historical and fictional figures with new storylines, such as Sung Sai Kit

（宋世傑）in Justice, My Foot《審死官》, Wai Siu-bo（韋小寶）in Royal Tramp

1 & 2《鹿鼎記》《鹿鼎記 2 神龍教》, and So Chan（蘇燦）in King of Beggars

《武狀元蘇乞兒》, just to name a few. These films have marked the beginning of

Stephen Chow’s successful career in the entertainment industry, as well as bringing a distinct mo lei tau comedy style to the Hong Kong public and Chinese-speaking audience abroad.

1.5.1 Film Plot

In Flirting Scholar, Tong Bak Fu (Stephen Chow) is famous for having eight beautiful wives, topped with his expertise as an artist, poet, and calligrapher.

Tong not only excels in art, he is also a master in martial arts. The Tong family has two major enemies in the martial arts world: the Evil Scholar and an ex-girlfriend of Tong’s father. As the only male heir of the family, he was forbidden by Chussy, Tong’s mother, from using martial arts under any circumstances. One day, during an outing with his friends, Tong stumbles upon Chou Heung (Gong Li), one of the four maids of the House of Wah. He believes this encounter is a destiny for him to find his one true love. In order to get to know Chou Heung, Tong disguises himself as a poor young man in order to gain employment in the House of Wah.

Tong finds life as a servant difficult, but after an incident, Madame Wah finds out that Tong is educated. He is given a new name, Wah On（華安）, and has a new job working as a junior studying companion in the study room. After Chancellor Wah accidentally kills the head teacher, Tong is subsequently promoted as a senior studying companion and manages to form a closer relationship with Chou Heung. However, a sudden visit by Prince Ning goes violent as the Evil Scholar, now a subordinate under Prince Ning, starts a fight

with Madame Wah. When Madame Wah is injured, Tong steps in to end the fight in favour of the Wah family.

Embarrassed by the defeat at the hands of a servant, Prince Ning leaves and orders the Evil Scholar to return for revenge. In reproducing a painting during Prince Ning’s visit, Tong accidentally reveals his true identity to Madame Wah, who also reveals herself as the ex-girlfriend of Tong's father and still holds grudges against the Tong family. A couple of days later, the Evil Scholar returns aiming to kill the entire Wah family. Madame Wah attempts to defend, but is almost killed by the Evil Scholar. Tong appears and once again, he steps in in favour of the House of Wah. After a fierce battle, the Evil Scholar is killed. In the end, Tong Bak Fu gets to marry Chou Heung, at the courtesy of the Wah family.

1.5.2 Flirting Scholar’s Success

Flirting Scholar received instant box office success after it was released in

Hong Kong on 1^st July, 1993, grossing an estimate of over HK$40 million. This also put Stephen Chow’s mo lei tau style comedies at the top of the Hong Kong box office for four consecutive years from 1990 to 1993 (梁德輝, 2017). The film was also dubbed into Mandarin by the Taiwanese dubbing actor Shi Banyu（石 班渝）, who mainly dubs for Chow’s comedies and is famously known as the voice of Stephen Chow among the Taiwanese people. The film was released in Taiwan in the same year, which also grossed over NT$28 million in box office.

In an interview in the book 《我愛周星馳》, Shi Banyu revealed that he also dubbed the Taiwanese version of Flirting Scholar, and the film was only

released in Southern Taiwan for three days because the owner’s mother of the distribution company only speaks Taiwanese (p.92). Shi Banyu also mentioned the difficulties he faced when he was dubbing Stephen Chow’s films such as translating the Cantonese slangs and swearwords into Mandarin for the non-Cantonese speaking audiences. This issue will be discussed in detail later in this thesis.

In addition, it is evident that Japanese popular culture played a significant role on Hong Kong (Bolton & Hutton, 1997), and it is evident in many of Stephen Chow’s films. For instance, Kame-hame-ha（龜派氣功；かめはめ波）in Flirting

Scholar is a perfect example. Kame-hame-ha is originally found in the popular

Japanese comic Dragon Ball（七龍珠）. Although it is completely out-of-place to have such things appear in a film set in the Ming dynasty, the public seems to have accepted it as part of Chow’s nonsense style. Shaolin Soccer, inspired by

Captain Tsubasa（足球小將）, had opened the door for Chow to enter markets

outside of Chinese-speaking countries, which also achieved great success in Japan in 2002. This had caused a Stephen Chow sensation across Japan – Shaolin

Soccer received Best Foreign Film at the Blue Ribbon Awards in Japan. As a result,

some of Chow’s earlier films such as Flirting Scholar were dubbed into Japanese and the DVD was released in 2003 (吳偉明, 2015).