Stephen Chow
Stephen Chow is an actor, born 1962.
Stephen Chow came out of Hong Kong television, where variety shows and TV dramas made him recognisable before films did. Recognition proper arrived in 1989 with The Final Combat and The Justice of Life, the second of which started his long on-screen partnership with Ng Man-tat. Then All for the Winner (1990) and Fight Back to School (1991) broke the territory's box office record in consecutive years, and the decade was his.
The volume is hard to convey without counting. Our catalog alone lists nineteen Chow films dated 1990 to 1992. He was making sequels to his own hits while the hits were still in cinemas, and the style carrying all of it, mo lei tau, is usually translated as nonsense comedy. What it really describes is a rhythm: a scene set up seriously, detonated sideways by something absurd, then played straight again as though nothing had happened.
His character names show how personal the machine was. He is Sing in All for the Winner, God of Gamblers II, Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle; Chow Sing Sing across all three Fight Back to School films; Wai Siu Bo in both Royal Tramps; and in The God of Cookery the character is simply called Stephen Chow.
The second half belongs to the director. Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004) travelled internationally in a way the 1990s work never had, and CJ7 (2008) is the last film in our records where he appears on screen. After that the credits put him behind the camera only: Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013), The Mermaid (2016) and The New King of Comedy (2019), which answers a film he made in 1999.
Movies (72)
- Kung Fu Soccer (2026)
- Kung Fu Soccer (2026)
- Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
- Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
- Shaolin Soccer (2001)
- Shaolin Soccer (2001)
- A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box (1995)
- A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella (1995)
- From Beijing with Love (1994)
- From Beijing with Love (1994)
- Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013)
- King of Comedy (1999)
- King of Comedy (1999)
- God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai (1991)
- Flirting Scholar (1993)
- The Mermaid (2016)
- The God of Cookery (1996)
- The God of Cookery (1996)
- Fight Back to School 2 (1992)
- Hail the Judge (1994)
- Royal Tramp (1992)
- Forbidden City Cop (1996)
- Forbidden City Cop (1996)
- King of Beggars (1992)
- CJ7 (2008)
- CJ7 (2008)
- Royal Tramp 2 (1992)
- Gorgeous (1999)
- Fight Back to School (1991)
- The Mad Monk (1993)
TV (17)
- The Legend of the Condor Heroes (1983)
- The King of Stand-up Comedy (2024)
- The Justice of Life (1989)
- Love & Passion (1982)
- The Price Of Growing Up (1987)
- My Father's Son (1988)
- It Runs in the Family (1990)
- Woman on the Beat (1983)
- Soldier of Fortune (1982)
- Beyond the Rose Garden (1983)
- Screen Play (1992)
- File Noir (1989)
- The Final Combat (1989)
- A Chinese Odyssey - Odyssey (2024)
- The Tribulation of Life (1988)
- Angels And Devils (1983)
- Behind Silk Curtains (1988)
Where to start with Stephen Chow
Kung Fu Hustle is the correct entry point and it is not close. It is the most controlled thing he has made, the film where slapstick, wire work and cartoon logic finally share a frame without arguing.
Then work backwards. Shaolin Soccer is the same brain with less money and more heart, The God of Cookery is the purest mo lei tau in the catalog, and From Beijing with Love is the spy parody that will tell you within ten minutes whether this humour is yours. Fight Back to School is the record breaker and shows the star persona in its original packaging.
For the strange end, A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box turns a canonical Chinese epic into farce and then, somehow, into something sad, while King of Comedy is the one about a nobody who wants to act, a subject he returned to from the director's chair twenty years later. The Mermaid shows what he does with an enormous budget and no part for himself.