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| (Photo/ China Daily) |
"Is the film that good?" he asks, his confusion seeming genuine.
"I was so flattered. Looking back, I find a lot of flaws, but I will keep that to myself," he adds with a sly smile.
"Post-modernism" is a big word for the man, who grew up with three siblings and his mother in a lower-class Hong Kong community. He remembers how depressed his mother once was at the loss of HK$50 ($6.40). In his middle school days, he worked as a part-time street vendor and waiter. After graduation, he became an extra actor at a local TV station. For about six years he did not get any real movie roles.
His 1999 film, King of Comedy, is widely considered his biopic. It starts with the protagonist, a temporary actor, shouting to the sea and himself: "Work harder! Keep on!" It shows how Chow, during his days as an extra, used Russian actor Constantin Stanislavski's book An Actor Prepares as his bible, to design his own gags. He never gave up even when he had to play the role of a corpse.
His unyielding efforts may explain why he won many awards and rose to stardom quickly when he was finally the lead in a film, in 1988.
He became the most popular Hong Kong comedian and has 47 comedies under his name. A typical Stephen Chow protagonist is an underprivileged young man, neglected and humiliated, but in the end becoming really powerful.
That is also the theme of his new film Odyssey, also based on Journey to the West, which will be released on Feb 10. The protagonist is now the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, instead of the Monkey King, but it is still a tale of the growth of an ordinary boy faced with setbacks and heartbreaking romance.
Photos: A hard and happy day of a 'gold' confinement
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