Film Review: Royal Tramp

Film Review: Royal Tramp

Royal Tramp is a 1992 Hong Kong film which is a recreation movie based on Louis Cha's novel The Deer and the Cauldron. The film was one of the five top grossing Hong Kong films in 1992.The film was followed by a sequel, Royal Tramp II, in the same year. Stephen Chow plays the main character, Wai Siu-bo and Wong Jing is the film director. Royal Tramp is one of the classical comedy movies from Stephen Chow in Hong Kong. Stephen Chow’s movies create a kind of “moy len tau” (nonsense) genre. His products have great influence in Hong Kong comedy film and Movies from Stephen Chow has already become a signature to represent Hong Kong’s comedy.

Before Royal Tramp, most of the Stephen Chow’s movies are based on modern society, like Fight back to school, Tricky Brains. However, the time setting is changed suddenly to the old-time period of China, which is Royal Tramp. The theme of Royal Tramp is around historical and cultural background in Hong Kong. At that period of time, Hong Kong was ruled by the British government. Teenagers were very lack of awareness or knowledge in Chinese history. In Royal Tramp, some significant historical events are presented in a ridiculous way. For example, the event of Wu Sangui Defection to Qing, Wu opened the gates of the Great Wall of China at Shanhai Pass to let Qing forces into China proper, forming an alliance with the Manchus. Moreover, the secret association, Tian Di Hui, is also a key event in Qing Dynasty. Stephan Chow puts those serious events into nonsense scenes in the movie and creates his own style of story-telling.

The iconography of characters in Royal Tramp is also a characteristic in Stephen Chow’s movies. In a scene of Wai Siu-bo comes to To lung’s house to confiscate all To lung’s asset since the crime of corruption. The confiscated asset is supposed to give back to the emperor, but Wai Siu-bo takes all of it. The image of Wai Siu-bo represents the police officers in Hong Kong in 1990s. The corruption was serious at that moment. Although Wai Siu-bo is a officer, he breaks the law frequently since he is from a low-class society. He does not have good manner of being a proper person. The characters of Stephen Chow are mainly vulgar and rude. Nevertheless, it is set deliberately to present a man with morality but in the meantime he is vulgar. This vulgarity sometimes presents some social implication in sarcastic way.

The linguistic style is the most remarkable feature in Stephen Chow’s movies. One of reasons in explaining the success of Stephen Chow’s films in Hong Kong comedy is the use of colloquial or foul language. Using colloquial language in dialogue can express the meaning precisely, no matter the meaning is explicit or implicit. Only Hong Kong people find the dialogue is interesting and recognize the jokes behind the scenes. Another feature of linguistic pattern in his movies is nonsense. In the scene of Wai Siu-bo curses Oboi in prision, Wai Siu-bo keeps saying illogical, vulgar and meaningless sentences to curse Oboi. Wai Siu-bo curses Oboi from a baby to age 71. Sometimes the dialogue included English. This scene is totally meaningless but this scene successfully amuses the audience. Those special characteristics of Stephen Chow’s linguistic style create special comedic effects in his movies and lead to a new trend of representation in comedy films.

(573 words)

Choi Yuen Yan

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