Online Film Review: A Critical Review of Golden Chicken 3 (金雞SSS)

Golden Chicken 3 (金雞SSS) is a 2014 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Matt Wong and starring Sandra Ng as ‘Kam’, a former prostitute who is now a madam with multiple prostitutes working for her. Kam successfully manages her clients and prostitutes but her life is interrupted when her former gangster ex-boyfriend Gordon, who has been in prison since before the 1997 handover, is released from prison. While the film is a comedy, it also examines the ways in which Hong Kong has changed since 1997 and references current issues that people face today. It makes distinctions between colonial Hong Kong and post-handover society. The characters highlight these distinctions and issues while they struggle to adjust to modern Hong Kong. The film also features many cameos from famous Hong Kong actors.

  

            

 Kam and Gordon

         Gordon goes through the biggest struggle of trying to adapt to society after he is released from prison. He does not understand social media, smart phones, and is outraged when he finds out his gangster friends are selling milk powder to Mainland Chinese people on the streets. Through flashback scenes, we see Gordon as an important gangster boss having fun in old nightclubs with Kam but in the present, he does not fit into society and his old ways of doing business is considered to be outdated. Gordons memory is a representation of “old Hong Kong”. He is nostalgic for that past and his identity is constructed through his collective memory of the colonial times.

            The film also features a stereotypical representation of a Mainland Chinese woman named Wu Lu. The character is seen as a foolish woman with an over the top Mainland accent. One of the jokes in the movie is that she is willing to do anything with a client as long as she gets paid. In Hong Kong, Mainland people are often stigmatized because there is a social issue that they are disturbing society and making it too crowded for local people. People see them as being uneducated or rude. The film provides a representation of a very relevant issue in society that the local audience can identify with.

There is a contrast between Wu Lu and Gordon. Gordon is a symbol of old Hong Kong while Wu Lu represents the new. Kam is in the middle. Even though she can adapt to the changing culture, she still desires the simpler times of the past.

Wu Lu

            Following the current trend of sexually explicit films, Golden Chicken 3 contains many crude sexual jokes and partial nudity. This may be a reflection of what the society desires to see in a film.

            The film relies on the audience as an “interpretive community”. The local audience can fully understand the movie. We understand the movie in a certain way because many jokes and issues in the film are relevant only to those living in Hong Kong society. A foreign audience may have a different understanding if they are not familiar with Hong Kong culture.

            Golden Chicken 3 is a perfect example of Hong Kong culture reflected in film. I chose this film because it contains many themes that are linked to the local culture, provides useful commentary on the changing landscape of society, and examines the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Hong Kong.




Joyce Chung
10492036/21239075
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