{"id":74974,"date":"2026-08-08T21:28:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=74974"},"modified":"2026-08-08T21:28:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:28:06","slug":"how-curry-and-pepper-showed-stephen-chows-comedy-genius-before-superstardom-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=74974","title":{"rendered":"How Curry and Pepper showed Stephen Chow\u2019s comedy genius before superstardom arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"


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As Stephen Chow Sing-chi\u2019s latest directorial effort, Kung Fu Soccer<\/em><\/span>, prepares to open in Hong Kong cinemas on August 13 following a lucrative but critically divisive release in mainland China, many fans are finding themselves nostalgic for the 1990s version of the \u201cKing of Comedy\u201d they once loved.<\/div>\n

The prolific and universally adored comedian starred in more than two dozen films between 1990 and 1992, most of which were hits. His lowbrow jokes belied a thoughtful, intelligent performer riven with self-doubt who raked in millions of Hong Kong dollars at the box office.<\/p>\n

His success was down to his unique brand of mo lei tau<\/em> comedy. The term, which comes from the similar-sounding Cantonese phrase mo lei yau<\/em>, or \u201cwithout reason\u201d, is often translated as \u201cnonsense\u201d, but \u201cabsurdist\u201d expresses the meaning better.<\/p>\n

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\"Stephen<\/div>
Stephen Chow (left) in action in an early scene from Curry and Pepper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As film historian Ryan Law wrote in his essay \u201cKing of Comedy\u201d, mo lei tau<\/em> humour is not script-based: \u201cIn mo lei tau<\/em> comedy, the situation is usually normal, but the attitude and reaction of the actor is abnormal. The comedy comes from the gap between the two, between sanity and insanity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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As Stephen Chow Sing-chi\u2019s latest directorial effort, Kung Fu Soccer, prepares to open in Hong Kong cinemas on August 13 following a lucrative but critically…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[12207,26086,2689,2006,15824,421,7553,8890,27871],"class_list":["post-74974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-arrived","tag-chows","tag-comedy","tag-curry","tag-genius","tag-pepper","tag-showed","tag-stephen","tag-superstardom","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}