This March, Spectacle presents two more holiday classics celebrating returns to the longstanding tradition of the Lunar New Year movie.
The Lunar New Year movie, or hesuipian (贺岁片), is a tradition dating back to the early years of the Hong Kong film industry, with the February 1937 release of Tan Xiaodan’s BLOOM AND PROSPER timed to coincide with the holiday. By the 1980s, the term took on a whole new meaning beyond just a film’s release date. Lunar New Year movies came to be seen as something of a genre all their own— widely-marketed, crowd-pleasing films, often blending elements of comedy, romance, action, and fantasy, and highlighting the festivities, teachings, and customs typically associated with the holiday.
Join us this month as we (belatedly) ring in the Year of the Snake with these two timeless New Years classics, each a celebration of food, family, and good fortune in the year ahead.
ALL’S WELL, ENDS WELL
(家有囍事)
dir. Clifton Ko Chi-sum, 1992
Hong Kong. 100 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.
TUESDAY, MARCH 4 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 8 – 5 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 10 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19 – 7:30 PM
TICKETS
The three Shang brothers live with their extended family in a large upscale estate. Eldest brother, Moon (Raymond Wong), is a successful yet philandering businessman who treats his homely, hardworking wife (Sandra Ng) like dirt. Middle brother, Foon (Stephen Chow), is a carefree radio DJ whose playboy lifestyle is upended when he finds himself in a bizarre relationship with a movie-obsessed woman (Maggie Cheung). And youngest brother, So (Leslie Cheung), is a dance instructor in a tense rivalry with his hard-nosed tomboyish cousin (Teresa Mo). Together the three navigate the highs and lows of love alongside the women in their lives.
From the godfather of Lunar New Year movies, Clifton Ko (IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD), comes this blockbuster rom-com featuring some of the biggest names in Hong Kong cinema at the time. A nonstop barrage of slapstick, screwball antics, romance, and movie parodies that helped set the template for Lunar New Year comedies for years to come.
THE DREAM FACTORY
(甲方乙方)
dir. Feng Xiaogang, 1997
China. 90 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, MARCH 1 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 6 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 17 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 31 – 7:30 PM
TICKETS
Four friends in Beijing set up a company that offers a unique service: For a small fee, they’ll impersonate any character or act out any role so that their customer’s wildest fantasies can be brought to life. As the company grows in popularity, so too does the range of oddball customers they encounter, giving them an unusual perspective on people’s circumstances and granting them new insight into the human condition in the process.
The second feature from filmmaker Feng Xiaogeng (YOUTH) is the ultimate (quite literally) wish fulfillment story. Over the course of seven “clients”, Feng explores various hopes, dreams, and fears of mainland audiences with healthy doses of humor, wisdom, and warmth. The film became a commercial hit with Chinese audiences and helped popularize the Lunar New Year movie trend outside of Hong Kong.
See below for previous films screened as part of this program.
IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD
(富貴逼人)
dir. Clifton Ko Chi-sum, 1987
Hong Kong. 100 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.
TV reporter, Bill (Bill Tung), struggles to make ends meet to support his wife, Lydia (Lydia Sum), and three daughters in a rapidly changing Hong Kong. When Lydia wins the lottery, Bill assumes all their family’s prayers will finally be answered. Yet after a series of compounding mishaps, misunderstandings, and misadventures, Bill begins to wonder if this stroke of good fortune may have ultimately changed the family’s luck for the worse.
Next to the Hui Brothers, who effectively revitalized the concept of the Lunar New Year movie in the early 1980s, Clifton Ko may be the name most closely associated with the tradition. Released on New Years Eve 1987, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD became hugely popular on its initial run, spawning a string of successful sequels and helping shape the humor, style, and feel-good tone of New Years movies in the years to come.
THE CHINESE FEAST
(金玉滿堂)
dir. Tsui Hark, 1995
Hong Kong. 100 min.
In Cantonese with English subtitles.
Chiu (Leslie Cheung) is a triad looking to start a new life as a chef in Canada, starting at the very bottom under the stewardship of overly critical restaurateur, Au (Law Kar-ying). Au, meanwhile, is fighting to save his restaurant against a takeover by the shady, faceless megacorporation, Super Group. When Au and Super Group’s leader agree to a cooking contest at the prestigious Qing Han Imperial Feast, Chiu seeks out the aid of Kit (Kenny Bee), a once renowned master chef whose life was left in shambles following a major personal and professional embarrassment.
Tsui Hark’s food-centric ensemble comedy re-united him with former Cinema City cohort, Raymond Wong, fresh off producing three consecutive, highly successful New Years releases, ALL’S WELL, ENDS WELL (1992), ALL’S WELL, ENDS WELL TOO (1993), and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1994), all directed by Clifton Ko. The film is a testament to Tsui’s versatility as a director, hitting all the right comedic and feel-good beats in keeping with its New Years stylings, while still maintaining the kineticism and grandeur of the wuxia and heroic bloodshed work he’d been best known for. But historical context aside, this is basically “food porn, but with martial arts choreography by Yuen Bun,” and there shouldn’t be much more we need to say to sell this one.
