Justice, My Foot! (1992)

Just perfect...

From my favorite movies..

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I am a fan of Stephen Chow, as plenty of Asians are. However, I think it's important that even as a fan, we remain honest especially with ourselves. Stephen Chow have starred plenty of good comedic movies but Justice My Foot isn't one of them. Understandably, Justice My Foot is a farce in the same vein as Spaceballs, Airplane! and Naked Gun. While these kinds of comedy have their niche market, it doesn't take away their transparently obvious stupidity. Parody doesn't mean you act stupid to make people laugh, parodies make you laugh because sometimes, people are stupid; and knowing this distinction is crucial. In the scene we see the crowd laughing at Chow for being bullied by thigs, and then rescued by his kung fu wife, but it's not funny. Why? Because we know that the couples like these don't exist, and if they do, the wife would beat up the husband anyway after rescuing him, and she certainly wouldn't treat him like a damsel. You can only subvert people's expectations as long as it's still within reason and believability or otherwise, it won't make any sense. It's not funny to have a judge openly farts every time he has a scene in the movie. Why? Because a normal reaction would be disgust without putting up with such behavior. In fact it would be funnier if people reacted enraged of the constant farting; that would be a normal reaction. Anita Mui in my opinion, has never been a good actress, not in same class as Maggie Cheung or Michelle Yeoh. Anita Mui is a singer in Cantonese Pop and people are simply attracted to her while blindly disregarding her obviously non-talent for acting. Other than that, the story is boring, the dialogue is cringy, the production is poor, the acting is self-deprecating and humorless. There much better Stephen Chow movies than this.

JUSTICE, MY FOOT! is another of the seemingly dozens of wacky comedies that Hong Kong star Stephen Chow made during the 1990s. This one was shot by Johnnie To before he became known for making thrillers and has the benefit of featuring Anita Mui in a typically bolshy role as Chow's demanding, ass-kicking wife. The role feels much like a dry run for her turn in DRUNKEN MASTER II.Chow is one of those actors I find a bit hit and miss. I loved him in his big hits like SHAOLIN SOCCER and KUNG FU HUSTLE but in this film his overacting leaves me cold. The plot's okay and very fast-paced, but the humour is quite infantile in places and more often than not the writer resorts to silly fart jokes which I never find particularly funny, just tiresome. The end result has its moments, but it's not one I'll be hurrying to watch again.

This film stars Stephen Chow as lawyer Sung Sai Kit, whose wife (the late, always interesting to watch in film) Anita Mui is an airborne kung fu master who always seems to be pregnant in the film. She loses her children due to Sung's shyster like tactics (an interesting way to bash lawyers!), so she gets him to retire so they can have a healthy child. This film, set in imperial China, is all over the place, almost out of breath at times, but always fun. It was a big hit, the best grossing film in China/Hong Kong in 1992, due mostly to the chemistry between Chow and Mui. Of course, Sung un-retires and things get a little more hyper-kinetic. Not at all profound, just entertaining period drama escapism. I wish I saw it in the theater, it is richly photographed. If you like films like this, you will not be disappointed.

Stephen Chow plays another lawyer, and has MORE bad luck! Battling corrupt officials he must now save a woman from being framed.Looks like the same sets as "Lawyer, Lawyer" and "Hail the Judge". Still an equally funny movie, catch it if you are a fan.