Cheap King of Beggars (DVD) (Gordon Chan, David Lam) Price

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Customer Reviews of King of Beggars

Worth the purchase price for the "sleeping disciple" scenes.
This is the only Stephen Chow (spelled Chiau on the box) film that I've ever seen, but I am determined to see more of them. Not only is he a physically talented comedic actor and convincing as a kung fu master, he is also quite pleasing to look at. The plot is silly, but it works well with the comic delivery. I particularly enjoyed the scenes where Chow's character uses "sleeping disciple" kung fu, in which he seemingly yawns and stretches while hitting his opponent in the face, etc. Well-done special effects, just this side of cheesy, show the sorcery and magical kung fu moves.

Since Amazon hasn't given you a summary, here's mine: Young ne'er-do-well Su Chan (Chow) falls in love with a courtesan. In order to win her hand in marriage, he signs up for an imperial examination to become a military officer. For reasons partially attributable to Tin Li Jiao, an evil Taoist sorcerer and martial artist, and partially attributable to Su Chan's own laziness and his father's dishonesty, Su Chan winds up a beggar. He uses kung fu to rescue his ladylove and the Emperor when they fall into the clutches of Tin Li Jiao.

The version I have (didn't buy it from Amazon, but looks like the same one) is in Cantonese and Mandarin with subtitles in traditional characters and English. The subtitle translations are just bad enough to be amusing, but not so bad as to be confusing. Because the English subtitles are plain white, they are hard to read against a light background. Fortunately, the plot of the film isn't so subtle that reading every subtitle is critical.

I thought the film was entertaining and funny. Not a masterpiece, perhaps, but better than many action/comedy films out there. I'll definitely watch it again.

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one of the funniest h/k movie!
get this dvd if u like hong kong movies and stephen chow,it's really funny.i cant stop laughing when i watched it.even if it is not as good as hail the judge(stephen chow's best)