Hail the Judge (1994)



	Hail the Judge		Return to Review Archive - H
	Year:	1994	Ng Man-Tat, Stephen Chow and Tsui Kam-Kong
	Director:	Wong Jing
	Cast:	Stephen Chow Sing-Chi, Ng Man-Tat, Cheung Man, Christy Chung Lai-Tai, Tsui Kam-Kong, Lawrence Ng Kai-Wah, Ada Choi Siu-Fun, Leung Wing-Chung, Gabriel “Turtle” Wong Yat-San, Ha Ping, Lau Shun, Ngai Sing, Wong Yat-Fei, Yuen King-Tan, John Ching Tung, Guk Fung
	The Skinny:	Consistently entertaining Stephen Chow/Wong Jing collaboration that makes good use of Stephen Chow's celebrated verbal dexterity.
	Review by Kozo:	This talky Stephen Chow comedy stars Chow in a parody of the popular Judge Pao stories. Here he plays Pao’s corrupt descendant, who’s hated by the public for his money-digging ways. He has a change of heart when he sees rape victim Cheung Man get framed by other corrupt lawyers and officials, including legendary lawyer Fong Tong-Ken (Lawrence Ng of Sex and Zen). Chow goes through hell when he tries to expose them, and soon he finds himself on the run with nephew Ng Man-Tat. They encounter all sorts of wacky characters, including Christy Chung as a circus performer/love interest and Ada Choi Siu-Fun as a classy prostitute/love interest. The film is episodic, meaning lots of wandering around with no real direction, but the whole thing ties up neatly when Chow learns martial art of verbal assault from annoying brothel madam Yuen King-Tan. Wong Jing directs in that heavy-handed way of his, but as Wong’s movies go, this is pretty good. The comedy, despite being overbearing, is consistently funny, especially during the final courtroom sequence when Chow turns the tables on the bad guys. Probably the worst part of Hail the Judge is the punishment that’s given to Cheung Man during her rigged trial. As usual with these history-based torture scenes, my feeling is that just because it happened doesn’t mean I necessarily want to watch it. (Kozo 1995)
	Availability:	DVD (Hong Kong) Region 0 NTSC Universe Laser Widescreen Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks Removable English and Chinese subtitles
		DVD (Hong Kong) Region 0 NTSC Mei Ah Laser Widescreen Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks English and Chinese subtitles

		image courtesy of Universe Laser & Video Co., Ltd.
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