Mao pai huang di (1995) User Reviews

Wong Jing's Skewed Vision Of History Is Worth Little.

[rsoonsa · 2/10 · 13 May 2006]

Set during the closing years of the Qing Dynasty at the turn of the 20th century, this rather less than entertaining farce opens with a brief battle sequence between a Chinese army and a combined British/French force, amid which a British general topples from his mount, dying of epilepsy, his passing naturally blamed upon the Qing government, with the victors immediately demanding that the latter erect a war memorial at Beijing and that Emperor Kwang Hsu (Ng) must pay ceremonial respect to the fallen officer. Even though Dowager Empress Cixi (Fung Bo Bo) has no effective remaining military potentiality with which to resist this imposed obligation, she cannot permit the Emperor to lower himself before invaders, and therefore she decides to scour Beijing in a quixotic search for a Kwang Hsu simulacrum whose abasement before the British would be the actions of a fake ruler, therewith maintaining the pride of the Royal family during this period of the Boxer Rebellion that Cixi is supporting. As it happens, a Beijing barber, Ma Bian (Ng) is a dead ringer for Kwang Hsu and is ordered into the Forbidden City where he is instructed in performing as a fake Emperor, but is not enthusiastic about his new role and unsuccessfully attempts in several instances to escape, always to be caught by Cixi or the palace's chief Eunuch, Li (Cheung San Yuen), until the day finally arrives for the dreaded memorial ceremony at which Ma Bian takes surprising action upon his own volition. The film benefits from striking costumes and design, production values being quite high; however, as must be expected from any Wong Jing movie, its virtues end there, as the scenario, dialogue and oddly agitated playing are all puerile with an added element of quaintly inaccurate historical events, all plainly intended to satisfy a lowest common denominator of audience, with the customary Wong Jing approach of plot as being a blend of toilet humour, moronic slapstick, and grotesquely parodic violence. A DVD release offers no extras but is of excellent technical quality.