Lowbrow Chinese humour insults intelligence

There are many a great thing about Chinese that are highly admirable and enviable but their sense of humour is certainly not one of those. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Chinese-hater, far from it.

I enjoyed watching old funny movies from the likes of The Hui Brothers, Karl Maka, Dean Shek, Richard Ng, Raymond Wong Pak-Ming and even Chow Yun Fat. When they were still active in the Hong Kong movie scene, it coincided with the golden era of Hong Kong's film-making; as far as comedies were concerned.

But with the lying low of most veteran stars; from then on, the humour being churned out from Hong Kong degenerated into nonsense comedy (mo lei tau/无厘头). This brand of humour was pioneered by none other than Stephen Chow Sing-Chi.

His overwhelming successes in producing box office movies spawned new generation of film-makers and actors eager to be part of the mindless and slapstick humour which became the rage until today.

Unfortunately, this comes at a great cost as the supposedly funny movies being produced now border on complete idiocy and outrageousness. What's worse, the young generation of Chinese especially those educated in Chinese schools here in Malaysia find these movies very hilarious.

I tried seeing some of these sub-standard movies but sat stony-faced throughout the torturous sessions while my fellow cinema-goers burst out laughing non-stop with tears welling in their eyes at the mind-numbing and downright stupid antics shown by the protagonists in such movies. Frankly speaking, I find their pathetic sense of humour most disconcerting.

I often wonder what the other races think of the Chinese with their low level humour, which they unhesitatingly recycle countless times in different productions. More worryingly, this brand of humour is now all too pervasive even among the Malaysian Chinese as evident by the informal jokes they share with friends. Even our local TV commercials could not escape this outbreak of retardation.

Taste is in the pudding. As such, do view all 4 videos as attached above. You will witness Stephen Chow's hallmarks present in all four advertisements. Those who appreciate the humour in these advertisements, I can only sympathise with them.