Justice, My Foot! (1992)

A Masterpiece!

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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.

Despite reading about him for years I've for some reason have never crossed swords with Stephen Chow. Taking a look at Netflix UK,I found an obscure title of his about to be taken off the site,which led to me Chow-ing down for the first time:The plot:Suffering the loss of his 13th child,infamous lawyer Sung Sai Kit decides that his get out of jail card ways must have put a curse on him,which leads to Sung retiring from law. Whilst her husband sits around bored,Sung's wife learns of a murder trial taking place. Wanting to end on a high,Sung comes out of retirement, and brings justice to foot.View on the film:Keeping the Kung-Fu wires spinning,director Johnnie To & cinematographer Peter Pau aim arrows at extremely broad Comedy that breaths in fart gags and spicy sass. Flying into a period piece,To cheekily sends up the dry historical epics with silk primary colours lined up the screen that are scanned in rapid-fire zoom-ins making the viewer a jury member of the absurd trial.Knocking down the walls of the courtroom Drama,the screenplay by Sandy Shaw rips the respectability of instructions apart in a wickedly crass farce,sipping Sung stepping in corrupt double dealings in the courts with an unlucky taste for breast milk. Swinging to the defence of his wife,Stephen Chow gives a splendid motor mouth performance as Sung,thanks to Chow hitting the comedic action scenes with a relish,and delivering the dialogue at a lightning fast speed,as Sung puts his foot down on justice.

There are many kung fu comedies involving lawyers and corruption, but none I've ever seen has the kind of kick to it as this movie does.The plot of this film is not exactly new ground for Stephen Chow, but the most inspired element of this movie is Anita Mui as his bossy, pregnant kung fu wife. That alone should prompt the undecided to give it a try. She is downright hysterical and for me, at least, stole the movie right out from under Chow. I consider this one of her more delightful roles. With every high kick, she raises the bar in what would be just another comic Chinese lawyer/corruption tales. Somewhat better than "Hail the Judge".

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.