There is a man behind Stephen Chow's success in Chinese-language films in Singapore, Taiwan and China.

Shek has been Stephen Chow's 'official' Chinese voice actor since 1990. He has dubbed twenty-eight of Chow's classic films, starting with "The Gambler", and ranging from "Escape" to "Shaolin Soccer" and "Kung Fu", which have been the masterpieces of his career in recent years.

In those territories that don't broadcast movies in the original Hong Kong Cantonese, Ishiban Yu's voice penetrates into the cerebral nerves and subconscious of Star fans, and is practically equated with Master Star. Online message boards in mainland China even have Star Chow fans protesting: 'Wanted for "A Comic Book to Break into the World" because it's not dubbed by Shi Banyu, not cool!

Taiwanese artist Shi Banyu accepted an exclusive interview with this newspaper, the voice coming from the other end of the phone is the voice of a Taiwanese man often heard on ordinary TV, completely unlike the familiar "Star Chow". He said, "This is because the sound effect of the phone is not good." But the voice actor is relying on a mouth into millions of characters of the ventriloquist magic walk in the world, Star's signature style, super invincible bitchy voice, which he created with the performance of kung fu.

Communicating with the executive director before dubbing

Before dubbing, Ishiban Yu would not communicate with Stephen Chow, but with the executive director of the play, to determine the feeling that needed to be expressed. He would read the movie, the script, and then go into the studio to dub it in segments, repeating it over and over again until it was perfect.

Shek said modern recording hardware is so good that a whole movie can be recorded in two or three days using computerized audio, but the worst part is that it takes more than 10 hours a day.

As the mainland Chinese market has become more and more important in recent years, Stephen Chow seems to have begun to care about dubbing. Ishiban Yu said that after the dubbing of "Kung Fu", the star specially came to see it, and when he heard the deeper Chinese language, he would ask him what he meant by dubbing this line, and why it was said that way.

Master Star's mode of speaking in Mandarin was created between the dubs, and in the process of this translation, some Cantonese words don't have the same meaning in Chinese, so he had to find a way to find the ones with the closest meaning, and some of the words were added by Shibanyu himself.

The lower-voiced Master Sing has a colder tone in the original Cantonese version and a more exaggerated one in the Mandarin dub.

Fans who have seen both the Cantonese and Mandarin versions have always felt that the lower-voiced Master Star has a colder tone in the Cantonese original, while the Mandarin dub is more exaggerated. Ishiban Yu explains that this is because he had to maintain the voice and acting style of Star Chow from the past to the present. After all, I'm not him, so the Cantonese part, although Star Chow is colder, when you listen to the Mandarin, you will feel a little bit more exaggerated," he said.

"It's also because his acting style has always been a bit more exaggerated, so in some parts we'll use an exaggerated tone to emphasize the comedic elements. But in maintaining the style, I had to make some changes. For example, the scenes in Kung Fu and Shaolin Soccer changed (became less nonsensical), so they became less exaggerated in the dubbing. Oops, I'm getting old too!"

What does the star have to say about Shi Banyu's voice. She said, "He told me to take good care of it and see how many years I can dub it."

Reporters asked him to match the price of each set of plays, Shi Banyu's mouth guarded very well: "I feel that I and Stephen Chow's role has been linked together, it is not a question of how much money. I'll go match even if he doesn't pay me!"

It is better not to give the Star to hear, or else it will be embarrassing to talk about it and not be able to do it.

These 15 years all the way behind Stephen Chow, Ishiban Yu on the growth of his play has a very deep personal experience: "Many points other people perform up nothing, but he performs up especially call people impressive. And his movies now have developed to the point where it's not just Stephen Chow's personal performance, but the whole movie is a Stephen Chow-style performance. Sometimes he puts his no-nonsense acting style into every bridge, every character. That's why the depth of his movies makes you never get tired of watching them. Besides making people laugh, there will be something deep. Shaolin Soccer is about the emotions between men, between brothers, and the power of brothers united. 'Kung Fu' will turn you into a good guy even if you are originally a bad guy if you have the heart to do it, pushing kung fu movies to another level."

Shek has also dubbed Chan Siu-chun's kooky character Chicken, and Jacky Cheung's New Fringe. But his voice is so rich in comedy that he was particularly spot-on and impressive when he dubbed the funnier movies (Curry Chilli, The Dust Bowl Trio) with Ge Man Fai, Cheung Wai Kin, and the handsome Tony Leung.

Trying to step out of Stephen Chow's shadow

"Ha~ha~ha~ha~ha~" Ishiban Yu's own "Star Chow" exaggerated laugh.

For a long time, Ishiban Yu stood behind Star. In the past two years, he has also tried to step out from the shadow of Stephen Chow and "develop in all aspects", starting to take advertisements, TV variety shows and TV dramas. He played a small role in the 30-episode TV series "Kung Fu Scholar" based on Stephen Chow's classic movie "Martial Artist Su Begir", and also acted as a character named "Stephen Chow" in "The Godfather of Harrah's". In the future, Ishiban Yu also plans to make a record, and sing love songs.

A reporter asked him why he waited until now to show his true colors and "develop in all aspects". He laughed and said, "I didn't have this opportunity before." He has been exposed to the overseas Chinese market in the past two years, and played the Axe Gang master in "Kung Fu" and the third master in "Shaolin Soccer", and was encouraged by his good friend Mr. Tien to try to make more development.

But being Stephen Chow's Chinese spokesman will be the main role he plays: "As long as he doesn't mind, as long as he keeps filming and acting, I'll keep dubbing."

Star's quotes circulating online

Star's quotes have been circulating online and have become a catchphrase for young fans, although "I love you for 10,000 years" and "Earth isn't suitable for you, so go back to Mars, you!" These classic lines came from Ishiban Yu, but what impresses him most is not these quotes, but the "Star Chow" flavor of his voice and dialogues. These creations may not be as literal as the quotes, but they have become an indicator of how people recognize Star Chow's characters.

From the super-funny wail "Xiao Qiang ~~~!" in "Tong Pak Fu Poi Xiang"; to the "Shaolin Soccer" special. to "Shaolin Soccer" where he deliberately stretched the pronunciation of "的" to "地" (as in "This is not how you kick a ball") to emphasize the rusticity of the characters; to the very Singaporean Mandarin grammar of "I'm going to go"; and to the very Singaporean Mandarin grammar of "I'm going to go". to the very Singaporean Chinese grammar of "I'll go first!" to the very Singaporean Chinese grammar of "I'll go first!"; the Chinese-English mix of "I'm convinced of you!"; and even that signature exaggerated laugh, which is his own creation.

From Shi Renmao to Ishiban Yu

Shi Renmao is from Taiwan, and he's 47 years old.

After graduating from the National Taiwan University of Arts, he made his debut in 1982, hosting a variety show on the radio and performing in radio dramas, one of which was shortlisted for Taiwan's "Golden Bell Award".

He entered the voice-over industry in 1985 under the tutelage of Chen Ming-yang, who is known as the "Emperor of Taiwanese voice-overs". At the time, Chen found four or five colleagues to dub Stephen Chow's character for "The Gambler," but the Hong Kong director was never satisfied.

The next day he was called in temporarily to try out a small section, and the Hong Kong director found it very much in the right place, saying that his voice was very similar. He laughed, "But when it was really my turn to go to the dubbing booth to dub, I was so nervous! The director was so strict and pressurized that I felt for the first time that dubbing was not fun anymore, and it was painful to the extreme. I also don't know how many times I NG'd." But that's how he bonded with Star Chow and countless Star fans.

Grouper's harmonic is much more cute and comical

It is said that a long time ago, when a Taiwanese dubbing artist called out Shi Renmao's name, he suddenly said, "Ah Shi Renmao, why don't you just call him 'Dead Man's Cat'?" But the person who laughed was definitely not him, so it's still much cuter and more comical to take the harmonic sound of Grouper. Taking this stage name, Ishiban Yu revealed in countless online interviews just because, "The harmonization is memorable. I changed my name in 1992, when my daughter was born and I wanted to name her, so I thought I'd give myself one, and after thinking about it for half a day, I came up with "Grouper Yu", "Stone Minute" and "Stone Money". "...... finally chose this one. It so happened that at that time a Taiwanese media interviewed me, I said to use this name, and from then on it was called open."