Born in 1942, Xu Guanwen graduated from the Department of Sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and has three brothers, Xu Guanwu, Xu Guanying, and Xu Guanjie.

The Hong Kong movie industry in the 1970s belonged to Koh Koon-man and Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee made a name for himself with The Brothers of Tangshan, Crossing the River, Jingwumen, Dragon Warrior, and Game of Death. But his glory was also his doom, and Bruce Lee's bizarre death ended his short life.

Then, a wave of comedy was created in Hong Kong by Sam Hui, which overshadowed the previous wave created by Bruce Lee.

The Ghostbusters, The Genius and the Idiot, Half a Catty, and The Sellout, all of which topped the Hong Kong box office every single year by far more than the second place finisher.

This was the era of Sam Hui.

Today's film is Half a Catty, which is recognized as the peak of his career.

Released in 1976, Half a Catty, Eight Taels was directed by Sam Hui, and starred Sam Hui, Sam Hui, Gigi Chiu, and Ng Yiu Hon. It won the box office with a total of 8.5 million Hong Kong dollars.

Many of the words in Hui's movie come from Cantonese, the language of Hong Kong's downtrodden class, and there are some subtle differences between Cantonese and Cantonese, and many of the words can only be understood by Hong Kong audiences.

In particular, the song of the same name, which was made by Sam Hui for Sam Hui's movie, used a lot of language specific to Hong Kong's underclass.

This is evident in the opening moments of Half a Catty, Half a Catty.

The song "Prodigal Son's Voice" is also perfect for us today, portraying the mindset of all the 996 youths who work hard to earn a living and end up earning very little.

More than 40 years later, the people of Hong Kong longed for the One Night Riches that we still long for today.

With this song, the camera follows two pairs of feet through the streets of a developing Hong Kong.

The first pair of feet are wearing a pair of thunderous high heels (fashion is a circle).

But luckily for us, those long legs saved the shoes and our eyes.

This after a pair of feet, it is a bit unbearable, broken and leaking a hole.

Why do beggars follow beautiful women?

See later viewers will realize that the original owner of this pair of broken shoes is not a beggar, but the president of a private detective agency Huang Ruosi (played by Xu Guanwen), who is tracking the wife of a client to get evidence of her cheating.

Li Guojie (Sam Hui), Blowfish (Sam Hui), and Jacky (Gigi Chiu) are members of the detective agency.

The movie focuses on the experiences of the president and the three members as they serve their clients.

Wow, that sounds so cool, are they still hiring?

Let's put it this way: if the president gives you $500 a month for food and shelter, never gets a raise, budgets two dollars for every meal, and is in danger of breaking an arm or a leg at any time, do you still do it?

No, it's a fool's errand.

The president is really stingy, even the beautiful secretary's birthday, he sent a gift is only a chocolate.

That's right, one.

Here, by the way, the twenty-two-year-old Zhao Yazhi is simply beautiful!

And two employees to eat together, a chicken he buckled down and divided two people a chicken feet, their own to the rest of the part of the feast.

Once an employee breaks a car window, falls a vase, he will take out a computer to carefully calculate how much to deduct.

These images became very funny in the movie, but social animals laughed their eyes out -

Isn't this a true reflection of us?

Aren't we all enjoying the leftover "chicken feet" from the old bosses?

Are we not taking a vacation with fear of being docked wages?

Last time, there was a news story about a woman who broke down and cried after chasing a bus to get a full-attendance award.

As a superior, Xu Guanwen's exploitation of his subordinates is no less than what we are subjected to today.

When we think of "nonsense" comedy, we often think of Stephen Chow, the "King of Comedy" in the early 1990s.

In fact, as early as the 1970s and 1980s, Sam Hui's comedies already used a lot of nonsensical dialog and clips, filled with the spirit of secular grassroots.

This can be seen everywhere in Half a Catty.

For example, when the robbers are robbing the theater, a woman next to Xu Guanwen nervously asks, "It's okay to rob money, not sex."

At this time, Xu Guanwen looked at her carelessly, and then said, "You are thinking beautiful."

Xu Guanjie in the car suddenly said to Xu Guanwen: "I always feel as if the world owes me something."

"You were born without a diaper, what does the world owe you? "Xu Guanwen did not even turn his head back to this sentence.

I have to say, this logic is easy to beat to death.

Half a Catty is still a precursor to kung fu comedy.

There are three fight scenes in this movie***:

Hui's fight in the kitchen with the wallet thief using all kinds of cooking utensils and food, only to find out that his wallet is well and truly in his own pocket;

Hui's hilarious fight with the thief couple in the supermarket; and

finally, the fight at the theater and on the ice cream truck.

Though the movie is obviously built up with props and experienced action and stunts, it was still a big hit in Hong Kong and went on to enter the international markets such as Japan and Spain.

It's interesting to note that after the success of the social worker, Sam Hui, the movie doesn't move towards a reconciliation of master and disciple.

Instead, he opens a new detective agency next to the one he owns, competing with it and becoming another "HUI KWAN MAN".

He eats the same chocolate beans, pays the same 200 bucks an hour for a consultation, and takes out a photo of himself and the executives at every customer's doorstep. ......

And that's where the title of the movie comes in: Half a Catty Eight Two.

When we were employees, we cursed our bosses. When we become bosses ourselves, we start exploiting our employees in the same way, or even worse.

No one is better than anyone else, we are just half a catty.

Hui's comedy can also be seen as a reflection, reflection and critique of the real world.

Audiences were happy to see the embarrassed, scrawny Koh win many a time with just his own clever tricks.

The corresponding social reality is that people also want to make a fortune in social competition by virtue of their own cleverness. This idea is gradually being rationalized in the minds of Hong Kong people.

Therefore, Hsu's comedy has both an urban and an edifying side. While he was satisfying the speculative mindset of the public, he also warned his moviegoers that people shouldn't be greedy.

This seemingly contradictory and complex setup is in fact a reflection of the mentality of the people of Hong Kong, a reflection of the disorientation and confusion that the people of Hong Kong experience as they go about their self-identification.

Whether it is a movie with Sam Hui as the author, or Sam Hui as the actor, what we see in it is a Sam Hui with a growing sense of responsibility.

For example, in The Divine Calculator (1992), Koh Koon-man taught Lai Ming, and in Beggar's Heroes, Koh Koon-man's constraints on his subordinates, all with a sense of social responsibility and "parental" color.

In Half a Catty Eight Taels, even the stingy president is full of a kind of "fatherly" temperament, he teaches Koh Koon-kit his skills, and when he's lost, he teaches him with a word of "poisonous chicken soup". The last thing he did was to start reflecting on himself as his father did when he was getting old.

In the '80s and '90s, Tsui Hark, Wong Jing, and Stephen Chow rose to prominence, and Hong Kong's movie industry was filled with all sorts of weirdness and erotic violence.

And Xu Guanwen comedy is like a cup of tea, has maintained his part of the fresh and healthy tone and warm texture, after watching this movie, I also suddenly understand why he will be known as more than Stephen Chow, the great Hong Kong comedy master.

Today, we still need creators like Sam Hui.

Because he made comedy no longer a superficial pile of jokes, but an artistic achievement worthy of reflection and reminiscence.

Written by Tong Yunxi, editor of Pippi Films

Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.