KING OF BEGGARS is a comic rendering of a popular Chinese legend, the story of Beggar So. So was apparently a real man who lived sometime in the 1800's; in film he has been played as a contemporary of Wong Fei-hung, the early twentieth century South China patriot, and, as in this film, earlier in the nineteenth century. The stories vary in many details, but basically, So came from a wealthy family and spent time begging and organizing the beggars as a political/fighting force. In some versions, he does so out of kindness and eccentricity; in others, he is forced to beg by loss of fortune (with a further variance of regaining it in one tale but not in another). The reality, as in America's Johnnie Appleseed, is not important.The Beggar So legend was natural fodder for comedy star Stephen Chow , who delights in doing send-ups of Chinese popular legends, as witnessed by his outings in THE FLIRTING SCHOLAR (Wei Siu-bo, a Tang dynasty genius), JUSTICE MY FOOT (Judge Pao, a renowned lawmaker), and FIST OF FURY. KING OF BEGGARS allowed Chow to do a rift on his usual character, with his So doomed to infantile wrong-headedness by his priviledged upbringing, so that So's fall from social grace is actually the saving of the man. Review Courtesy of Gere Ladue |
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