Stephen Chow and his partners (1)

In the movie world created by Stephen Chow, there was a group of actors who were not the absolute protagonists, but they had the same screen-grabbing rate. When they were combined with Stephen Chow, the movie effect was 1 + 1 > 2, just like a gleam behind Zhou’s comedy.

In the golden age of cinema in Hong Kong, China, there is a pair of golden partners – Stephen Chow and Wu Mengda. They have collaborated on more than 20 films in 12 years, such as the "Gambling Saint" series, "Truant Dragon" series, "Journey to the West" series, etc., which are all familiar to mainland audiences. In fact, Chow’s comedy film can not be officially promoted without Wu Mengda’s contribution. In 1990, Liu Zhenwei directed "Gambling Saint", which was the first film between Chow and Wu Mengda, and it was also the film that really made Chow out of the circle. The full display of Chow’s nonsense humor in the film is closely related to Wu Mengda’s seamless cooperation. The tacit understanding between them not only set a box office record in Hong Kong, China, but also won nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

This ushered in a golden period of collaboration between the two. In 1992, the media dubbed it the "Year of Stephen Chow". Of the top 10 films in the Hong Kong film rankings in China that year, Chow made the list of five films, and Wu Mengda starred in three of them. Although the golden pair missed out on works such as "Kung Fu" and "Mermaid" for various reasons since then, their screen classic memories have been deeply imprinted in the minds of fans. As the most photographed and well-known Xingye partner, Wu Mengda is an indispensable Zhou-style comedy golden supporting actor.

If the partnership between Stephen Chow and Wu Mengda is a mutual achievement, then the partnership between Stephen Chow and his middle school classmate Li Jianren is undoubtedly a support. In 1992, Xing Ye, who was roaming freely in the "Year of Stephen Chow", saw that Li Jianren’s life seemed to be going into a low ebb. At that time, he was filming "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier" in Beijing and decided to find an old classmate to cooperate. It is said that Li Jianren was not satisfied with the role he played at that time, but he still played it out of affection. Unexpectedly, it was this "Ruhua" who appeared for less than a minute that changed his acting life.

"Ruhua" with stubble on his face, heavy makeup on his face, and fingers picking his nostrils has almost become the only name for Li Jianren’s anti-string, appearing in Chow Xingchi’s works such as "Wu Bohu Dian Qiuxiang", "Tang Bohu Dian Qiuxiang", "God of Cookery", and "Onei Agent Zero Lingfa", which made the audience laugh. It is worth mentioning that due to the amazing influence of "Tang Bohu Dian Qiuxiang" in the mainland, Ruhua’s "classic looking back scene" became Li Jianren’s famous work, and is still widely circulated on the Internet emoji. Chow Xingchi pushed Ruhua’s "ugly" to the extreme and became one of the iconic characters of his film; and Li Jianren also became one of the most successful symbols of Hong Kong’s comedy output because of Chow Xingchi.

After an initial period of hyperbole and nonsense, Stephen Chow entered a period of low tide. In 1994, he went to the mainland to shoot the "Journey to the West" series. Due to the great contrast with the original, the box office was dismal, but there was one person who left a deep impression on the audience – Luo Jiaying. Luo Jiaying’s relationship with Zhou Xingchi is neither as deep as Wu Mengda, nor as close as Li Jianren’s classmates, but they have quite a tacit understanding on the set, including the well-known "Only You" sequence. Through the "Journey to the West" series, Luo Jiaying almost changed the inherent image of Tang Seng, became a long-winded synonym, and became one of the classic film symbols created by Zhou Xingchi. There is no doubt that Luo Jiaying’s Tang Seng is one of the classic characters in film history, and this cannot be separated from the help of Xingye.

Of course, Zhou Xingchi’s screen partners are far more than the above…