Stephen Chow’s Films And Folk Culture Of China

Stephen Chow’s Films, a special type in Hong Kong’s film history, developed a unique style of “Wu Li Tou”,which lasts prosperously and plays a important role in the history of Hong Kong’s comedy movie.Although Chow’s films are famous for post modern in the area of thoery and creation,his films are equipped with the flavor of Chinese folk culture,such as the spirit of Kung fu and Shao lin.The thesis analyzes Chow’s films from the vision of folk culture, including the causes,performances and influences of folk cultural factors in his films.This paper is divided into three parts.The first part is about the historical sources of Chinese folk culture in Chow’s films.The reasons why the elements of Chinese folk culture were contained in Chow’s films are three:the regional culture, Stephen chow personal growth experience and the market development.The regional culture is a most fundamental motivation factor of a nation.It affects the thoughts and actions of social groups for a long time.The closely-tighted geographical relationship between Hong kong and the mainland make the culture of Hong kong absorb the two folk cultures.The story of Chow’s growing up and his experience of being affected by folk culture performs in his own films.Meanwhile,the big profit of market is the main force which pushes Chow’s films absorbing the spirit of Chinese folk culture. These factors are the internal reasons which causes the elements in Chow’s films.The second part is mainly discussed, which writes how Chow’s films made contact with folk culture. The elements such as funny language, Kung Fu, impartiality, ghosts all origined from the folk literature.“Narrative literature works”artists’ performing buffoonery amused the audience, which is the necessary element of “W u Li Tou ”comedy. “Martial arts” culture that the heros draws out a sword to help others is the origin of the Kung Fu movies. The ghost of culture and karma are reflected in Stephen chow’s films.The third part talks about the value of folk culture in Chow’s films,which always follows the trend of time and plays a important role in Chinese films. This paper discusses the meaning of Chow’s films from three aspects,that is,the influences of director, film aesthetics and modern society.Excellent culture carries always teach us some meanings and even become a example imitated by others,a pushing force.Detectors such as Shang Jing,Wang Jing,Wang zi ming is affected by Chow’s “Wu li tou”comedy.Just the combination of Chow’s films and Chinese folk culture created the style of appealing-to-all films in history of film aesthetics.At the same time,his films advocated audiences coming back to the folk culture.As a result,their normal language is stongly affected by Chow’s films.Above all,this paper aims at talking the reasons and performances of the combination between Chow’s films and Chinses folk culture.Meanwhile,this paper tries to dig into his influences to the whole film industry and society.