''Mo lei tau'' () is a type of slapstick humour associated with

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

popular culture that developed during the late 20th century. It is a phenomenon that has grown largely from its presentation in modern film media. Its humour arises from the placement of surprising and incongruous elements, and the complex interplay of cultural subtleties. Typical constituents of this humour include nonsensical parodies,

juxtaposition Juxtaposition is an act or instance of placing two opposing elements close together or side by side. This is often done in order to Comparison, compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences, etc. Speech Juxtaposition in literary ...

of contrasts, sudden surprises in spoken dialogue and action and improbable and deliberate anachronisms. During an interview with Stephen Chow for his 2006 season of ''Asian Invasion'', BBC film critic Jonathan Ross referred to the genre as "Silly Talk", a label that Chow was happy to accept.

Semantics

''Mo lei tau'' (

Jyutping The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme, also known as Jyutping, is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed in 1993 by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK). The name ''Jyutping'' (itself the Jyutping ro ...

: mou4 lei4 tau4) is a

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

term which may be loosely translated as "with no source", but is generally used to mean "makes no sense". The original phrase was ''mok lei tau haau'' (莫釐頭尻) which literally means "cannot differentiate between head and tail". However, in Cantonese the word " 尻" (

: ''haau1'', commonly mispronounced as ''"gau1"''), which means the end of the spine, is often mispronounced as the vulgar word " 𨳊" for penis. To avoid saying the word ''gau'', the phrase is cut to ''mou lei tau''.

Related catchphrases

Another phrase in Cantonese that is used similarly is (

: ''gau2 m4 daap3 baat3''). This literally translates as "nine doesn't follow eight". ''Gau m daap baat'' is something that is considered completely nonsensical, but in a somewhat comical manner.

History

''Mo lei tau'' humour is a recent phenomenon in the culture of Hong Kong.

1970s and 1980s

As a film form the earliest proponents of this form of humour can be seen to be the Hui brothers ( Michael Hui, Samuel Hui and Ricky Hui) working in the late 1970s and early 1980s, although their comedy was never specifically labelled as ''mo lei tau''. Jackie Chan's '' Fantasy Mission Force'' (1982) could conceivably be seen as another early example of the genre.

1990s and contributions by Stephen Chow

As typified by Stephen Chow's 1990s Hong Kong movies, ''mo lei tau'' developed into an 'anything goes' form of nonsensical humour that can and does ignore narrative conventions. It is nonsensical in the same way that Edward Lear's poems are, where irrelevant elements are somehow thrown together; as opposed to, say,

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

's novels, where the nonsense relies on a play on logic or semantics. Generally, a ''mo lei tau'' scene gives one the feeling of incongruity, consisting of rapid comic banter, non-sequiturs, anachronisms,

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. ...

references, and Cantonese

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

and

word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, ph ...

. Regarded as an integral part of Hong Kong's popular culture, it is considered by some as being unique and untranslatable. Compared to a Western comedy film, ''mo lei tau'' movies have greater attention on puns and other Cantonese word tricks.

Characteristics

A ''mo lei tau'' performance can be either verbal or slapstick. A verbal example is the

catchphrase A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...

''"Co5 dai1 yam2 daam6 caa4, sik6 go3 baau1"'' (), meaning "Let's sit down, take a sip of tea, and have a '' bao'' (a Chinese bun)", first uttered by Stephen Chow in the TV serial '' The Final Combat'' (). The phrase becomes ''mo lei tau'' because it is repeated in irrelevant and inappropriate situations. It also serves as a comedic device because the actions suggested by "sitting, drinking and eating" are so plain and normal. For a slapstick example, consider this scene from a ''mo lei tau'' film: a man is battered by others but is still able to stand upright. He bravely tells his friend he can take the beating, whereupon his friend replies: "Wow! After being hit so badly, you can still talk? If that was me I'd be puking right now!" The man promptly starts vomiting. The scene is hackneyed, but can be seen even to this day in the 2005 film '' Initial D'', for example.

References

External links

*http://www.hkfilm.net/schow.htm {{Comedy footer, state=expanded Cantonese words and phrases Film genres Mo Lei Tau comedy Comedy genres