Chinese mainland Comedy Trends in the 21st Century (1): Genre Development

Comedy is arguably the most important genre in the Chinese film industry in the past two decades. Although when it comes to mainstream Chinese films, global audiences mostly think of high-cost "blockbusters", including martial arts films/action films (such as Heroes and Wolf Warrior 2), or sci-fi/fantasy films full of special effects (such as The Wandering Earth and Catch the Demon). But when it comes to popularity and profit potential, comedy is the key; among the top 20 Chinese and foreign films in China's historical box office, the most popular genre is comedy, often outperforming Hollywood's "Desperate Speed" and "Avengers" series of films, becoming the annual box office champion.

The rise of comedy is a sign of the marketization or industrialization of Chinese films. In the 1990s, Chinese films gradually changed from the national studio system to public-private partnerships, and then developed into commercial and private enterprises, and their entertainment nature gradually replaced the function of pure political propaganda or enlightenment. For many people, director Feng Xiaogang's 1997 "Party A and Party B" is a turning point, introducing Hong Kong's "Chinese New Year" label and marketing strategy. Even though "New Year's Eve" is not limited to comedy, it is still a sign of the golden period.

Crazy Stone

In the past two decades, Chinese comedy has undergone great changes in terms of style and themes, and different sub-genres have developed. Ning Hao, who emerged with "Crazy Stone" (2006), brought a boom in black comedy, in addition to being funny with taboo themes such as crime and death, there is also a multi-line narrative structure, creating a sense of absurdity between coincidence and fate. The other is costume comedies like "The Tale of Wulin" (2006) and "Perfect Nine Beauty" (2008), playing with the misplacing of time and space, collaging the language of modern society with ancient time and space, such as a sudden Hip hop song and dance, or maintaining a safe distance to satirize the shortcomings of the times. Such films are clearly influenced by Hong Kong's "nonsense" comedies, especially the Journey to the West series by Lau Chun-wai and Stephen Chow. When Liu and Tuesday also personally went north to shoot more such films, small-cost costume comedies gradually developed into fantasy comedies with increasing special effects and costs, in addition to Liu and Zhou's "Journey to the West" films of their respective "food and old books", as well as Hui Chengyi's "To Catch a Demon" series, many Hong Kong filmmakers participated.

In the past decade, the two comedy sub-genres that have emerged, one of which is the road gangster comedy, represented by Xu Zheng's "Tai 囧" series, is usually accompanied by a pure and straight "fool" plus a worldly profiteer, in addition to introducing jokes in the run-in and adventure process of the two protagonists, often through the more honest protagonists to criticize the more snobbish and selfish side.

Another "emerging" subtype is romantic comedies, which tend to overlap with "Chick flicks" in categories, but some "male-dominated" romantic comedies are not considered "chick movies", and the latter do not necessarily focus on love. Zhang Ziyi's "Very Perfect" (2009) is seen as an indicator of the rise of this genre. Although there were also romantic comedies in Chinese films before, but there were not many, but in the past decade, they have been mass-produced, overshadowing the fading black comedy and costume comedy and other sub-genres.

Unlike other types of comedies, romantic comedies do not rely so much on the comedians' hilarious talents and personal qualities, and tend to focus more on women (including the creative, performing and audience level). Other Chinese comedies tend to focus on male performers who are not outstanding in appearance, but rely on humor and burlesque performances to become popular "ugly stars" (in simplified Chinese, "ugly" means "clown" and "ugly"), such as Ge You, Wang Baoqiang and Huang Bo. However, romantic comedies are dominated by handsome men and beautiful women (although there are occasional "Beauty and the Beast"); most of these young idols are not based on comedy as the main axis of their careers, but are idol stars. This is also in line with the trend that more and more young and beautiful "small fresh meat" and "small flowers" in the Chinese entertainment industry have gained influence with huge fan traffic in recent years.

With the development of China's film market and industry, talents, systems and technologies have become more and more mature, adapting to the increasingly diversified market demand. In recent years, Chinese comedy has not been limited to individual genres, but has also traveled and integrated between the two strategies of localization of "grounding gas" and adding cross-cultural elements. Due to space limitations, these observations will be discussed separately.