I have been meaning to track down some of Stephen Chows’ older films for some time and now finally King of Beggars is about to get a nice UK DVD release from Hong Kong Legends. Hoorah I hear you cry… and rightfully so! King of Beggars is a good old-fashioned Kung Fu flick with a nice helping of Stephen Chows’ comedy.

For those of you who may expect this to be another Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle I have to tell you that it isn’t! However that doesn’t mean it’s not a cracking film and well worth your effort. This is old school kung fu in plot and action but with higher production values that perhaps you would expect!

Director Gordan Chan is the guy responsible for what in my opinion has been Jet Li’s best film the marvellous Fist of Legend. That alone should be enough to make you want to buy this movie… if that weren’t enough we have Stephen Chow as well??

The plot is pretty basic Kung Fu Movie story. Chan So (Stephen Chow) is a lazy rich layabout who falls for a girl; who just happens to be a member of the Beggars Association and is posing as a prostitute in order to kill the evil Chui who killed her father and is in general a nasty piece of work! Chan So has a small run in with Chui but so far nothing too major. Well, I don’t really want to say much more about the plot… suffice to say there is a run in between Chui and Chan So and it all goes well and truly pair shaped.

Stephen Chow is as brilliant as you would expect, but everyone in this movie was very good. It is very well paced and the 96 minutes really does fly by. It’s genuinely funny and is jam packed with good quality Martial Arts action with a good dose of magic thrown in. Plot is a bit predictable but more than adequate for this kind of movie. If you are a fan of Martial Arts films this is a must see, if you don’t like the cheapo Martial Arts films then this is still a must see.

Very highly recommended indeed!