Mo lei tau

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Mo lei tau ( Chinese  無厘頭  /  无厘头 , Pinyin wúlítóu , Jyutping mou 4 lei 4 tau 4 ) is a form of Chinese-Cantonese humor . Elements of slapstick , puns and parody references to pop culture are used . This form of humor became known through the films of Stephen Chow and Wong Jing .

origin

Before they became known, Chow and Wong were fans of Japanese anime . They particularly enjoyed watching the exaggerated contortions of the cartoon characters and decided to incorporate this into their real-life films. The audience was supposed to be made to laugh by these slapstick-like , absurd visual effects .

Wong described the audience's reactions with the Cantonese exclamation mo lei tau gau ( 無厘頭 尻 , wúlítóukāo , Jyutping mou 4 lei 4 tau 4 gau 1 ). This is an exclamation of strong astonishment and can be roughly translated as “What is this about?”. The last character 尻 , kāo , Jyutping gau 1 denotes a fecal expression , which is why this expression was shortened to mo lei tau ( 無厘頭 ). This means “nonsense” in Cantonese.

The humor is based on the phonetic peculiarity of the unison in Cantonese, i.e. the similar sound of words with different meanings, and the "possibility of producing serious errors with minor variations." The resulting puns can only be partially translated into English or German. which is why Mo-lei-tau films lose some of their humor when translated.

description

HKfilm.net calls mo lei tau " nonsense comedies" and highlights the characteristics of "hectic acts, high levels of physical humor (slapstick), parodies, pop culture references and heavy use of Cantonese slang". The Chicago Reader also describes mo lei tau as the approach of "destroying any logic in a situation through visual and verbal reversals and logical breaks." The BBC calls mo lei tau "Silly Talk" and pointed out that mo lei tau is particularly concerned with situation comedy and the absurd contrast between dialogue and action lives on. The following were named as examples:

  • The mafia boss, of whom all killers are afraid, turns out to be a primary school teacher
  • Destruction of a killer robot using a microwave oven
  • Rejection of a dying person's last wish because one does not understand Chinese
  • Reciting an ancient Chinese poem in the middle of a slapstick scene
  • Dialogue interspersed with faecal humor in the middle of an action scene

The reference of the mo lei tau is actor (director) Stephen Chow, whose films Sixty Million Dollar Man , Shaolin Kickers and Kung Fu Hustle are strongly influenced by this type of humor.

Social importance

Mo lei tau is very popular in the Chinese-speaking world. The popularity may also be due to the fact that it contains tendencies of escapism . The Chicago Reader argues that the Chinese see mo lei tau as a means of "putting a smile on your face"; H. To accept the hard realities of everyday life (pressure to succeed in professional life, SARS epidemic) with an ironic or nihilistic shrug.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Stephen Chow , hkfilm.net. Note: This article was 無厘頭 not mo lei tau , but with len moy tau transcribed
  2. ↑ a b c Interview with Wong Jing, guru of mainstream cinema , hkcinemagic.com
  3. ^ Term kao - 尻 (standard Chinese) - gau - 尻 (Cantonese). In: www.zdic.net. Retrieved on February 1, 2020 (Chinese, English, The character "尻- kao / gau" means on the one hand out of date in the anatomy of the sacrum , or the Po , on the other hand, it means the Chinesesischen as a vulgar expression " penetration " or coll. " Fucking ". ).
  4. ↑ Bert Rebhandl: Cinema - whiskers in the pigsty: Kung Fu Hustle. www.faz.net , June 2, 2005, accessed February 1, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c d How to Translate Nonsense , chicagoreader.com