Last week I dusted off Stephen Chow's secret agent parody, From Beijing With Love. It isn't new, and it isn't well known, but hey, that's what the Hong Kong collection is for–stuff you just don't have.
Stephen Chow is best known here for Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, but he has been very prolific, and there is a large back catalog of his work available. One of his more recent efforts (prior to making it in the United States) is this spy movie.
The skull of a dinosaur is stolen by a man with bulletproof metal armor and a powerful golden gun. Declared a national treasure, it must be recovered at all costs, but for some reason the man in charge of resourcing picks pork butcher and reserve secret agent Stephen Chow (that may not be his name in this movie. I forget, but it usually is in his movies) despite his almost total incompetence. On the way to foiling the bad guy, Stephen meets and falls in love with a treacherous double agent, only to be betrayed.
Ok, so it's funny. But what's funny about it? Stephen Chow is a master of nonsense, and that humor abounds in the movie. At one point, going through his secret agent case, we discover that his shoe is really a hair dryer, his hair dryer is really a cordless shaver, his cordless shaver is really a hair dryer, and his mobile phone is really a cordless shaver. His gun first fires backwards and then fires forwards. He has a briefcase that launches him into the air, although not always at the right angle.
Subtitles and transfer are a little iffy, as is usually the case with his early Hong Kong works. Also, look out for ugly transvestites–the funniest thing in the world to Stephen Chow is ugly women.
Also recommended: God of Cookery, Flirting Scholar