Stephen Chow stars in this talky parody of the popular Judge Pao stories. Chow plays Pao’s corrupt descendant Pao Lung-Sing, who’s hated by the public for his money-digging ways. He has a change of heart when he sees rape victim Chi (Cheung Man) get framed by corrupt lawyers and officials, including legendary lawyer Fong Tong-Ken (Lawrence Ng of Sex and Zen). Sing goes through hell when he tries to expose the bad guys, and soon finds himself on the run with nephew Pao Yau-Wai (Ng Man-Tat). The two encounter all sorts of wacky characters, including Christy Chung as a circus performer/love interest Stone Mansion and Ada Choi Siu-Fun as classy prostitute/love interest Yu Yin.

Hail the Judge is told episodically, meaning lots of wandering around with no real direction, but the whole thing ties up neatly when Chow learns martial art of verbal assault from annoying brothel madam Auntie San (Yuen King-Tan). Wong Jing directs in that heavy-handed way of his, but as Wong’s movies go, this is a pretty good one. The comedy, despite being overbearing, is consistently funny, especially during the final courtroom sequence when Sing turns the tables on the bad guys. Probably the worst part of Hail the Judge is the punishment that’s given to Chi during her rigged trial. As usual with these history-based torture scenes, my feeling is that just because it happened doesn’t mean I necessarily want to watch it. (Kozo 1995)

image courtesy of Universe Laser & Video Co., Ltd.