Review: To quote J.D. Nguyen, Stephen Chow is a golden god!! From Beijing with Love is just more proof that Jimmy was right on the money. Shaolin Soccer was the first Stephen Chow movie I saw, and a lot of people warned me that it was his best and that watching his other movies afterwards was a bad idea. Sure, Shaolin Soccer is great, but nothing could ruin the fine comedy cuisine that a good Stephen Chow movie is. From Beijing with Love is one of these movies.

This film is the essential James Bond spoof as far as I’m concerned. Oozing with style and utterly ridiculous, it manages to capture the best parts of Bond movies, while making fun of the worst. Making the movie even better is the fact that Ling Ling Chai (of course, played by Chow) is incredibly bad at handling a firearm, which is one of Bond’s specialties. Hell, I would love to go on for the rest of this review just talking about all the individual jokes in the movie, but that would ruin the whole thing.

As far as the actual comedy goes, this movie falls in the same ridiculous category as Chow’s God of Cookery. There are a couple moments where you won’t believe how cheesy a joke just was, but for the most parts they will knock your socks off. One of the aspects that stands out the most is something that is very essential to Bond flicks. This of course is the movie’s jokes on all of 007’s insane gadgets. All of the machinery in this movie is created by Chai’s partner Man Si, and they are some of the stupidest and most gut-busting creations I’ve seen.

Stephen Chow is incredible in this film. He takes everything you love and hate about James Bond, eats it, and pukes up the brand of Chow humor we all know and love. He balances being a clumsy oaf with portraying a smooth ladies man beautifully. He really shines in the scenes where he attempts to get in the sack with his would be assassin partner. I’ll never forget when he busts in the bathroom wearing a pimp bathrobe and smoking a pipe. It’s almost as memorable as the way he wore shorts in every scene of God of Cookery. He also swoons the ladies in a great musical scene that involves him playing a piano and singing. Of course, he also falls down a lot and runs into things. I’m not a huge fan of slapstick comedy in movies, but I don’t seem to mind it in Chow flicks.

Above everything else, though, I think I am most impressed with the fact that he manages to have a cigarette in his mouth in almost every scene in the movie. He must of set some kind of world record with this, and it adds to his overall smooveness.

Aside from all the comedy, which is the main focus, there are also some really entertaining action scenes. Ling Ling Chai is so quick with his daggers, that the few scenes he uses them in are really exciting. There is a great John Woo style gunfight in the opening scene also. A great deal of the firepower comes from the classic Bond enemies that Chow parodies in the film. There is the main villain I mentioned before, “The man with the Golden Gun”. He has a Robocop type suit and his bullets shoot straight through walls and some explode on impact. There is also the classic “Jaws” character that was jacked from the stable of Bond villains as well. Scenes with this guy are crazy and hilarious, as he chews through everything and kicks everyone’s ass in general.

Finally, there is the film’s music. This is the kind of parody music that rips off the original Bond song to the extent that they won’t get sued. It’s great. Also worth mentioning is the bond-style opening. This was done perfectly to a tee. It had the whole “cheesy yet stylish” sillhouettes dancing with guns that we are all familiar with.