Wry and Awry
In A Better Tomorrow II, Chow Yun-Fat’s character Ken described rice as being like his family. When you read the subtitles (or listen to the dialogue) of other Hong Kong movies, you will realize that this wasn’t some character quirk that was cooked up by one of the writers. In Cantonese culture, rice is a nickname for cigarettes. As such, an ash-tray is called a rice bin. In John Woo’s sequel, Ken smokes a cigarette. As for other Cantonese idioms about rice that are relevant to the sequel produced by Tsui Hark, there is rice bucket. This means idiot, and it suits Dean Shek’s character Lung Sei because he loses his sanity. Rice bowl is a job whereas rice master is either an employer or carer. This reflects Ken because not only does he own a restaurant but he ends up having to care for Lung Sei.
Ti Lung’s character Sung is a prisoner, so there is even slang which relates to him. The original version of A Better Tomorrow II was well past two hours long, so it wouldn’t be a surprise that there was a scene left out where he eats rice in the joint. The punishment block in a Hong Kong prison is known as the water and rice room. Eating royal rice describes the overall process of going to or being in prison. In Island of Fire (not a John Woo movie but one inspired by his movies), Jimmy Wang Yu is forced to eat rice as punishment. When he can no longer do so, his fellow prisoners help out as a sign of rebellion. To throw away rice means to ruin a business, so Ken’s restaurant gets blown up in A Better Tomorrow II. Biting expensive rice means using high-priced heroin. This would have been ideal had the movie not been about counterfeiting.
As for Cantonese sayings which describe food, cold rice and vegetable water describes left-overs. Rice king means porridge. The Cantonese word for pretty (leng) can also describe a bowl of steamed rice. This is usually waiter’s slang, though. “Handsome guy” (leng jai) can describe this bowl or even good traffic conditions. “Baking pork chops with rice” describes a low-balling tactic in which a pimp sends a woman to a client knowing that the client is unlikely to find her attractive, allowing him to charge a further fee to bring a different prostitute. A brothel was one of the locations in a 1977 Kung Fu film where Sammo Hung played a character named Rice Miller 6. Titled The Iron-Fisted Monk, this film would have benefited from being a horror movie since sticky rice is used as a repellent against China’s very own vampires which are sort of like hopping zombies. The Cantonese pronunciation of Rice Miller 6, Jung Mai-Luk, rhymes with Maggie Cheung’s Chinese name: Jeung Maan-Yuk.
As for Chinese puns in general, “common rice field” is a euphemism for excrement because the three Chinese characters (米田共) make up the character for excrement (糞). In Sammo Hung’s Encounters of the Spooky Kind (made a few years after The Iron-Fisted Monk came out in 1977) the protagonist is unable to get enough sticky rice. Thus, he mixes his limited supply with regular rice. As such, “a lump of rice” fits this fat character since that idiom means an idiot. A “sticky rice ass” means someone who comes to visit and overstays their welcome or someone who is unwilling to leave. “Throwing a bag of sticky rice chicken” means unloading one’s problem onto someone or to get someone involved in one’s own mess. The use of a chicken for supernatural rituals happens in Encounters of the Spooky Kind.
We never see what Sammo’s character, Bold Cheung, does for a living. Therefore, it would have been better to depict him as being unemployed due to various Cantonese sayings: cheating rice to eat (being idle at work), watching the dishes while eating rice (being cautious), cook rice woman (housewife), eating soft rice (a man who is supported financially by a woman), begging for rice (being very poor), stealing rice from a beggar’s bowl (exploiting the underprivileged) and getting rice (achieving what one wants). Then there’s “riceless congee” or “boiling congee without rice” (a useless plan). Because Bold Cheung is a stranger to the world of the supernatural, it allows for exposition. This would have allowed for a Cantonese expression - asking until one breaks the rice-washing basin.
Beyond the movie, other idioms are also interest. A large wok of rice essentially describes the communism of Mainland China. Despite speaking Mandarin like its fellow Chinese country, Taiwan is obsessed with capitalism to the extent that a Hong Kong term reflects a certain type of person: rice stalks covering pearls i.e. hiding one’s true wealthy, especially by pretending to be poor. The Chinese equivalent to “the grass is greener on the other side” is the neighbor’s rice smells better. This reminds me of something: Taiwan may be richer, but the Hong Kong film industry is more ambitious than Taiwanese cinema. Ironically, the Hong Kong film industry mostly succeeded thanks to the financing of Taiwanese investors.
Between Taiwanese cinema and Hong Kong cinema, the latter is the most crass when it comes to the lowest common denominator. Some of the most vulgar dialogue and sight gags can be witnessed in Hong Kong cinema. Here are two examples of crude dialogue: eating one’s fill of rice but have nothing to excrete (making a fuss over nothing) and eating excrement but excreting rice (describing someone as abnormal or stupid). The latter is reminiscent of how Stephen Chow’s success as a star of nonsensical comedies drew the ire of some critics who failed to be swayed by his charms. It’s fitting that his most popular nineties movie with critics is one that wasn’t much of a commercial success i.e. The God of Cookery.
