The Cinematheque

“Close to the heart of what makes Tsui a great filmmaker … The humour comes organically out of the heroes’ anarchic rejection of the social codes that demand fealty to the bosses … Every prank becomes an act of protest.”

Sean Gilman, The Chinese Cinema

The tension between pure invention and reliable formula is expressed in the smooth plot mechanics of this early workplace comedy from director (and featured co-star) Tsui Hark. Whether it’s the injuries of five-a-side football, instant-noodle-packing factory floors, or screwball romance, Working Class is a rapidly paced catalogue of the average week’s indignities in a class-conscious Hong Kong. As in a classic studio picture like Stanley Donen’s The Pajama Game, every emphatic declaration for labour rights or management control is contested, then resolved through romantic entanglement, physical slapstick, or mistaken identity. The star representative on the workers’ side is played by Sam Hui, the Cantopop legend who contributes the film’s theme song. Joey Wong (Green Snake) is the boss’s worker-sympathetic daughter. Tsui’s performance as a worker is as energetic as his directing: bold and obvious one moment, providing cover for intelligent subterfuge the next.

In Cantonese with English subtitles