Film Review: The Lord of Hangzhou 杭州王爺 (1998) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 5/10
Rating: ★ ★ 1/2
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There is a quiet moment midway through The Lord of Hangzhou when Tse Kwan-Ho, playing the once-wealthy Mi Qi, sits on a riverbank beneath the moonlight with nothing left but a straw hat and the weight of his own folly. For just a breath, the film lowers its voice and seems to remember that it is about something more than pratfalls and mistaken identities: the discovery that a man’s worth may begin only after he has lost everything he thought defined him.
The trouble is that such moments arrive like uninvited guests in a house already overflowing with noise. Andy Chin’s film tries, with considerable charm and uneven success, to be two things at once: a broad Hong Kong historical comedy in the tradition of festive crowd-pleasers like The Eighth Happiness, and a gentle fable about humility, friendship, and the dignity of honest labor. Hong Kong cinema has a long and honorable history of dancing between those poles. Here, unfortunately, the film trips over its own splendid robes.
Tse Kwan-Ho stars as Mi Qi, a big-spending nobleman from Hangzhou whose extravagance knows no bounds. During one of Emperor Qianlong’s secret Southern tours, he strikes up an easy friendship with a seemingly ordinary traveler (played by Waise Lee). When Mi Qi’s fortune collapses through his own recklessness, he journeys to the capital hoping his well-placed friend might offer help—only to discover, in due time, that the man with whom he shared rice and laughter was none other than the Emperor himself traveling in disguise. The story draws from ancient folklore motifs, and there is real pleasure in watching a spoiled man learn the simple satisfactions of work and modest meals.
What saves the picture from mediocrity is the warmth between its two leads. Tse Kwan-Ho and Power Chan share an easy, playful chemistry that feels lived-in; when they banter, the movie briefly rises above its television-scale production values. There is something genuinely wholesome in Mi Qi’s slow awakening to the idea that identity and happiness need not rest on silk and silver.
Yet the film’s ambitions are constantly undercut by its execution. The slapstick is broad—groin hits with paddles, tea-spitting eunuchs, frantic chases—and the dramatic passages that follow often feel unearned, as though the movie cannot decide whether it wants us to laugh or reflect. Visually it has the flat, functional look of a mid-budget period drama shot quickly for the local market: serviceable sets, harsh lighting, and editing that sometimes feels as if the scissors were applied with more enthusiasm than precision.
The Lord of Hangzhou is not a bad film so much as a modest one that reaches a little beyond its grasp. It possesses an appealing heart and two engaging performers who seem to be enjoying themselves, even when the material strains. For audiences in search of light 90s Hong Kong entertainment, it offers the cinematic equivalent of a warm bowl of congee on a rainy evening—comforting while it lasts, quickly forgotten, but not without its small pleasures. (Neo, 2026)