The Movie Emperor

‘The Movie Emperor’ : Andy Lau Plays Vain Version of Himself in Hong Kong Megastar Meta-Satire

Director Ning Hao takes aim at his local film industry, enlisting Andy Lau to confront a fast-evolving media landscape where celebrities appear to be an endangered species.

In America, doing what Andy Lau does in Hong Kong film industry satire “The Movie Emperor” would likely net him an Oscar nomination. Or at least an MTV Movie Award. Or maybe just the admiration of his peers, considering how few stars are willing to poke fun at their own image, much less entertain the question of what might happen if their fans were to turn on them tomorrow.

Reteaming with “Crazy Stone” director Ning Hao for an ultra-polished, good-sport parody of A-list vanity, Lau plays Dany Lau — not quite himself, but a megastar of roughly his own stature. The movie is loaded with inside jokes, but like French series “Call My Agent,” it should have no trouble translating around the globe. Between Lau’s international standing — bolstered by roles in everything from “Infernal Affairs” to “A Simple Life,” plus a Cantopop singing career — and the script’s deft way of contextualizing some of its best jokes.

Dany Lau is more of an amalgam of several prominent Hong Kong actors, such as Tony Leung and Stephen Chow, than it is of Andy Lau. These stars have something in common with Hollywood's hotshots: all they have worked so hard to achieve may be taken from them in an instant. In the era of social media, that potential seems more daunting than it has ever been. Dany should not be in charge of his own profile, which causes a number of readily preventable blunders.

That may sound like fodder for an easy-target sketch comedy, but Ning aims higher, shooting the film in the style of a crisp, meticulously composed Ruben Östlund movie like “The Square.” “The Movie Emperor” is cinema, designed to be screened on the biggest possible screen, as DP Wang Boxue constructs each shot the way Jacques Tati might have: from such a distance that each location starts to feel dehumanized and absurd — as when Dany attends the Hong Kong Film Awards.

At what appears to be the actual kudocast, he’s not only snubbed for best actor, but subjected to the indignity of accepting the trophy on behalf of “Jackie Chen,” who didn’t even bother to show up. In Hong Kong, as in Hollywood, actors are celebrated for “serious” roles, and Dany’s mistake (he thinks) is that he hasn’t played a peasant in a self-important art-house movie. “In Chinese films, it’s all about cotton padded jackets,” explains director Lin Hao (played by Ning) at a wardrobe fitting where Dany tries on the uniform of stereotypical salt-of-the-earth Chinese farmers (essentially the safer version of the “Simple Jack” joke in “Tropic Thunder”).

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