Old Master Q
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Old Master Q (老夫子; pinyin: Lǎo FūZǐ) is a popular Chinese comic strip created by Alfonso Wong/Alphonso Wong (Chinese name: Wong Chak/王澤/王家禧), originally published from 1962 to the 1980's. The series featured Old Master Q and Big Potato, as well as Mr Chin, Mr Chiu and Miss Chan, in many different hilarious situations.
The characters in Old Master Q comic strips are usually portrayed in a variety of social statuses, professions and time periods, ranging from beggars and office workers to actors and ancient warriors, allowing for a wide variety of settings and ideas. More outlandish scenarios includes close encounters with aliens, ghost sightings and the afterlife.
While Old Master Q comics primarily focuses on humour, it also reflects changing social trends, particularly from the 1960s to the 1980s. The comics would sometimes feature societal problems in urban life, such as poverty, petty thefts and secret societies. It also poked fun at the arts, including fashion, contemporary art and rock music. The language barrier, mostly between the Chinese language and the English language, was not overlooked, either.
In rare cases, Old Master Q comics would express more serious views regarding major political changes taking place in Hong Kong during the 60's-80's. It had previously criticised overly Westernised Chinese, who were sometimes shown in the comic strips to slant more towards the interests of Westerners than native locals. The agreement to hand over power of Hong Kong to China, following the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, would also become a subject matter, as a few comic strips were published through the late 1980s and early 1990s expressing the characters' fears of handover, frequently represented in a numeral of the year it would take place: 1997. Some of these comic strips had even gone the distance to depict direct assault of what appeared to be a representation of the Chinese government, which usually takes place near the end of the comic strip.
The comic series was made into many Cantonese and Mandarin cartoon animations, one of which combined live actors and advanced CGI graphics.
Many famous Hong Kong people took part in the production of the movies. Some of them were ---
Actors/actresses: 雪妮,高魯泉,沈殿霞, 矮冬瓜,紅薇,陳寶珠,薛家燕,西瓜刨,朱由高,羅蘭,李菁,劉陸華,芬妮,謝霆鋒,張柏之
Voice-actors: 曾志偉,杜汶澤,余宜發,利嘉兒,楊天經
Composers/singers: 黃霑﹐顧家輝﹐張國榮
The list of Old Master Q movies is as followed, in chronological order:
- Old Master Q Black & White (3 August 1965)
- Old Master Q and Big Potato Black & White (10 May 1965)
- Old Master Q Triple Rescue of Foolish-Ming Black & White (13 July 1966)
- Old Master Q (8 March 1975)
- I am Old Master Q (2 October 1976)
- Old Master Q Strange and Interesting Adventures (18 November 1978)
- Colour Old Master Q Cartoon (16 July 1981)
- Old Master Q Water Tiger Cartoon (10 July 1982)
- 山T Old Master Q Cartoon (4 August 1983)
- Old Master Q 2001 (5 April 2001)
- Master Q: Incredible Pet Detective Cartoon (20 December 2003)
Old Master Q comics is now copyrighted by WangZ Inc, a company established by Joseph Wong Chak (Alfonso Wong's eldest son) in Taipei, Taiwan.
Important note to all: Fans of Old Master Q are welcomed to design their own artwork (such as drawings) for educational or personal purposes, but any interactive fan art (such as a computer game, online flash game) featuring Old Master Q & other OMQ characters; for no matter what purpose; without approval from WangZ Inc would be rendered as a breach of copyright.
External links
- Official Old Master Q site (http://www.oldmasterq.com/)