{ "id": "epnds6048n", "slug": "justice-my-foot", "title": "Justice, My Foot! (审死官)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-1990-to-1994", "label": "Comedies of 1990 to 1994", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-1990-to-1994" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-1990-to-1994.slapstick-black-and-family-comedies.alpha-symbols-to-j", "label": "Titles symbols to J", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-1990-to-1994.slapstick-black-and-family-comedies.alpha-symbols-to-j" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "China · 1946 to 2000: Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "path": [ { "id": "geo.chn", "label": "China", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946", "label": "China · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Justice, My Foot! (審死官) is Johnnie To's 1992 Hong Kong comedy starring Stephen Chow as lawyer Sung Shih-Chieh and Anita Mui, a remake of the 1948 Cantonese film that topped the 1992 HK box office.", "snippet": "Justice, My Foot! (審死官) is Johnnie To's 1992 Hong Kong comedy starring Stephen Chow as lawyer Sung Shih-Chieh and Anita Mui, a remake of the 1948 Cantonese film that topped the 1992 HK box office.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-1990-to-1994.slapstick-black-and-family-comedies.alpha-symbols-to-j", "markdown": "# Justice, My Foot! (审死官)\n\n**Justice, My Foot!** (审死官; also romanized *Shen si guan*) is a 1992 Hong Kong period comedy directed by [Johnnie To](https://www.edgepedia.org/johnnie-to), starring [Stephen Chow](https://www.edgepedia.org/stephen-chow) as the unscrupulous [Qing dynasty](https://www.edgepedia.org/qing-dynasty) lawyer Sung Shih-Chieh (宋世杰) and Anita Mui as his kung fu-fighting wife. A remake of the 1948 Cantonese film *The Judge Goes to Pieces*, it was the highest-grossing Hong Kong film of 1992 and the first Hong Kong production to pass HK$50 million at the box office.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) • [2](https://post.smzdm.com/p/apqvdq7x/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / screenwriter | Johnnie To; screenplay by Sandy Shaw Lai-king[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) |\n| Cast | Stephen Chow, Anita Mui, Ng Man-tat, Carrie Ng, Kingdom Yuen[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) |\n| Production | Cosmopolitan Film Productions, 1992, Cantonese; producer Mona Fong, cinematographer Peter Pau, action director Ching Siu-tung[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) • [3](https://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/jstfoot.htm) |\n| Source | Remake of the 1948 Cantonese film *The Judge Goes to Pieces* with Ma Si-tsang, itself drawn from a Cantonese opera[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) • [4](https://tv.apple.com/hk/movie/%E5%AF%A9%E6%AD%BB%E5%AE%98/umc.cmc.1j2t8rsu4wfxd5xsorbhjtng8) |\n| Box office | About HK$50 million; the first Hong Kong film to break HK$50 million and the top Hong Kong gross of 1992[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) • [2](https://post.smzdm.com/p/apqvdq7x/) |\n| Award | Stephen Chow, Best Actor, 37th Asia-Pacific Film Festival[2](https://post.smzdm.com/p/apqvdq7x/) |\n| Runtime | 94 minutes per the Hong Kong Film Archive; 102 minutes per the International Film Festival Rotterdam and other listings[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) • [5](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2007/films/justice-my-foot) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and cast\n\nChow plays Sung Shih-Chieh, a lawyer famous for winning any case through fast-talking verbal acrobatics, whether his clients are guilty or not. His wife (Mui) blames the karmic cost of his unethical victories for the deaths of their twelve infant sons and persuades him to retire, or, as the English subtitles put it, to \"seal his brush.\" His retirement ends when he is drawn into a murder case involving a widow, Yang Sau-chuen (Carrie Ng), who has been falsely accused of killing her husband; at her pleading, he takes on corrupt officials in court.[6](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/justice_my_foot.htm) • [4](https://tv.apple.com/hk/movie/%E5%AF%A9%E6%AD%BB%E5%AE%98/umc.cmc.1j2t8rsu4wfxd5xsorbhjtng8)\n\nMui's character is the film's most distinctive change from the original. Where the 1948 version presents the wife more conventionally, the remake reinvents her as a martial arts powerhouse, \"as invincible with her fists as with her words,\" pairing her with Chow's lawyer in a one-literary, one-martial double act.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) [Ng Man-tat](https://www.edgepedia.org/ng-man-tat), Chow's frequent screen partner, plays the magistrate.[7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105385/fullcredits/)\n\n### Interpretation\n\nMarco Wan, a legal scholar at the [University of Hong Kong](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-hong-kong), situates the film in *Film and Constitutional Controversy* ([Cambridge University Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/cambridge-university-press), 2021) against the drafting of the Basic Law and the passage of the Bill of Rights Ordinance in early-1990s Hong Kong. He argues that the comedy, released three years after the 1989 [Tiananmen Square](https://www.edgepedia.org/tiananmen-square) crackdown, can be read as staging a nightmare scenario then current among Hong Kong viewers: a Hong Kong-style lawyer trying to defend the innocent and maintain justice within a Chinese-style legal system marked by corruption and nepotism, with the film's humor repackaging anxieties about the sinicization (making something Chinese in character) of law for mass consumption.[9](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/film-and-constitutional-controversy/laughing-at-the-law/A0AF7959B3D192844540607384A1A9C9)\n\n## Relationship to the 1948 original\n\nThe 1992 film follows the basic plot of Ma Si-tsang's *The Judge Goes to Pieces*: Sung, urged on by his wife, seeks redress for a wronged woman and defeats corrupt officials, and the remake reuses celebrated setups and lines from the original, including Sung being unwittingly dressed as a woman and squatting nonchalantly in the courtroom.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) The new screenplay departs from the original's structure, which opened with the woman's grievance and delayed the hero's entrance; the remake instead opens directly on Sung and sets up his reasons for retiring from practice.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) The Hong Kong Film Archive credits the remake with adding 1990s Hong Kong production touches, slapstick, and action choreography to the older material.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html)\n\n## Box office and reception\n\nThe film opened in Hong Kong on 2 July 1992 and earned several million Hong Kong dollars on its first day, finishing with a reported HK$49.88 million that was later revised to about HK$52 million.[2](https://post.smzdm.com/p/apqvdq7x/) It was the top-grossing Hong Kong film of 1992, and 1992 was a dominant year for Chow, who appeared in all five of the year's top-grossing Hong Kong films.[3](https://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/jstfoot.htm) The Hong Kong Film Archive describes it as the first Hong Kong film to pass the HK$50 million mark and says it set the benchmark for later period courtroom comedies.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) Chow won Best Actor at the 37th Asia-Pacific Film Festival for the role, his first international acting award.[2](https://post.smzdm.com/p/apqvdq7x/)\n\nCritical reception has been mixed across audiences. The film received multiple Hong Kong Film Award nominations, and the [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/museum-of-modern-art) has screened it as part of a Johnnie To retrospective, praising its stream of physical and verbal humor and its critique of corruption in the justice system.[6](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/justice_my_foot.htm) • [8](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9872) English-language reviewers have noted that much of the humor depends on familiarity with [Chinese law](https://www.edgepedia.org/chinese-law) and courtroom conventions, past and present, and that the plot can be hard for viewers outside that context to follow.[3](https://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/jstfoot.htm)\n\n## Legacy\n\nThe film's success brought renewed attention to Ma Si-tsang's earlier [Cantonese](https://www.edgepedia.org/cantonese) version among a new generation of viewers, and it is credited with starting a trend of lawyer-themed comedy in Hong Kong film and television.[10](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/5.-Exhibition-and-Screening/ProFolio/Profolio%20114-18-W3C_accessible_Chi_final_v2.pdf) • [1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html) It has since circulated internationally through festival retrospectives of Johnnie To at [Rotterdam](https://www.edgepedia.org/rotterdam) and MoMA and through home video and streaming releases.[5](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2007/films/justice-my-foot) • [8](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9872)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Justice, My Foot!, Hong Kong Film Archive programme note](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2025/comedy-s/pe-event-2025-comedy-s-fs-film08.html)\n2. [1992香港电影风云（上）, 什么值得买](https://post.smzdm.com/p/apqvdq7x/)\n3. [Justice, My Foot!, hkfilm.net review](https://www.hkfilm.net/movrevs/jstfoot.htm)\n4. [《審死官》, Apple TV (HK)](https://tv.apple.com/hk/movie/%E5%AF%A9%E6%AD%BB%E5%AE%98/umc.cmc.1j2t8rsu4wfxd5xsorbhjtng8)\n5. [Justice, My Foot!, International Film Festival Rotterdam](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2007/films/justice-my-foot)\n6. [Justice, My Foot! review, LoveHKFilm](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/justice_my_foot.htm)\n7. [Justice, My Foot! full cast and crew, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105385/fullcredits/)\n8. [Justice, My Foot! (審死官), MoMA](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9872)\n9. [Marco Wan, \"Laughing at the Law: Johnnie To's Justice, My Foot!,\" in Film and Constitutional Controversy, Cambridge University Press, 2021](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/film-and-constitutional-controversy/laughing-at-the-law/A0AF7959B3D192844540607384A1A9C9)\n10. [展影#114, 囍戲連場——香港喜劇電影, Hong Kong Film Archive](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/5.-Exhibition-and-Screening/ProFolio/Profolio%20114-18-W3C_accessible_Chi_final_v2.pdf)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 1990 to 1994 › Titles symbols to J*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/justice-my-foot", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/justice-my-foot.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Justice, My Foot! (审死官)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/justice-my-foot. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Justice, My Foot! (审死官)](https://www.edgepedia.org/justice-my-foot)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/justice-my-foot](https://www.edgepedia.org/justice-my-foot). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Justice, My Foot! (审死官)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/justice-my-foot. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Justice, My Foot! is Johnnie To's 1992 Hong Kong comedy starring Stephen Chow as lawyer Sung Shih-Chieh and Anita Mui, a remake of the 1948 Cantonese film that topped the 1992 HK box office." }