General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

La Comédie humaine (人间喜剧)

La Comédie humaine (人間喜劇) is a 2010 Hong Kong Cantonese comedy film directed and written by Chan Hing-kai (陳慶嘉) and Janet Chun (秦小珍), starring Chapman To (杜汶澤), Wong Cho-lam (王祖藍), Fiona Sit (薛凱琪), Hui Siu-hung (許紹雄), and Kama (羅凱珊)¹. The title borrows the name of Honoré de Balzac's novel sequence La Comédie humaine, but the film itself is a self-aware parody comedy about a mainland hitman and a Hong Kong screenwriter². It runs 104 minutes and carries the English alternate title The Human Comedy¹.

Key fact	Detail
Directors and writers	Chan Hing-kai and Janet Chun (co-directed; screenplay with Ho Miu-kee)¹
Cast	Chapman To, Wong Cho-lam, Fiona Sit, Hui Siu-hung, Kama, among others¹
Release	Hong Kong theatrical release 8 July 2010; screened at the 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival and the 2010 Udine Far East Film Festival (29 April 2010)¹^•³
Financing	Total production budget HK$8.4 million, with HK$2.52 million financed by the Hong Kong government's Film Development Fund; the sixth FDF-financed film to be released in Hong Kong³
Recognition	Named one of seven recommended films of the 2010 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards (announced 10 January 2011)⁴
Audience rating	Douban 7.4/10 from 54,416 users¹

Spoilers

Plot

The young hitman Situ Chunyun (司徒春运, played by Chapman To) and his older partner Setting Sun (夕陽, Hui Siu-hung) are hired from the mainland and travel to Hong Kong. Because their assignment leaks, the two split up en route and agree to meet on a building's rooftop. Penniless, Chunyun waits in vain for Setting Sun, catches a bad cold in a cold snap, and collapses. Soya (諸葛頭揪, Wong Cho-lam), a kind but fussy screenwriter living in the building, finds him and takes him home to nurse him back to health⁵.

After recovering, Chunyun repeatedly considers killing Soya to silence him, while Soya, unaware of the danger, chatters about his romantic and miserable history with his fierce girlfriend Tin-Oi (徐天愛, Fiona Sit). Over time the friendship between the killer and the writer deepens: Chunyun's cold heart softens, and Soya learns confidence and strength⁵. The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival synopsis adds that the hitman also helps his new friend with his romantic troubles⁶.

Production and financing

The film was produced by Icon Film with financing from the Hong Kong Film Development Fund. At the premiere on 26 June 2010, Film Development Council chairman Peter So (蘇澤光) stated that the production budget was HK$8.4 million, of which the government financed HK$2.52 million, and that the film was the sixth FDF-financed production to reach Hong Kong cinemas³. The directors intended to use the comic talents of Wong Cho-lam and Chapman To to portray how modern "Hong Kong men" face life's setbacks³.

Chan Hing-kai, a graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong's journalism and communication program, won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Screenplay for Beast Cops and turned to directing with La Brassiere (2001), working mostly in urban comedy. Janet Chun, who had worked under John Woo as an assistant director and screenwriter, co-directed her first feature with Chan on La Lingerie (2008)⁶.

Parody and film references

The film is built on parody and homage to Hong Kong and Chinese cinema. A Golden Horse synopsis describes it as a "Kuso" (Japanese-origin term for crude, absurd parody humor) comedy made by film fans to mock cinema while full of cinephile affection, with everything from John Woo's The Killer to Feng Xiaogang's Assembly becoming objects of tribute or parody⁶.

Reviewers cataloged the references in detail: the rapid punches of Ip Man, the church doves of Face/Off, the killers' meeting in The Mission, the alley interrogation of PTU, Chapman To's gag on the Japanese title Be With You, Assembly used to mock advances in communications, and imitations of classic scenes of Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai⁷. One extended gag has Chunyun tell his life story using the titles of DVDs on Soya's shelf⁷. The Ip Man fast-punch gag was, by one count, the third 2010 film to parody that scene, after All's Well Ends Well 2010 and 72 Tenants of Prosperity⁸.

Reception

Critical response was divided. The Hong Kong Film Critics Society named La Comédie humaine one of its seven recommended films of 2010; in the best-screenplay vote, Crossing Hennessy and La Comédie humaine were at one point tied before Ruth Shim of Crossing Hennessy won⁴. Chapman To was a finalist for the society's Best Actor award, which went to Teddy Robin for Gallants⁴.

Kozo of LoveHKFilm.com, reviewing at the Udine festival, called it poorly paced and sometimes frustratingly postmodern, with jokes stretched to egregious lengths and a story that loses momentum, but still a creative and surprisingly affecting film that succeeds through its moments and a love of cinema that is hard to resist; he singled out Fiona Sit's performance as a "Sassy Girl" archetype as a highlight⁹. James Marsh of Screen Anarchy called it an uneven buddy comedy that is not half as funny as it thinks it is, yet gets by on the charisma of its leads¹⁰. Writing in the South China Morning Post, Paul Fonoroff described an ambitious farce pervaded by a passion for Hong Kong cinema that attempts more than merely generating laughs but falls short of the pretensions of its title¹¹. On Douban the film holds 7.4/10 from 54,416 users, with 47.0% giving four stars¹.

Not to be confused with the 2019 film

A different mainland Chinese comedy, 人间·喜剧 (also rendered The Human Comedy), directed by Sun Zhou and starring Allen (艾伦) of Mahua FunAge, was released in March 2019. It opened to a Douban score that fell to 3.4, an opening-day box office just over 30 million yuan, and a final total of about 70 million yuan; although the film had no connection to Mahua FunAge, its poor reception was nonetheless attached to the company's brand¹². The two films share a Chinese title and little else.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026