General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Simply Actors

Simply Actors (戲王之王, Hei wong ji wong) is a 2007 Hong Kong Cantonese comedy directed by Chan Hing-Ka and Patrick Leung, in which the police force sends its most theatrical officer to a performing arts academy after undercover officers are killed when triads see through their poor acting.¹^•² It stars stage comedian Jim Chim Sui-Man in his first full starring film role, alongside Charlene Choi of the Cantopop duo Twins, and features a large cast of cameos from Hong Kong cinema and theater figures.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Original title	戲王之王 (Hei wong ji wong); English title Simply Actors¹
Release	June 19, 2007 (Hong Kong); 120 minutes; Cantonese¹
Directors / writers	Directed by Chan Hing-Ka and Patrick Leung; written by Chan Hing-Ka, Janet Chun, and Ho Man-Lung⁵
Lead cast	Jim Chim Sui-Man as Chan Man-Long; Charlene Choi as Dani Dan; with Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Sandra Ng, and Chapman To²^•⁴
Production	Golden Scene and Icon Pictures; producer Chan Hing-Ka and Amy Chin²
Box office	$1,887,228 gross worldwide¹
Reception	IMDb 5.3/10 (286 votes); Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 41%¹^•⁶
Awards	Charlene Choi won the 2007 Golden Bauhinia Best Actress award and was nominated for Best Actress at the 2008 Hong Kong Film Awards⁷

Spoilers

Plot

The premise follows a string of police failures: undercover officers infiltrating triads are unmasked and killed, with their poor acting blamed for blowing their cover.¹ In one account of the story, a body is found with the words "lousy actor" written on the corpse, prompting the force to act.⁸ The Deputy Police Commissioner, played by director Ann Hui in a cameo, selects Chan Man-Long (Jim Chim), a constable whose showmanship has won him best-performance awards at the force's annual parties, and sends him incognito to a Performance Arts Academy as an experiment in upgrading police acting abilities.²

At the academy, Chan discovers that his abilities are far outweighed by his classmates, and his fortunes change when he meets the soft-porn actress Dani Dan (Charlene Choi), who becomes his anchor in his studies and a friend.⁵ A stage janitor, played by Anthony Wong, teaches him to look for drama in everyday life on the streets, echoing the Shakespearean idea that all the world is a stage.³^•⁷ In the end, Chan returns to the force with a renewed understanding of what it takes to be a good actor, and passes his knowledge on to a future generation of undercover officers.⁷

Cast and production

Jim Chim Sui-Man (詹瑞文) is a stage comedian and founder of the drama group Theatre Ensemble, famous in Hong Kong for his one-man stage performances.³^•⁹ Simply Actors was the first time audiences were given a full-on Chim starring role, and the film was widely described as tailor-made for him.³^•⁹ Reviewers were divided on his screen style: some found his overacting trying, while others judged that his animated, exaggerated persona fit the film's framework.⁴^•⁶

Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin (蔡卓妍), one half of the Cantopop duo Twins, played Dani Dan. In real life she had been apprenticed to Chim as his protégé in acting, and her performance drew the film's strongest notices: she won the Golden Bauhinia Best Actress award in 2007 and received a Best Actress nomination at the 2008 Hong Kong Film Awards.³^•⁷

The supporting and cameo cast was drawn from both the cinema and theater circles, including Eric Tsang, Sandra Ng, Chapman To, Sammy Leung, Josie Ho, Isabella Leong, Lawrence Cheng, Fiona Sit, and directors Ann Hui, Fruit Chan, Wilson Yip, and Alan Mak among many others.³^•⁴ The film references Infernal Affairs (2002), the Hong Kong undercover-cop thriller whose premise it comically inverts.¹

Reception

Critical response was mixed and often negative. The South China Morning Post called the film, made for Chim by veteran filmmakers, surprisingly unfunny and at times dull.⁹ The LoveHKFilm review judged it interminable, arguing that it derailed when it tried to mix comedy with drama, with too much dialogue, too many characters, and an overlong running time of nearly two hours, exceptional for a Hong Kong film; the same review singled out Charlene Choi's performance as a genuine bright spot.³ A Far East Films review rated it 3.0, describing gangster-driven subplots introduced late in the story as an urgent shot of adrenaline after the film had ground to a halt, while noting that Hong Kong cinema aficionados would enjoy spotting the celebrities peppered throughout.⁵ On Rotten Tomatoes the film held a 41% Tomatometer score, and audience reviews were similarly split between praise for Chim's energy and complaints about pacing.⁶

Release and distribution

The film opened in Hong Kong on June 19, 2007, and received a mainland Chinese release on August 31, 2007.¹^•¹⁰ It was screened in Japan at the first Okinawa International Movie Festival in 2009.¹¹ A US DVD from Tai Seng Video followed on August 31, 2007, with Cantonese and Mandarin audio and English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese subtitles.⁴ The film later appeared on Netflix in various territories, including Australia, where it was added on January 4, 2017 and later removed.¹²^•¹³

References

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 2007 to 2008 › Released in 2007

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

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