The Eighth Happiness (八星报喜)
The Eighth Happiness (八星报喜) is a 1988 Hong Kong Lunar New Year comedy directed by Johnnie To (杜琪峰) and produced by Raymond Wong Bak-Ming (黄百鸣) for the studio Cinema City, telling the intertwined love lives of three brothers of the Fong family.1 • 2 It earned about HK$37.09 million and was the top-grossing Hong Kong film of 1988, and it is credited with fixing the formula of the star-packed family New Year comedy that dominated Hong Kong cinemas for decades afterward.3 • 4
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Chinese title | 八星报喜 (pinyin: Ba xing bao xi; Cantonese: Baat sing biu choi)2 |
| Release | 11 February 1988, Hong Kong; 91 minutes; Cantonese language2 • 3 |
| Director / producer | Johnnie To; produced and co-written by Raymond Wong Bak-Ming1 • 2 |
| Studio | Cinema City Company Limited5 |
| Principal cast | Chow Yun-Fat, Raymond Wong, Jacky Cheung, Carol "DoDo" Cheng, Cherie Chung, Fung Bo-Bo, Fennie Yuen1 |
| Box office | HK$37.09 million, first place among 1988 Hong Kong films3 • 4 |
| Genre | Comedy / New-Year film6 |
Spoilers
Story
A telephone line fault sets off three romances among the three Fong brothers.5 The eldest, Fong Kim-Fai (方剑辉), played by Raymond Wong, is a steady, good-natured cooking-show host who has cared for his younger brothers so devotedly that he reached his thirties without a girlfriend; through the crossed phone line he meets the divorced woman Wu Fen-Fang (吴芬芳), played by Fung Bo-Bo (冯宝宝), and the two move from quarreling strangers to lovers.5 • 7
The middle brother, Fong Kim-Long (方剑郎), played by Chow Yun-Fat (周润发), is a womanizer who hides his girlfriend Hung (飘红), played by Carol Cheng (郑裕玲), while pursuing the fiery Beautiful, played by Cherie Chung (钟楚红); the affair blows up into a romantic crisis, and he eventually returns to the woman who truly loves him.5 LoveHKFilm's review describes Chow's performance as a player with manic energy, and notes that Cherie Chung plays the "Beauty of the Department Store."1 The youngest brother, Fong Kim-Sang (方剑笙), played by Jacky Cheung (张学友), is a shy, kind-hearted manga artist who meets the lively girl Ying-Ying (莹莹), played by Fennie Yuen (袁洁莹), by chance in a park, and their gentle romance develops slowly.5
A complication drives the plot: Kim-Fai helps cover up his brother Kim-Long's romantic entanglements, and Fen-Fang, misled into thinking he is a philanderer, nearly leaves him; the family then works to win her back.7 The three romances arrive by accident and end differently, and the film closes with a large Cantonese opera sequence.5 • 1
Production and context
The film was made at Cinema City, the studio whose New Year comedies defined the Hong Kong holiday season in the 1980s.5 Raymond Wong, a Cinema City shareholder, had since 1984 cultivated a production method of inviting large numbers of star friends to appear quickly in inexpensive festive films, and he applied it here with Chow Yun-Fat and Cherie Chung, then at the height of their popularity, alongside Jacky Cheung, Carol Cheng, and the former child star Fung Bo-Bo.8 • 9 The director was Johnnie To, before he founded his own company Milkyway Image; the Hong Kong press account notes that the film was shot and organized with considerable quality for a holiday farce.1 • 4
The screenplay is credited to Philip Cheng Chung-Tai, Raymond Wong, Edward Li Gui-Ming, and Ng Man-Fai, with David Wu as editor and Tony Ching Siu-Tung as choreographer.2
Box office and influence
The film took in HK$37.09 million, the highest figure of any Hong Kong film released in 1988, outgrossing Jackie Chan's Police Story 2.3 • 9 Its commercial weight outlasted its era: the highest-grossing Hong Kong film of 2017, Love Off the Cuff, earned only HK$30.7 million, less in nominal terms than The Eighth Happiness had thirty years earlier.4
A lasting template. Although the first Hong Kong New Year film was Aces Go Places, the Hong Kong press credits The Eighth Happiness with establishing the genre's standard blueprint: a large ensemble of Hong Kong stars in a comedy of family and romance, released for the Lunar New Year.4 Later films built on this model include All's Well, Ends Well (1992), The Lucky Guy, and the From Vegas to Macau series.4 When Wong left Cinema City and founded his own company, he reused the film's structure of three brothers and their love stories for the 1992 All's Well, Ends Well.10 Scholars of Hong Kong cinema likewise list The Eighth Happiness, alongside Happy Ghost era titles such as Eight Happinesses (1986) and All's Well, Ends Well (1992), among the representative films that fixed the type rules of the Hong Kong New Year film: comedy as the required genre, subject matter tied to festive family life, and an atmosphere of New Year joy.11
Reception and availability
LoveHKFilm's review calls it typical New Year fluff with more than a few good laughs, singling out the performances of Chow Yun-Fat and Cherie Chung, and ranks it alongside All's Well, Ends Well '97 for undemanding audiences.1 The film has been released on Hong Kong DVD (Region 0 NTSC, with Cantonese and Mandarin tracks and removable English and Chinese subtitles) and on Blu-ray Disc.1 It is currently licensed for streaming, with Cantonese and Mandarin audio and simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and English subtitles, under Fortune Star Media.5
References
- The Eighth Happiness (八星報喜) (1988), LoveHKFilm review by Kozo
- The Eighth Happiness (1988), Letterboxd
- 黄百鸣贺岁经典喜剧：《八星报喜》(1988), Sina Entertainment (2008)
- 〖八星報喜30周年〗開啟賀歲片先河 周潤發鄭裕玲大堆頭式喜劇, HK01 (2018)
- 《八星报喜》, Apple TV
- The Eight Happiness (1988), Chinese Movie Database
- 八星报喜, WeTV
- 大佬们的当年情！去掉情怀滤镜的新艺城恩仇录, Sina Entertainment
- 香江忆旧录||为什么我们怀念那些年的香港贺岁片, ifeng Entertainment
- 每逢过年必看的贺岁片，我只服它, The Paper (2021)
- 娱乐启蒙、类型规范与"港味"美学（赵卫防）, 中国文艺评论网
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 the 1980s › Comedy-dramas of the 1980s
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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