The Eighth Happiness (1988)

The Lunar New Year comedy at full volume. Johnnie To, years before his crime films, directs an ensemble built around three brothers and the women they meet when a phone line fails, with Chow Yun-fat camping it up as a flamboyant womanizer alongside Raymond Wong and Jacky Cheung. The gags are broad and the cast is stacked, which is exactly what these holiday releases were for: a whole family laughing in one row. It is the clearest view of the industry's mainstream at its most confident, and of Chow having more fun than any gunfight allowed him.