The owner of a run-down traditional barbequed duck restaurant (Michael Hui) is forced to modernise and rethink his sales strategy when “Danny’s”, a new fried chicken restaurant, moves across the street taking all of his custom with such gimmicks as cleanliness and friendly staff! Even Hui’s staff mutiny and Cuttlefish (Ricky Hui) joins the rival restaurant by dressing as a giant chicken to hand out advertising leaflets to the public. The two restaurants then engage in a series of sneaky battles of one-upmanship to drive the other out of business.

CHICKEN AND DUCK TALK is a comedy that is quite highly regarded by fans of Michael Hui, and there are certainly some good gags in here. However, I tend to think there are more misses than hits. Most of the humour comes from Hui’s staff and the restaurant itself and it’s likely to either get you rolling in your seat or throwing up, depending on your constitution. It really is squalid and disgusting, but is (I hope) taken to comic-book extremes of exaggeration.

There’s quite an impressive cast here. Along with Hui brothers Michael and Ricky (who understandably take up most of the screen time), there’s Sylvia Chang as Hui’s wife (and she’s as sexy as ever without actually doing anything even remotely sexy or provocative!), and veteran actor Ku Feng as the rival shop’s manager, who takes to the comic nature of the film very well. Supporting them are many familiar faces, most notably Lowell Lo as the sneaky employee who tries to steal Hui’s secret spicy duck recipe – to the theme tune from James Bond! One thing that amused me is the appearance of Ken Boyle, who most will remember from ARMOUR OF GOD. One minute he’s the Grand Wizard of a dangerous religious cult hell-bent on taking over the world, the next he’s “dissatisfied customer” in a fast food restaurant. That’s showbiz!

The film has mostly good intentions, and a very moral heart to it, but it does slip up on occasions. At one point, Hui goes undercover as a Hindu woman and visits Danny’s restaurant. Which is fair enough – I can see the comedy potential of that. But then the whole thing has to degenerate into mild xenophobia, with a comment along the lines of “all Indians have a bad smell”. The scene does end quite funnily though.

I’m not 100% sure of the details, but I understand that Michael and Sam Hui had a bit of a falling out when the latter left to do the internationally famous ACES GO PLACES series. It’s nice then that Sam appears (very briefly, and presumably as himself) when he opens Danny’s restaurant. He also supplies the film’s theme song.

Overall the film is funny, but not the laugh riot I expected. It will be known to many fans that some of Hui’s films have not aged well, and this may be the case here (at the time of writing, it’s eighteen years old). But I’m willing to bow to better judgement that it’s a classic and maybe I’m missing something fundamental.