Ban jin ba liang

Michael Hui's already-classic comedy strikes exactly the right balance between visual gags, verbal gags and character gags - a feat he managed to repeat only once, in the following year's Security Unlimited. It also divides gags and screen-time fairly equitably between Michael himself and his brothers Sam and Ricky, and that wasn't always true in later films either. Here Michael plays Joseph Wong, tight-fisted boss of the Manix Private Detective Agency, who spends more time and energy keeping his staff lean and hungry than he does solving cases. The episodic storyline finds them nailing a supermarket shoplifter, tailing a faithless wife and trying to help a movie-theatre fend off 'protection' racketeers. Frank Tashlin himself woulda died to have directed the kitchen-fight scene. Tony Rayns