'Why are there are so many E-GAO among young people?'

This is the question that Bing Feng Tea House asks about the wave of e gao (恶搞）satires that use existing materials (mostly audiovisual -- photographs, movie clips, commercials, TV shows) and strings together with voice-overs. The idea isn't new -- we're reminded of Woody Allen's What's Up, Tigerlily? (OK, that's kind of different, but similar techniques are used) -- but it's become a recent hit in China thanks to DVDs, video cameras, nonlinear editing programs and internet video sharing sites. The thing really took off with Shanghainese spoofer Hu Ge's parody of Chen Kaige's film The Promise (无极), which you can view here. Of course, Chen Kaige was not pleased and intended to sue Hu Ge for defamation and copyright infringement and whatever else he could think of. We think that the matter was cleared up with a public apology -- as far as we know Hu didn't have to cough up much money (he didn't have a regular job at the time anyway), though Hu did manage to become nationally famous and get some gigs because of his spoof.

But back to Bing Feng Tea House: The blogger answers his question this way:

so, why there are so much e-gao (i.e. spoof), satire, cynicism, etc. among young people?

i have three "theories" -

1) like any young generation of the world, spoof is a good way to have fun
2) in a rapidly changing society, chinese younth confront more frustrations than their peers in other parts of the world
3) media is controled here, so young people use satire and cynicism to criticise "sensitive issues"

Fair enough. We would like to add to this list, however, what might seem too obvious to even mention:

4) there are lot of films that suck and deserve to be made fun of

At least, that's what seems to be behind this latest spoof (see above video), which satirizes director Feng Xiaogang's latest film The Banquet (夜宴), another extravagant costume drama loosely based on some play called Hamlet. The film is out in theaters today in Shanghai.

However, the maker of the e gao video would probably advise you not to watch that film in the theater: The premise of his video is that Chen Kaige had to save his reputation after a stinker like The Promise, and thus got some goons to beat up Feng Xiaogang and coerce him into making a movie that sucked even harder. Since Feng Xiaogang also acts, the spoofer uses clips from movies where the director appears and dubs over dialogues in a squeaky voice. He/she also uses clips from The Godfather and Evita -- the former is humorous as you get to hear Marlon Brando speaking Chinese in raspy dongbei accented Mandarin.