kenneth lim photography » comedy

4th Annual Hong Kong International Comedy Festival Finals

ken — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:38:49 +0000

Last Saturday, the 4th Annual Hong Kong Comedy Festival concluded with American Christopher M winning the Chinese competition and hometown Hong Kong local Andrew Chu winning the English competition.

This was the third year in a row that I’ve covered the festival, and during that time its been a privilege not only to document the growing local comedy scene, but also to hang out with some of the funniest dudes in Hong Kong.

Congrats also to GB Labrador (from the Philippines), Chris Musni, Rifat Karlova (from Turkey) and Matina Leung for winning 2nd and 3rd place for the English and Chinese Finals respectively.

Last minute notes scribbled backstage

The Godfather of Hong Kong standup, Jami Gong

Shecky Wong, HK International Comedy Festival headliner

People’s Liberation Improv perform A Nightmare On Elgin Street

Daniel Chong

Smita Venkat

Steven Ng

Tama Churchouse

Ladies love Ryan Hynek

GB Labrador

15-year old phenom Connor Savage

2010 Chinese competition winner Christopher M

2010 English competition winner Andrew Chu

4th Annual HK International Comedy Festival Preliminaries

ken — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 04:59:31 +0000

The English preliminary rounds of the 4th Annual HK International Comedy Competition wrapped up last weekend at the TakeOut Comedy Club in the Mid-Levels, Hong Kong. I went to my first Hong Kong Comedy Festival event 2 years ago, and its been great to see the list of comedians grow and competition get stronger.

Before every round of the competition, there is always a sense of nerves in the green room as club owner Jami Gong goes over the rules and comics finish last minute prep. But they all brought their “A” game for the prelims. Good luck to all the remaining comedians for the finals this weekend!

Noel Gascon just flew in from Manila (and boy are his arms tired)

Vivek Mahbubani’s one man show

TakeOut veteran Kay Ross

Kiwi comedian (and musician) Nick Rado

Relative newcomer Tonia Yim

Earl Young, USA

Ambidextrous Chinese and English comic, Matina Leung

Shady Mahesh scopes out the competition

Competition judges

Canadian ventriloquist, Michael Harrison

Bring on the finals!

TakeOut Comedy Jam 2009

ken — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:23:50 +0000

Just before Christmas, Jami Gong of TakeOut Comedy invited me to cover the FIRST TakeOut Comedy Jam at HITEC in Kowloon Bay. The show featured only Chinese comedians doing western-style stand-up, yet another ingredient in Jami’s incredible vision for Hong Kong’s growing comedy scene. The venue was awesome for this kind of show, and the crowd was great as all the comedians performed exceptionally well. Like, my Cantonese is pretty crap but I was still laughing as I was shooting. Congrats to all the guys at TOC for an awesome show!

Backstage

Vivek Mahbubani

Chris Chan

Chris Mellen

Matina Leung

Fab

events a plenty

ken — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:52:05 +0000

So although I came back to NY briefly to take a small break from photography and get some real turkey for Thanksgiving, I find myself up at 6AM blogging. Go figure. Here are some shots from a bunch of recent events around Hong Kong.

The First 48 Hour Film Project in Hong Kong

David Tao, Zinédine Zidane and Rain at IWC flagship store opening @1881 Heritage Boutique

3rd Annual Hong Kong International Comedy Festival @Takeout Comedy

Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem and Bryan Huang at Bank Roll Poker House Grand Opening

Grandtag Financial Anniversary Banquet @Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong