Ken Jeong is a jolt: a small man who arrives at full volume, says the unsayable, does something alarming with his body and leaves before anyone can object. For two minutes he is the funniest thing in the film. Given twenty, he becomes a noise.
Fi1m perspective
Ken Jeong arrives at full volume. Whatever the film, whoever else is in the scene, his character comes in shouting, insults somebody, does something with his body nobody asked for and is gone before the scene can recover. It is stand-up technique, learned on comedy stages while he was still a practising doctor, and it is built for the short set: get on, get the laugh, get off.
Which is why the career divides so neatly at The Hangover (2009). Before it he was a bit-part doctor, most memorably Dr Kuni in Knocked Up (2007). After it he was Mr Chow, the tiny, naked, foul-mouthed gangster who turns up in the middle of somebody else's comedy and takes over a few minutes of it, and Todd Phillips, who has directed him three times, seemed to understand that a few minutes was the right amount. Jeong has called it "my most primal performance", and it is not hard to see what he means. He appears to be making it up as he goes, and that is the pleasure of it.
Then The Hangover Part II (2011) gave Chow a full part, and we found out what happens. Sitting through it we were surprised how fast a jolt becomes a nuisance: by the second reel we had stopped laughing at him and started waiting for him to leave. What had been a shock in doses became a shout, and the film around him, with its sour run of gags about Bangkok, gave him nothing to be a shock against. There is also a fair complaint, which we share, that Chow's accent and flamboyance play to an old and tired idea of an Asian man on screen, and the more of him there is, the harder that is to wave away.
Television has been kinder to him, because television has episodes and an episode is a set. Six seasons as Ben Chang on Community (2009–2015) let him be manic for two minutes and then, once a series or so, quietly pitiable, and those quiet minutes are, on the evidence, his best. Dr. Ken (2015–2017), which he created and led, drew on his medical years and asked him to carry every scene, and the same limit showed: a manner that works in a burst wears over a half-hour. In Crazy Rich Asians (2018) he is back where he belongs, a father called Wye Mun Goh with a handful of scenes and a lot of noise in each.
He is a good comic and a limited actor, and the two facts sit comfortably together as long as nobody hands him the lead. Cast him for a scene, not for a film.
Biography
Ken Jeong is an American actor and stand-up comedian. Born on 13 July 1969 in Detroit, Michigan, he trained as a physician, graduating from Duke University and obtaining an MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans and practised medicine in Los Angeles before focusing on comedy and acting.
Jeong first gained prominence for his role as Ben Chang in the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015). He is also known for playing Leslie Chow in the Hangover film series (2009–2013) and for voice work in the Despicable Me films (2010, 2013). He created, wrote and starred in the sitcom Dr. Ken (2015–2017).
Jeong serves as a panellist on the American version of The Masked Singer and has appeared in films including Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011). He holds a California medical licence but no longer practises.
