Overall Rating
  Awesome: 60%
Worth A Look: 34.29%
Average: 2.86%
Pretty Bad: 2.29%
Total Crap: 0.57%
14 reviews, 91 user ratings
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| Kung Fu Hustle |
by Robert Flaxman
"He's got the hustle, he's got the muscle."
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The original Chinese title of Kung Fu Hustle was simply Kung Fu, and while it’s understandable why that title didn’t make the transition to the English-speaking market, it’s a shame, because there’s a Scary Movie or Airplane!-type aspect to that title. Director and star Stephen Chow sets out to spoof much about the world of martial arts films, and succeeds on that count. At the same time, however, Kung Fu Hustle has perhaps a bit too much in common with Wes Craven’s Scream – another genre-tweaking exercise that ends up a bit bogged down by the very conventions it professes to skewer.Chow plays Sing, one of a pair of petty-crook drifters who try to intimidate people into giving them free things by claiming to be members of the feared Axe Gang. When they try this in one particular slum, Pig Sty Alley, they are uncovered as frauds when the real Axe Gang shows up, only to surprisingly be beaten in a fight with three kung fu masters who live in the slum. The Axe Gang swears revenge and uses increasingly dangerous methods to beat the inhabitants of Pig Sty; meanwhile, Sing continues to try and prove his toughness as a bad guy, failing each time.
Chow is both a solid comedic actor and a talented comedic director, and the portions of Kung Fu Hustle that play out as pure spoof and slapstick are a real treat. The martial arts sequences, choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping and employing plenty of wire trickery, are also generally fun. Some of the other special effects are a little strange; in a couple of places, the characters seem to be emulating cartoons, such as a chase between Sing and the Pig Sty landlady in which their feet turn into the circular blurs more typical of a Road Runner short. Perhaps this contributes to a thesis that characters in martial arts movies take so much punishment with aplomb that they might as well be cartoons, but there is little context to suggest this and so the scene just feels odd.
The difference between Scream and Scary Movie was that the latter simply existed to make fun of horror movie formula, while the former poked fun at those conventions but still wanted to exploit them for its own ends. Kung Fu Hustle’s use of martial arts feels similarly opportunist; while it parodies many of the contextual touches that crop up in kung fu films, Hustle seems to take itself oddly seriously at other times. Sing’s backstory, in which he saves a mute girl from bullies at a young age, mostly by getting beaten up, isn’t played for laughs, nor really is anything in the plotline that involves the two of them. Many of the kung fu sequences are played straight as well.
It’s quite possible that Chow has his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek in scenes like this – each time Sing and the girl meet, the soundtrack swells with an orchestral flourish that is either way overplayed or dripping with sarcasm. Still, so few cues are given in the entire plotline – indeed, in the entire movie – that it becomes increasingly difficult to tell where Chow’s tongue ends and his cheek begins. Aside from the sheer grandiloquence of the effects-driven kung fu sequences, there is little to indicate that the film’s martial arts are intended to be taken with anything other than deadly seriousness, and visual bombast is a pretty flimsy indicator. All told, the whole affair is fairly up and down.
Still, the film is loaded with enough pure entertainment that its failings aren’t as important as they might otherwise be. The broad comedy always works and the kung fu sequences are usually entertaining; the special effects don’t always look very realistic but it’s hard to get the feeling that they were supposed to, so why complain about it? The scenes between Sing and the mute girl have a legitimate sweetness, whether it’s intended as satire or not, which makes up for the disruptive effect they tend to have on the film’s flow. Chow is an engaging comedian who knows how to carry a scene, which he frequently does, and he surrounds himself with other actors who are solid combinations of comedy and martial arts talent, making sure that, at the very least, the film never hangs itself with a weak performance when its pace demands punch.Kung Fu Hustle isn’t a perfect spoof, and it sometimes feels too rushed for its own good, but Chow’s directorial flair and comedic timing keep things rolling along smoothly enough for most of the way. The film may never quite come together, but it's about as enjoyable as the scattershot can get.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10619&reviewer=385
originally posted: 08/23/05 06:41:16
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Toronto Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2005 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. For more in the 2005 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 SXSW Film Festival. For more in the 2005 South By Southwest Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
08-Apr-2005 (R)
DVD: 09-Aug-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
11-Aug-2005
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