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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 60.23%
Worth A Look: 34.09%
Average: 2.84%
Pretty Bad: 2.27%
Total Crap: 0.57%
14 reviews, 92 user ratings
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| Kung Fu Hustle |
by dionwr
"The Shaw Brothers meet Tex Avery"
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Stephen Chow is one of those happy cases of a filmmaker who has become successful enough to do anything he wants and is using that freedom to improve dramatically from film to film. "Shaolin Soccer" was faster and funnier than his earlier "The God of Cookery," and "Kung Fu Hustle" is his best work yet.This is a distinctly odd duck, a parody kung fu film. Since kung fu films are already pretty far removed from reality, making a parody of one risks going too far. Chow makes a virtue of it, cheerfully leaving reality completely behind. There's a chase scene where the characters start pumping their legs in place for a moment before rocketing off like Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. There's a fight scene where the bad guy punches the head of the good guy into a hole in the ground.
The story starts by introducing the bad guys, the Axe Gang. The Axe Gang are ruthless bullies, so naturally they're introduced with a musical number. Not by coincidence, the Axe Gang bears a striking similarity to the bad guys (and comic relief) from Jackie Chan's "Project A" movies. The Axe Gang, we're told, rule Hong Kong--except in one place, Pig Sty Alley.
Pig Sty Alley is a decrepit slum ruled by the overbearing Landlady (Yuen Qiu), always seen with her hair in curlers and a cigarette in her mouth. Into Pig Sty Alley wander two conmen, (Stephen Chow and Dong Zhi Hua) pretending to be members of the Axe Gang and attempting to extort money from the residents. Things don't work out, and they spark a war between the residents of Pig Sty Alley and the Axe Gang, with hidden masters popping up everywhere as the fighting escalates. The plot, of course, is just an excuse to build up to bigger and more impresive kung fu scenes, featuring ever-more-legendary martial arts masters and techniques.
And Stephen Chow knows his Kung Fu films. One brief sequence in one of the fight scenes is a move-for-move and shot-for-shot remake of a fight sceen from Bruce Lee's "Fists of Death," where Lee advances down a hallway dispatching the thirty guys who are in his way. Of course, Bruce Lee didn't include the next shot, where you see the trail of bodies laid out behind him.
Chow is learning to tell his jokes visually. His earlier films are renowned for their verbal wit and wordplay, which unfortunately means they haven't always travelled well outside of China. "Shaolin Soccer" had a particularly troubled history--Miramax bought it and sat on it for several years because they couldn't get a translation of it which satisfied everyone. "Kung Fu Hustle" not only doesn't suffer from that, but includes several verbal riffs that are aimed squarely at the American market, as when one master very seriously tells another that with great power comes great responsibility.
Even more remarkable, the film manages to blend being this raucus and funny with a sweet undertone that takes its characters seriously. By the end of the film, you care about them, even ones as stereotypical and caricatured as Landlady.This is the best fun I've had at the movies in months.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10619&reviewer=301
originally posted: 04/10/05 15:09:52
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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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