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"Kung Fu Hustle" mixes laughs, violence |
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Written by SHAWN FEAKINS
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Friday, 22 April 2005 |
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After Miramax’s painful flubbing in its American release of Stephen Chow’s Chinese mega hit “Shaolin Soccer”, it was with a sigh of release that Sony took the reigns to distribute “Kung Fu Hustle”. Already a superstar across Asia, “Kung Fu Hustle” finally manages to give Stephen Chow’s comedic martial arts skill the exposure it richly deserves.
Chow plays a wannabe gangster trying to con natives of a Chinese slum in a pre-revolutionary China. Through his own ineptitude, he brings down the wrath of the real “Axe Gang” upon the poor town. The gang war escalates as it is discovered that many of the seemingly quiet natives are martial arts masters, tossing top-hatted villains around with many broken pots and scenery.
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Kung Fu Hustle
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 Entertainment
 Art
Directed by Stephen Chow
Written by Stephen Cho, Tsang Kan Cheong, Xin Huo and Chan Man Keung
Starring Stephen Chow, Wah Yuen, Qiu Yuen, Kwok Kuen Chan and Siu Lung Leung
Rated R for sequences of strong stylized action and violence |
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For many martial arts stars, having to fall back upon special effects to do your fighting for you is a sign of encroaching age (Jackie Chan’s “Tuxedo” anyone?). Stephen Chow, instead, subverts this and embraces CGI to such an extreme that the characters become living cartoons. Attacks morph into an army of sword-yielding skeletons. Overweight landladies run with roadrunner speed and splat against billboards. Enemies bounce in the air like pinballs, complete with sound effects. Stephen Chow manages to create a world with it’s own internal logic, while still retaining a very human edge.
To truly grasp Chow’s overwhelming popularity in China, one has to recognize the source. Here Chow empowers the lowliest of the low in China. The worker archetypes, the coolie, the tailor, the noodle cook, the landlady and her ineffectual husband are given supernatural powers- raising them above their dreary existence and giving Chinese natives a vicarious thrill.
This, plus a healthy love of pop culture, with references to “”Gangs of New York”, “The Shining”, “The Blues Brothers”, and even an amusing stairwell run that casually outdoes Uma Thurman’s “Kill Bill” makes Chow accessible to even a Western audience- an audience that has rarely seen a movie so gleefully frantic and emotionally innocent at the same time. Easily, one of the most entertaining movies of the year. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
