Kung Fu Hustle

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Kung Fu Hustle

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Kung Fu Hustle

Chan Kwok Kwan, Chiu Chi Ling, Dong Zhi Hua, Dong Zhihua, Lam Chi Chung

In Shanghai in the '30s, times are dangerous and gangs rule the streets. The most notorious of these, the Axes, strike fear into the hearts of honest citizens and inspire admiration in one young wanna...( read more  read more... )be. One day, in a slum on the outskirts of town, he wreaks havoc when he recklessly poses as an Axe member and causes a veritable riot between the real gang members and the denizens of a housing project who just so happen to be strangely well versed in the art of kung fu.

Id: 10893817

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Kung Fu Hustle Recent Reviews
  • flixsterman
    December 13, 2009
    flixsterman
    Delightfully funny!

    Kinda' ENTER THE DRAGON meets THE MARX BROTHERS.
  • mrpopcorn
    November 18, 2009
    mrpopcorn
    "In the world of kung fu, speed determines the winner."

    In Shanghai, China in the 1940s, a wannabe gangster aspires to join the notorious "Axe Gang" while residents of a housing complex exhibit extraordinary powers in defending their turf.

    ...( read more)tury Schoolbook">REVIEW
    "Kung Fu Hustle" is "Kill Bill" with a healthy dose of Looney Tunes thrown in for good measure. It's a rip off of about a hundred other films, but yet it never feels like a rip off. To Stephen Chow's credit, it feels totally original, and you find yourself as you're watching the movie eagerly waiting for the next bit of insane craziness he's going to throw on to the screen.

    This movie pokes fun at the earnestness of recent films in the genre, like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Hero," and "House of Flying Daggers." Nothing is taken seriously here, and thank God for that. This is one bit of nonsense after another, and it's enormously entertaining. Film buffs should have a blast ticking off the homages to other films. The Axe Gang brings to mind the Crazy 88's of "Kill Bill." Chow tips his hat to the blood-spurting elevator scene from "The Shining." A poster for "Top Hat" is prominently displayed in the background of one scene (suggesting that Chow draws inspiration for his dazzling fight choreography from the fancy footwork of Fred and Ginger). And "The Matrix" gets its due as well. Chow gives himself a fun character to play, and he's also written a very clever screenplay. Pay careful attention to the early scenes, because clues that you might be tempted to shrug off as just being silly bits of embellishment actually become quite important later on.

    And lastly, this movie has an awesome soundtrack.
  • SirPant
    September 22, 2009
    SirPant
    A very funny film, Kung Fu Hustle kicks bottom kung Fu Style!
  • 366weirdmovies
    February 2, 2009
    366weirdmovies
    With the help of an incompetent wannabe criminal and his fat bumbling sidekick, a gang of dapper axe-wielding criminals tries to take over a Shanghai tenement where every other resident seems to be a legendary kung fu master with mystical powers. Insanely fun popcorn action/come...( read more)dy with genuinely hilarious sequences and bizarrely inventive battles.
  • EarthlyAlien
    August 28, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    Sing: "I realized then that good guys never win. I want to be bad. I want to be the killer!
    Sing's Sidekick: Ice cream!
    Sing: Where?"

    Stephen Chow was already a superstar in Hong Kong and most of Asia when he made a splash in the West with the action-packed ...( read more)football comedy Shaolin Soccer in 2001. His experiences with Miramax - who dubbed and recut Shaolin, sitting on it for nearly three years only to release it into a staggering 6 theatres - are well-documented, so it was no surprise to find that Chow jumped ship to Sony for Kung Fu Hustle. His - and our - reward was a bigger budget and artistic freedom, as well as a subtitled print, while, the only compromise for us, Western audiences, seems to be a drop in the number of incomprehensible Chinese verbal puns that are his trademark.

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    In the 1940s of Chow's teeming fantasy, Shanghai is terrorized by the Axe Gang, a thug team as stylish as they are vicious. Only one area, Pig Sty Alley, is temporarily immune to their predations - in part because the neighbourhood is so poor, in part because all the residents, from the baker and the tailor to the kids and seniors, are skilled in martial arts. The Landlady (Yuen Qiu), irradiating belligerence, can suck a cigarette to cinders in one deep breath, and has a lion's roar scream that rattles windows a continent away. Into the alley wanders Sing (Chow), a loser punk who is desperate to be an Axe man. But destiny has another, redemptive scenario in store. This accident-prone scoundrel has the makings of a natural-born kung fu genius - just the fellow to battle the legendary killer the Beast (Leung Siu-lung).

    Chow, 42 at the time, seemed to have been preparing for Kung Fu Hustle all his life. As a boy mesmerized by Bruce Lee films, he studied kung fu techniques. In his first TV job, as host of the daytime show Space Shuttle 430, he learned how to amuse kids with sly jokes and an impudent eloquence in body language. He became a film star as the little guy with false bravado who lucks into hero status. That's the formula here, but this time Chow doesn't take centre stage until the last half an hour. Instead he uses his old comic style - mixing deadpan delivery with wild visual gags - to create an elegant directorial approach.

    How so? The comedy is Buster Keaton-ish in its precision timing. Chow's swooping camera is as nimble, and as respectful of Hong Kong film tradition, as the veteran actors he has assembled. The film merrily flouts the laws of time and physics. Teeth fly upward in slo-mo; then a Road Runner-style chase zips by in superspeedy-mo. The Pig Sty denizens have the resilience of Warner Bros. cartoon characters: lips, throats, bosoms expand to gargantuan size, then snap back. Punctuating the mayhem are sound effects (mooing, clucking, cat mewls, toad croaks) worthy of a Spike Jones symphony.

    In the opening moments of Kung Fu Hustle, one can see the many ways that it's unlike 99% of other films. Within the first 15 minutes, we see ravishing costumes, classic Hollywood backlot-style
    sets, and an army of dancing, axe-carrying Chinese gangsters. Fans of Shaolin Soccer will not be disappointed by Kung Fu Hustle, as it shares not only many of that film's leading actors, but also the same spirit of innocence and fun combined with the rocket-fuelled raw power that made audiences worldwide stand up and pay attention to Stephen Chow.

    Kung Fu Hustle takes artistic leaps beyond Shaolin, however, showing just how much Chow (the director, producer, and writer) has grown as a filmmaker. While he uses many of the same cartoon-style, special-effects-covered flights of fantasy that he used before, Chow delivers many superbly framed shots and perfects his gloriously unique and universally hilarious storytelling style even further. On top of all this, Chow, with the help of legendary fight choreographers Yuen Woo-ping and Sammo Hung, gives the audience some absolutely jaw-dropping, rousing, and innovative kung fu sequences that will take even the greatest martial arts' connoisseur's breath away.

    The warm and fuzzy vibe that Kung Fu Hustle gives off could potentially seem just plain corny to some viewers, especially during the film's slightly unnecessary love story sub-plot, but the end product is so enjoyable it's easy to forgive any missteps. It is clear that Stephen Chow loves what he's doing and adores the film he has created. Kung Fu Hustle is a film constantly bursting at the seams with a joyous energy. This contagious and gratifying feeling should spread to anyone who watches the film and makes it easy to see why the film broke so many box-office records across Asia upon its theatrical release.

    As inevitable as the comparison is, the truth is that Kung Fu Hustle is no Shaolin Soccer. There's even a scene where Sing stomps a ball flat - "No more soccer!" - and makes the children cry. Shaolin, for all its exploding joy, fun and humour, is an occasional serious film; when it goes for the heart it means it, and it never makes jokes at its own expense. With Kung Fu Hustle, that's the whole game: crazy referential gags, gigantic action sequences turned into jokes, stuff flying out in all directions. It's a much sillier film, more along the lines of Chow's earlier flicks like King of Comedy and God of Cookery, with more absurd computer-assisted special effects. There are homages to and lifts from The Matrix and its shitty sequels, West Side Story, Spider-Man, Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, The Shining, Legend of Drunken Master... the list goes on.

    And of course, there's some pretty prime Kung Fu. Sweet, beautiful Kung Fu madness leaps from nearly every frame of this picture. This the world of wire-fu, and the blissful disobedience of the laws of physics is ratcheted up a notch with each successive fight. Bodies fly through the air, everyday objects become weapons of mass destruction, and it's an even race for what's more in danger of being destroyed; the fighters or the world around them. While the fantastic elements of these battles remove some of their visceral impact, these fights get downright brutal, and for all its violence, Kung Fu Hustle somehow manages to remain a fairly blood & gore-free film that kids can watch and not feel like killing class-mates and teachers at school.

    Characters are literally pounded into the ground if they're not being flung into the air like rag dolls. Woo-ping and Hung once again prove their worth as the architects of this ballet of violence. Chow seems to be enjoying his bigger budgets with more refined and seamless CGI effects. Unlike the almost masturbatory slow-motion shots seemingly designed to make stars look cool that many Western directors love so much, Kung Fu Hustle knows that speed wins in the end, and so it reserves its slow-motion for sequences that deserve the attention. It's the action that brought this film its attention from non-Hong Kong savvy filmgoers, and in that regard it delivered above and beyond the normal expectations.

    Oh well, if you haven't figured it out yet, I absolutely adore this film. Everything about it is top-notch entertainment, and I was wonderfully surprised with its final direction. Kung Fu Hustle is tremendously good fun. Endearing, positive, and filled with the kind of mind-blowing action sequences that Michael Bay can only dream about, this film is a must see for fans of Kung Fu action and good comedy. And the best part is that the sequel is already on the way. Filmmaking doesn't get much smarter, funnier, handsomer, better than this.
  • lupaup
    December 19, 2009
    lupaup
    Shaolin soccer melhorado.
  • eryri
    December 17, 2009
    eryri
    HK comedian Stephen Chow's most successful film in the West so far and it's hard not to see why it was so good. Action and comedy all rolled up into one. Go see!
  • chocorainbowgirl
    December 15, 2009
    chocorainbowgirl
    wika : kocak abissss, hahaa..
    irvan : KONYOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • agoengbs
    December 12, 2009
    agoengbs
    It's a genius funniest movie ever made
  • F0XyF0x
    December 9, 2009
    F0XyF0x
    This was quite funny
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