Kung Fu Hustle: Do the Hustle

I am not a huge Kung Fu fan by any stretch of the imagination. I liked “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Kill Bill,” and “The Matrix” but most of those Saturday morning, chop-sockey films bored me to tears. Maybe it was the poor dubbing but the long stretches of no dialogue and the even longer stretches of improbable fighting sequences with sound effects from The Three Stooges didn’t do anything for me either. That being said, if more of those movies were like “Kung Fu Hustle,” I might have become a life long fan.

“Kung Fu Hustle” is a wild ride of martial arts action combined with loving tributes to cartoon mayhem and seemingly every type of movie under the sun. Though a little disconcertingly violent at the beginning, as the Axe Gang takes out the Crocodile Gang outside of a police station, the true tone of the movie soon shines through as the members of the Axe Gang break out into dance. The rest of the movie keeps this fairly light-hearted tone as the Axe Gang takes on the residents of Pig Sty Alley. The fight sequences shift quickly back and forth from serious to silly.

The admittedly thin plot focuses on two losers who desperately want to join the Axe Gang. They go to Pig Sty Alley and pose as gang members and soon enough the real Axe Gang shows up and begin to fight the residents. One Kung Fu Master takes them out and soon the Axe Gang keeps coming back with masters of their own in attempts to destroy Pig Sty Alley once and for all. Some of these sequences are fantastic, especially one that features two assassins that play a “killer” harp. It is in scenes like that that Stephen Chow (one of the “losers” and the writer and director of the film) shines.

His masterful direction, use of CGI and music create some stunning pieces of cinema. It is also to his credit that he is able to switch so quickly from the absurd cartoon action like a Roadrunner-like chase to a heavy sequence about why a boy would choose evil over good. The cast features some former Kung Fu movie stars, who are obviously no longer at the top of the box office but can still pretend to kick some butt. Chow and his fat sidekick were hilarious and I could have used a little more of their humor earlier on and towards the end of the film.

“Kung Fu Hustle” won’t be everyone’s idea of a good time. It does have subtitles, though viewers wouldn’t miss much if they chose not to read, and it is basically a martial arts action film, but it is also much more. It is a comedy, a western, a love story and a drama all rolled into one and tucked in the pocket of a Kung Fu classic. Don’t be afraid to enjoy a foreign film/kung fu movie, it may just start you on a wonderful new path of movie rentals.

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