83. Kung Fu Hustle (2004) - Dir: Stephen Chow
God bless Stephen Chow, or maybe Buddha should administer the blessing – I am not privy to the protocols of cross cultural/religious exaltations. Actually, I don’t care who blesses this man, as long as he gets blessed and continues to create films as massively entertaining as Kung Fu Hustle. Seeing Kung Fu Hustle is akin to having your face kicked in with creativity while being sucker punched with a plethora of personality and side swiped with whimsical wackiness. This film is at once a send up to the classic Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers productions of yesteryear, while simultaneously being a launching point for a whole new era of martial arts mayhem.
In the film, Chow plays Sing, a wannabe hooligan who’s false bravado and faux fu, finds him in a heap of trouble with the evil and blundering Axe Gang as well as the occupants of Pigsty, a run down apartment complex managed by the bad ass cigarette smoking landlady and her fey hubby. Amidst the populace of this unpleasant abode is hidden a handful of kung fu masters: The Coolie, who has legs like a horse and can kick up a storm, The Tailor, who might be gay but is doubtless a master in iron-ring armed combat, and The Noodle Maker, whose wooden staff technique creates whirlwinds of destruction. However, these three are not the only masters-in-hiding, for the chain smoking landlady and her chicken-like husband just so happen to be two of the most powerful kung fu warriors in the world.
The only thing these hidden-masters desire is some peace and quiet, as they desperately try to leave the world of martial arts behind. So, imagine Sing’s, and the Axe Gang’s, surprise when they both nefariously try to bully around the occupants of Pigsty and wind up becoming human punching bags. As one attempt after another to become a member of the Axe Gang backfires on Sing, he sets in motion a plot full of failed assassination attempts (introducing two magical musician-assassins who truly rock the martial world), Loony Tunes-like chase sequences, and the unleashing of a monstrous kung fu baddie, known only as The Beast, which all culminates into a no holds barred maniacal melee of flying fisticuffs and tomfoolery.
What sets Kung Fu Hustle apart from other like-minded martial arts cinema is its pure sense of reckless abandon. In typical mo lei tau style, Chow lets lose with a flurry of send-ups, parodies, and non-sequiturs, and yet still achieves a coherent narrative that remains somewhat original while barrowing from sources across the globe. This is all in testament to Chow’s genius behind and in front of the camera, as well as at the writer’s desk. Written and Directed by Chow, Kung Fu Hustle represents a very personal look at just what lies beneath the surface this beloved genre, as Chow examines the tropes and cliché often found in these films. He pokes fun at gender-bending masters, a young upstart becoming “The One,” and the evil seemingly unbeatable ghastly miser, while also examining the heroic bond of kung fu masters, and what true love really means to someone who can command a metric ton of ass kicking power.
I was actually surprised at how little screen time Chow allowed for his own character, but it does make sense in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately what Kung Fu Hustle is, is a love letter from the writer/director to all of the old actors, directors, choreographers and filmmakers who created the classics of the genre he loves so dearly – a genre that in many ways shaped an entire country’s pop-culture and cinematic industries. By giving the starring roles with more screen time to the aged legends of generations past, and by instead focusing on characters with some years behind them, Chow’s love letter hits kung fu film fans like the giant palm of the hand of Buddha. Kung Fu Hustle is a film that can be loved by all, but is loved and adored even more so by viewers steeped in the martial arts genre. It is a near perfect film full of top notch action, great comedy, and a sense of style and personality all too often lacking from genre cinema – it is neither dark nor gritty, mean or cynical, but is rather a film full of whimsy and exuberance.
