It's ruled by a dumpy landlady ( Yuen Qiu), who marches around in slippers and has one of those cartoon cigarettes that always stays in her mouth no matter what happens.
#Kung fu hustl movie movie
The movie is centered in a Shanghai slum called Pig Sty Alley. Stephen Chow doesn't sing, but he's channeling the same spirit. It must have taken Chow a superhuman effort to avoid singing a subtitled version of "Let Me Entertain You" - or, no, I've got a better example - of "Make 'em Laugh," the Donald O'Connor number in " Singin' in the Rain." In that one O'Connor crashed into boards and bricks, wrestled with a dummy, ran up one wall and through another one, and sang the whole time. Now comes "Kung Fu Hustle." This is the kind of movie where you laugh occasionally and have a silly grin most of the rest of the time. The movie opened a year ago, inspiring a review in which I gave my most rational defense of the relativity theory of star ratings. Purchased by Miramax, it was held off the market for two years, cut by 30 minutes, and un-dubbed: Yes, Harvey Weinstein replaced the English dialogue with subtitles. His only other film seen by me is " Shaolin Soccer" (2002), the top-grossing action comedy in Hong Kong history. "Kung Fu Hustle" is Chow's seventh film as a director and 61st job as an actor, counting TV. Hang your average movie star on the end of a wire and he'll look like he's just been reeled in by the Pequod.
But the trickery doesn't diminish his skill, because despite all the wires and effects in the world, a martial arts actor must be a superb athlete. Stephen Chow uses concealed wires, special effects, trick camera angles, trampolines and anything else he can think of. The thing about Astaire and Rogers is that they were really doing it, in long unbroken takes, and we could see that they were. Chow pulls all these disparate bits together, in a kung fu movie about kung fu movies.Realists grumble that such things are impossible. The film's spoofs and homages are well wrought, stunts and physical jokes brutal, and conventions alternately tired and twisted. Their ruthless opponent, Brother Sum (Chan Kwok-kwan), employs a pair of harp players (Jia Kang Xi and Fung Hak On), whose music turns into harrowing physical forces, and then the Beast (Leung Siu Lung), who declares, "I've killed so many, just trying to find a worthy adversary." The Beast's style (Toad Style) creates a neat aesthetic tension with Sing's (Buddha Palm Kung Fu). Introduced as supporting-character stereotypes, they soon become part of Sing's emergence process. The fighters in defense of Pig Sty Alley include tailor Chiu Chi Ling, "coolie" Xing Yu, and baker Dong Zhi Hua, as well as the Landlord (Yuen Wah) and his greedy wife, the Landlady (Yuen Qiu, a famous kung fu star returning to the screen after almost 30 years). Its delightful mix of action and comedy - outrageous, Jackie-Chan-ish, fantastic - makes such fight scenes little stories all their own. Set in Canton, China in the 1940s, KUNG FU HUSTLE features action that is both hectic and ferocious (the fights and wirework are choreographed by the brilliant Yuen Wo Ping and Sammo Hung). Sing's transition from boy to man, gangster-wannabe to full-on master occasions an entertaining, convoluted, and quite brilliant run through genres and conventions ranging from Bruce Lee to Looney Tunes.
On another level, the film itself is a transformation, signaling a 21st-century shift in understanding and appreciation of kung fu movies. Though most of this is cartoonish (speedy, splatty, exaggerated), it might be alarming for young viewers. This rowdy martial arts comedy contains fairly relentless violence.
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