Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Gong fu
Kung Fu

Cast:

Stephen Chow is Sing
Xiaogang Feng is Crocodile Gang Boss
Wah Yuen is Landlord
Zhi Hua Dong is Donut
Kwok-Kwan Chan is Brother Sum
Chi Chung Lam is Bone

What the box says:

Stephen Chow (director and star of Shaolin Soccer is at it again with his newest action-packed and comedic martial-arts adventure, KUNG FU HUSTLE).

From wildly-imagitive kung fu showdowns to sequences featuring tuxedoed mobsters, you've never seen action this outrageous and characters this zany! With jaw-dropping fight sequences by Yuen Wo Ping (famed action choreographer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix), KUNG FU HUSTLE will blow you away!

In a town ruled by the Axe Gang, Sing (Stephen Chow) desperately wants to become a member. He stumbles into a slum ruled by eccentric landlords who turn out to be kung fu masters in disguise.

Sing's actions eventually cause the Axe Gang and the slumlords to engage in an explosive kung fu battle. Only one side will win and only one hero will emerge as the greatest kung fu master of all

Plot:

At a police station, the leader of the Crocodile Gang slaps the chief around for disturbing his wife. Outside, they gang is surrounded by the Axe Gang which guns them down.

Not evil, not looking sneaky at all.... As the years pass on, the Axe Gang synchronizes dances between their criminal activities taking over more and more of the city.

In the very poor, Pig Sty neighborhood, life goes on without many hassles. The landlord makes small talk with everyone while his wife wants the tenants to pay their rent quicker.

Sing and his big buddy, Bone, are passing themselves as members of the Axe Gang. However, the barber doesn't believe them and refuses to pay them. Sing decides to beat the people of Pig Sty Alley into submission. However, they're all too tough looking. Sing uses a signal flare which brings the Axe Gang. Landlady is as fast as the Road-Runner. One of the gang members gets beaten. The boss wants who beat anyone in his gang. Kung Fuin' ensues when the Axe Gang is having to contend with one 1 guy and 2 more join the fray.

Who wants some? How's my Bruce Campbell impression?

Later, the boss has Sing and Bone caught. The boss offers to let them join the gang if they kill someone as the initiation.

Sing tells Bone how as a kid he learned Kung Fu and was trying to help this girl from being bullied. He got beaten and decided number one is the one way for him.

Landlady isn't happy with the 3 guys who fought the Axe Gang. She wants them to leave.

Sing decides to try and kill the Landlady. However, after a few knife throws which landed in him, Sing is being chased by Road-Runner Landlady.

The boss wants to get rid of the any threat to his power and so decides to get some outside help to eliminate the people that humiliated his gang.

The 3 Kung Fu masters decide to leave the neighborhood but decide to spar before leaving. Later, that night the professionals start attacking them separately. Landlord gets involved before the Landlady uses her sonic scream. Axe Gang Boss watches nearby from his car when Landlady pays a visit and explains to leave the neighborhood alone.

1 of the masters has died. The other 2 are dying. Landlord and the Landlady had sworn to keep from fighting after their son died in a fight as a child. The people want to be trained but none are obvious Kung Fu masters.

Cut back to Sing. He robs an ice cream girl who tends out to be the deaf girl he tried to help as a kid.

This is some wild and crazy party... He is taken to the Axe Boss who wants him for a mission to break into an asylum and free the Beast, the world's most dangerous killer. Sing is able to free the Beast. Back at the Axe headquarters, the boss wants the Beast to eliminate the Landlady. Demonstrating his skills, the Beast catches a bullet with his fingers.

In the casino next door, Landlady and the Landlord are gambling when the Beast arrives. He handles the couple until the Landlady figures how to amplify her sonic scream. He does overpower the couple. The boss wants Sing to kill the couple. However, Sing, hits the Beast which frees them. The Beast starts beating Sing but one Road-Runner race by Landlady gets Sing away.

Landlady and Landlord tend to Sing and are impressed he's survived after the Beast's attack. They realize he's the One in a non-Matrix fashion.

Beast and the Axe Gang head to the Pig Sty neighborhood. The gang attacks Sing, the super-powered Sing.

I'm powered up for the final battle... Let the serious Kung Fuin' ensue. Finally, we get to see Sing and the Beast (who’s puffing up like a toad and jumping around...)
Like a puffed up toad hopping around... Sing gets knocked into sub-orbit when he comes back down on the Beast with the greatest martial arts move: Buddha' Palm. Beast even tries to stab Sing in the back but is caught. He falls down at Sing's feet pleading for Sing to teach him.

The ice cream girl walks by a candy store run by Bone and Sing.

What I say:

Imagine a world where martial arts abilities allow you to have a sonic scream, running hundred of miles per hour, defy gravity, etc... It is hard not to watch Kung Fu Hustle without thinking Looney Toons with the Landlady's RoadRunning speed. Yes, defying the laws of physics but with a smidge of cartoon physics ala Matrix thrown into to make up for the loss of reality.

Stephen Chow was first known in here in the USA for the hilarious Shaolin Soccer. Any soccer match between groups with super powers would definitely make soccer more popular to watch. Though I'd hate to see what would happen if the Scottish Soccer Hooligans gained superpowers. Most of the movie just has Stephen Chow want to join the gang until his long buried idealism comes bursting forth. He ran around and was less than the bad guy the way his bad things always kept falling apart. The idea of a guy who wants to join a gang and gets involved with a neighborhood full of martial arts masters seems more comedically-based.

Not plot wise, this movie does strangely reminds me somewhat of the Last Dragon with Taimak but without the Golden Glow or the Shogun of Harlem. Stephen Chow at the end finally mastering the technique he'd been trying to learn through the entire movie. If the hero learned the ultimate technique at the very beginning , the movie would end a lot sooner.

Martial arts movies seem to follow into either the hard core martial arts or the Jackie Chan comedic style. Telling people about Jackie Chan will get at least most people to realize "he's the guy who does his own stunts" or "did the Rush Hour movies with Chris Tucker..." (We're still not sure which is the more physically dangerous.) Sammo Hung besides his movies like Eastern Condors had Martial Law, his own TV show with Arsenio Hall as his sidekick, which even crossed over with Chuck Norris.

Not quite the typical martial arts movies where the martial artist who stumbles across a martial arts master that teaches him...OK beats some sense into him before the brash student starts to learn the skills which come in handy when he has to fight the evil Kung Fuist at the end of the movie...Ever notice how so many movies have Kung Fu masters as always retired living a peaceful, quiet life? Until, they're pulled back into fighting...The idea that several of them are living in the same neighborhood and don't ever spar or practice is alittle hard to grasp.

Kung Fu Hustle does have more than the typical genre stuff. How many martial arts comedies have 1940s movie-style mobsters had their suits and the tommy guns? However, the synchronized dancing is a bit out of the typical mobster background. Dancing mobsters would be better if they were more movies with super-kung fu. The Godfather would have been better with a rhumba dancing Robert DeNiro. Even more than that, the folk scattering inside as they draw their shutters closed is so similar to many Westerns especially, the townsfolk getting out of the line of fire in the Spaghetti Westerns.

Quotable Subtitled Dialogue
"Can you cut the skirt slit higher?"
"We're the bad guys!"
"Snakes love music..."
"You seem predjuiced against the sight-challenged."
"Why don't you write in Chinese?
Morals of the Story
Cowboy hats are stylish in police stations.
Mobsters use signal flares.
Mobsters love tomahawks.
Thunderclouds follow mobsters.
Knife throwing takes a lot of skill.
Long hallways cause people to hallucinate about rivers of blood.
Hitting people makes pinball machine noises.