April 26, 2005 -- “Kung Fu Hustle” (Gong fu) is a funny, gory, visually dazzling romp of an action film with a better-than-average story tying loads of action and jokes together. This is the second hit movie in a year from veteran director-writer-actor Stephen Chow. Its tone is a lot like Chow's funny sports-kung fu movie released in the U.S. last year, “Shaolin Soccer.” With these two movies, Chow has certainly made a name for himself in America. He has been an established star in Hong Kong for many years, having appeared in numerous TV shows and movies there. In Asia, “Kung Fu Hustle” just broke all box office records set the year before by “Shaolin Soccer” (Siu lam juk kau). Chow is hotter than any Szchaun spice these days.

The story takes place in 1940's China in a city ruled by a deadly criminal organization known as the Axe Gang. Sing (Stephen Chow) who aspires to be a member of the gang, attempts to extort money from a poor neighborhood called “Pig Sty Alley,” while pretending to be a gang member. Sing soon finds that the people in the alley are poor, but they are also too tough for him to handle. The real Axe Gang is drawn into the battle, and are defeated by a trio of Kung Fu masters who live in Pig Sty Alley. This leads to a series of escalating battles as the Axe Gang, stung by its defeat, recruits a series of assassins and martial arts experts to defeat the unexpectedly powerful nest of Kung Fu masters living in the alley. Finally, there is an apocalyptic showdown between the most powerful fighters on the two sides of the war between the Axe Gang and the residents of the alley.

While the movie is largely a comedy, there are some cruel scenes of people being beaten to death, executed with guns, body parts being cut off with knives and other gory sights. There are a number of intense fighting scenes as well, these are expertly staged and choreographed by the best in the business, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, and Yuen Woo-ping (“The Matrix”). The fight scenes include both traditional martial arts techniques and fanciful fight scenes driven by special effects. One of the more fanciful sequences features a kind of killer kung fu guitar, capable of cutting people with sounds. Ghost-like knives and fierce animals fly through the air, propelled by the sound of the killer harp. Effective martial arts action scenes require excellent cinematography and editing. These chores are handled skillfully by editor Angie Lam (“Hero”) and cinematographer Hang-Sang Poon (who filmed the Jackie Chan hit, “Who Am I?”).

The movie shows a lot of visual imagination, parts of it are like a cartoon, with characters running at absurdly fast speeds, for instance. For all of its action and arresting visuals, these elements remain in service to the story. In many films, the story takes a back seat to the effects, not in this movie. The story remains at the core of the film. Many martial arts films have incoherent plots, not this one. At first, it may appear that the various story elements are not going to come together, but they do. In the end, the story prevails. It is not a typical Western story, either, but it can be understood by Westerners, even those not familiar with the martial arts genre. This is a very impressive achievement by Stephen Chow, a film that is not only very entertaining, but also emotionally satisfying for a broad international audience. This film rates a B+.

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Copyright © 2005 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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