Kung Fu Hustle

Review by Colin Moore

If you’re interested in seeing the latest boffo Chinese kung pow effects offering, and not have a clue what they're saying, East Asia is the venue for you.

While on my way to the local PC room here in South Korea, I saw a one-sheet for Kung-Fu Hustle.

It was encased in glass at the entrance of a building, like so many of the plasticised meals mummified for your enticement in front of restaurants. So, on this night, following an afternoon and evening of teaching on the outskirts of Seoul, I went.

To the wrong theatre as it turns out.

But after some confused smiles from the ticket girl and instruction from an owner who had studied English at some point in his life, I was pointed to another building, a sister theatre playing writer, director, actor Stephen Chow's latest.

Didn't understand a lick of it. After days of having students listen to my wonk wonking in front of the class, it was my turn to say "huh?". Luckily Kung-Fu Hustle only sports the ethereal Matrix-type battles and not the philosophy behind it.... I think. As a purely visual experience it gives the narrative simplicity of a tennis match. Good versus evil, fist to fist on the streets of a pre-Mao China.

The Axe Gang travels in gargantuan numbers. Well dressed and groomed for thuggery, these are our villains, led by the goateed Brother Sum (Chan Kwok Kwan). Shapely facial hair in this part of the world is a rarity, and here, Sum wears it with devilish charisma.

We first meet the gang’s acquaintance as they flood the evening streets in Agent Smith-like droves, top-hatted a la Gangs of New York. They surround a smaller gang who have just minutes earlier made the impression that they were bad ass Number One. It's a recurring theme here in Hustle: there's always somebody around the corner.

The Axe Gang turns them into sushi and then shuffles their way through the opening credits. They come. They kill. They dance the night away. Ever since Michael Madsen's de-earing in Reservoir Dogs, there's something about cutting tools and fancy foot that still gives me the creeps.

Stephen Chow (All For the Winner, Shaolin Soccer) is Sing, a small time criminal with ambitions of making his mark in the Axe Gang. But he's more bumbling than intimidating, a sheep in sheep's clothing.

When he tries to con a community of peasant workers living in a compound affectionately known as Pig Sty Alley, he gets a surprise when he finds them to be perfectly capable warriors.

He calls in the Gang for backup. This sets off a series of dizzying battles between the Gang, some hired muscle, and a half dozen supercharged members of the Alley. Sing is ping-ponged by both sides throughout.

Chow is worth his weight as an FX director. Each battle is choreographed to the pitch of a Jackie Chan film, though with slightly less innovative use of props. The uniqueness of each sequence though is what holds your attention equally each time out.

In the spirit of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the action manages to impossibly one-up itself each time out. Its violence is Marvel comics meets Lord of the Rings, wuxia style, with wire work that impresses even in the face of predecessors Crouching Tiger and Hero.

It’s the exaggerated personalities within Hustle though that give the action backbone. Landlord and Landlady of the Sty give the appearance of a typical bickering couple, until Landlord is tossed out a three-story window in a spectacular bird’s eye shot. It’s so disturbing it’s funny. From here it’s clear things aren’t what they seem.

If Hustle can be said to be thematic at all, it points to a personal duality, or duplicity. Sing most of all. At first his spineless nature seems out of place. It seems rare that the star of an action film, even an action comedy doesn't "get into it" themselves (and hey, if Danny Glover can even co-fight Jet Li in Lethal Weapon 4, the field is wide open).

Sing gives a flashback to his childhood, where in true desaturated color means past form, we see the origin of his weaselly fall from grace. All you need to know is that there's righteous potential underneath, waiting for the right trigger. Not an entirely new idea but great for Chow in that he's so rootable, even lovable.

As an undernourished villain and petty crook he gives off Chaplin-like tones of sympathy. As a hero he’s stern and polished, a shadow of Chow’s own childhood hero, Bruce Lee. As a filmmaker with a comedic sense about him, the future is bright.

And that was that. Credits. Curtain. Whispers and chuckles filtering through the air find my ear and I grab my coat to leave. It doesn't take a linguist to know a satisfied filmgoer when they hear one.

Unless they were laughing at me. It can be difficult to know these things.

4 out of 5

Kung Fu Hustle
Australian release: Thursday the 11th of August, 2005
Cast: Stephen Chow, Yuen Wah, Yuen Qiu, Leung Siu-lung, Dong Zhihua.
Directors: Stephen Chow.
Website: Click here.

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