by Abel Horwitz
Daily Lobo
"Kung Fu Hustle" is like no movie on the planet.
The humor is twisted, the fighting is choreographed by the same guy who did "The Matrix," and the violence finds itself comfortably nestled between Quentin Tarantino and Looney Tunes.
If you like kung fu movies and Bugs Bunny, then "Kung Fu Hustle" is the film for you.
In a Hong Kong where the bad guys wear top hats and tails and address themselves as "the bad guys," the good guys are pathetic and the story line only kind of makes sense. Writer, director and star Stephen Chow takes all of it and brings a unique vision to life.
Chow, who broke Hong Kong box office records for his first film, "Shaolin Soccer," is back at it again. This time, he plays Sing, a young man down on his luck who is trying to get into the notorious Axe Gang. The Axe Gang controls the streets and owns the cops. The only thing it doesn't control is the slums, which are run by aggressive and unkind landlords.
Sing forces the Axe Gang into the slum of Pig Sty Alley when he pretends to be part of the gang to get his friend a free haircut. This invokes the wrath of the slumlord, a chain-smoking woman with a few tricks up her sleeve.
The plot is inconsequential to the sheer madness of the film. "Kung Fu Hustle" exists in a world where people run so fast their legs become a circle of blurs, where punches and kicks can send people flying around like balls in a pachinko game and where the Buddha himself makes a cameo appearance.
Through it all, the film remains wildly entertaining. There are periods in the movie where it starts to take itself too seriously, but these are always followed by laugh-out-loud sequences of pure celluloid brilliance.
The fun of "Kung Fu Hustle" doesn't end there.
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Chow knows his stuff, and homages to Stanley Kubrick, "Spider-Man," Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and others lie just below the surface.
In the end, "Kung Fu Hustle" brings its insane story together, twirling everything into a conclusion that makes just enough sense to make the film worth it.
Don't expect "Kung Fu Hustle" to bring home any awards this year, but it's certain to develop a cult following similar to that of "Shaolin Soccer." These movies are passed around among friends and laughed about in private circles.
It's rare to find a movie this entertaining that isn't trying to take itself seriously. In the movie industry, fun usually comes with the price of having to sit through a dumb film. "Kung Fu Hustle" takes this idea and kicks it through a building, literally. It's as fun as movies come.
