Sometimes style beats substance, and sometimes style takes substance out the back with a plank of wood and beats it round the yard like a red-headed stepchild. This is one of those times.
The story goes that Stephen Chow saw a Bruce Lee movie as a kid and left the cinema with tears in his eyes, knowing exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up –- a martial-arts movie star. Then he spent years slumming it as a kids’ show host, but now his dream’s finally come true. After making Shaolin Soccer, which was an inventive and funny take on sports movies if nothing more, Chow has been able to finance Kung Fu Hustle (a.k.a. Gong Fu), an over-the-top, special-effects intensive assault on the senses.
Kung Fu Hustle is about the Axe Gang, top-hat-wearing thugs who control a Chinese city of the 1940s with sharp blades, sharper suits and impressive dance moves -– they look like a Chinese version of the gangs from Gangs of New York, but thankfully the resemblance ends there. Chow plays a small-time loser who wants to join the gang because the bad guys are always cooler, and looking at the scene of them synchronised-dancing, he might be right. The Axe Gang meets its match when it tries to take down the inhabitants of Pig Sty Alley, one of the city’s poorer districts, which just happens to be the home of several retired kung fu masters. Butt-kicking ensues.
The fight scenes in Kung Fu Hustle are breathtaking, original and hilarious. This is The Matrix reimagined as a comedy; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with sight gags. The flashy CGI turns the violence cartoonish and relatively bloodless, but leaves its edge sharp. Two of the villains, dressed like evil versions of the Blues Brothers, kill with a Chinese harp that can sever limbs and the rest carry axes like pistols but keep tommy guns for emergencies. Imagine Elmer Fudd chopping up Bugs Bunny with an axe, blasting him with a shotgun and then strutting away in a pinstripe suit, tilting his hat at a jaunty angle and puffing on a cigar. That’s what the violence is like in Kung Fu Hustle.
As a broad comedy with elements of melodrama, Kung Fu Hustle doesn’t require subtlety from its actors. Most of the characters spray their personality right across the screen and that’s the way it should be. Qiu Yuen is excellent as the overbearing, chain-smoking landlady of the slums and the snappy rapport between her and Wah Yuen, her lecherous husband, is obvious. Kwok Kuen Chan plays Brother Sum, head of the Axe Gang, as a stylish but dangerous fop. Chow gives us his best petty criminal with a heart of gold, and is genuinely likeable in the part.
As star, co-director, co-writer and co-producer, Stephen Chow has leaped into the stratosphere with this movie. Kung Fu Hustle is more than just another martial-arts film. It throws down a gauntlet to overblown wuxia films and tepid Matrix sequels by proving that just because a movie is about people having their heads kicked in doesn’t mean it has to suck. We used to be able to rely on Jackie Chan to turn out kung fu movies of this calibre. Now that he seems condemned to dull-witted Hollywood comedies, the world needs Stephen Chow and movies like this one.
The only thing wrong with Kung Fu Hustle is that there’s only one dance scene. It’s a clever gimmick that should have been milked more, but maybe the world isn’t ready for a full-blown martial arts musical extravaganza yet. At least, not until Chow’s next movie.
