Kung Fu Hustle

This movie has been overhyped. For about a year now, I've been hearing buzz online for this new film from the guy who did Shaolin Soccer, Stephen Chow. A violent, special-effects laden martial arts extravaganza. And now that Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle has hit America, I find myself wondering what all the hype has been about.

I'll grant you right up front: I am not the biggest fan of the kung fu genre. I mean, I like it alright, and there are plenty of martial arts movies that really work for me. In fact, earlier this year, I immensely enjoyed the physics-defying Muay Thai antics of Tony Jaa in Ong-Bak, and I dig a lot of the movies Tarantino referenced in Kill Bill, the old-school Bruce Lee and Shaw Brothers classics.

But speaking in general terms, there is a lot about the kung fu formula that I don't much care for. Specifically, I tend to find the sense of humor in these films to be a bit off. It's always very broad, very slapstick and very juvenile sorts of comedy. When done extremely well, as in early Jackie Chan features, it doesn't really bother me, but most of the time I find the "wacky supporting characters" distracting rather than funny.

And Kung Fu Hustle is a film that's all distraction and no film. It has really impressive fight choreography, and terrific special effects. And the cast is appealing, and it's fast-paced and visually interesting, so I really wanted to get into it. But it's just not funny. It's too goofy and self-aware to be funny. It's just very silly, which isn't the same thing, and gets very tiresome very quickly.



Things start off pretty well. We open in pre-Revolutionary China, a place where mobs run the major cities. We're introduced to the vicious Axe Chain gang as they murder some other mobsters, while performing something of a soft-shoe musical number.

This will set the pattern for the rest of the film. We follow a typical kung fu storyline - a gang violates the social code by invading a peaceful village, a group of heroes try to defend the innocents but are thwarted, and the day can only be saved by a special warrior (played by Chow) with a unique gift for martial arts. But this action unfolds in an almost Naked Gun style.

There are lots of action scenes, filled with impossible or gravity-defying stuntwork. And in between these are outrageous "comedy" scenes, some of them filled with references to other movies. While it's interesting to note the impact of American movies on other cultures (I mean, here is a Chinese film with references to The Shining and Gangs of New York), these are more allusions than actual jokes.

You really have to admire Chow's energy and commitment. This can't have been an easy film to conceptualize, and the level of detail of his work is impeccable. I just don't find the guy all that amusing. It was the same case with Shaolin Soccer. He started with a great high-concept premise (in that film, a soccer team made up of kickass kung fu monks), he fills the film with color, tremendous energy and fun cartoonish special effects, and then he kills the entire enterprise with lame jokes and asides.

Kung Fu Hustle is more of the same. Some of the comedy bits work. One in which Chow himself is accidentally and repeatedly stabbed by his partner-in-crime made me laugh out loud, the one and only time I actually laughed during the whole movie. But for the most part, the jokes fall flat. In particular, one character (the guy featured in the photo above) is an egregious gay stereotype, flailing about and crying at a moment's provocation.

But, really, the constant failed attempts at hilarity grew old really fast. There's nothing really to latch on to in this movie. It's an empty exercize, there's no soul. Maybe if it expressed Chow's own love for martial arts films, and the inspiration he derives from watching them, I'd like it more. But as it is, he's really just sending them up without showing any real affection for the genre.

And I do think Chow could probably make a really kickass martial arts film, if he just put the goofball character aside for a film or two. The action here is really terrific, aided in part by stunt choreography by the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping, best known in the States for his work on The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I really dig Chow's use of special effects. He's not one of these guys chasing the photo-real, that James Cameron wet dream of one day being able to manipulate realistic photogrpahic images with computers, producing something so lifelike, people can't tell if it's an actual image or a computer simulation.

Chow makes movies that intentionally look fake, like live action Looney Tunes. He emphasizes this aspect to the style here with cartoon sound effects. When a woman crashes into a wall at top speed, she doesn't slump down like a real person, she holds in mid-air for a moment before sliding down slowly, making a squeaky noise.

For a bit, it's a lot of fun, and I'd like to see a real movie make some use of this sort of imagery. But here, it's all done in the service of lame comedy. I guess I'm just disappointed that this movie is nowhere near as fun as it should be. I mean, it features a dancing group of mobsters who throw axes at people squaring off against an elderly slum lord and his shrewish wife, both of whom are mystical kung fu warriors. What's not to like about that?

A whole lot, as it regrettably turns out.