KUNG FU HUSTLE (Gong fu)
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Grade: C
Directed by: Stephen Chow
Written by: Stephen Chow, Tsang Kan-cheong, Lola
Huo
Cast: Stephen Chow Sing-chi, Yuen Wah, Leung Siu-lung,
Chan Kwok-kwan, Yuen Qi, Eva Huang Sheng-yi, Lam
Tze-chung, Tin Kai-man
Screened at: Sony, NYC, 3/29/05
"Kung Fu Hustle" is derivative enough to be compared to other
movies, with writer-director-principal performer Stephen Chow
compared by some critics to Buster Keaton, Jackie Chan, and
the Three Stooges, among others. As for films, director Chow
copies, and riffs upon, films like "The Matrix," "Kill Bill," and
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." There's even a scene taken
from David O. Russell's "Three Kings" of a fellow who fires a
bullet toward his head and catches it between his fingers.
But for charm, insights into character, and anything other than
its penchant for road-runner speed, "Kung Fu Hustle" does not
pass muster. Its greatest strength lies in Poon Hang-sang's
vivid photography of scenes allegedly shot in the Shanghai of
the 1930s when gangsters ruled the town In much the way that
Prohibition-age thugs collected protection money in our own
country.
The characters are not only stereotypes, but as though Chow
were proud of that fact, he presses each into the service of
repeating his or her special talents over and over, as though he
does not trust the audience to real the particular idiosyncracy of
each member of the cast.
The most colorful of the troupe is the Landlady (Yuen Qi), who is
not a member of the large Axe Gang terrorizing the town but
who is a battle-ax herself. With a perpetual cigarette dangling
from her big mouth, her hair pinned up as though getting
prepared to attend a prom, she launches her particular weapon,
her voice, several times against the enemy. When she shouts,
not only do mirrors and drinking glasses break for a hundred
meters around, but her foes are blows backwards as though she
had administered lethal blows. Besides the 100-member, black-
suit-coated Axe Gang, her chief enemies are the deadbeats
who are leasing space from her in the poorest section of
Shanghai and are behind three months or more on their $30 a
month on their rent.
Stephen Chow himself takes on the role of Sing, a kung-fu
master who near the film's conclusion must face off against The
Beast (Leung Siu-lung), a mean-looking old fellow with a few
strands of hair on his head who has beaten his rivals to a pulp
ever since he had been released from a mental institution (to
which he apparently admitted himself because he could not find
anyone to match his prowess).
The plot, then, deals with a band of axe-wielding thugs who
demand blackmail from residents and store-keepers of Pig Sty
Alley but who are pressed into forceful service because some of
the area's folks are fighting back. As the tailor and other
residents decide they've had enough and appear to be winning
the battle against the gangsters, the axe wielders hire extras to
counter the resistance. What follows is an interminable number
of people flying through the air, buildings collapsing all around
them, while one guy, Sing, faces off against the Beast by lifting
himself toward the stratosphere as though on a heaven-sent
bungee, in his attempt to put a finale to the terrorism.
When Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" appeared
on the scene some five years ago, it received justifiable plaudits
for its originality: a mixture of romance, martial arts and epic,
wonderfully filmed with gravity-defying fight sequences. The
balletic tricks were choregraphed by Yuen Wo-ping, who was
the action choreographer of "The Matrix" and serves as well in
that capacity for "Kung Fu Hustle." But "Crouching Tiger" had a
real story line and its fights were under reasonable control.
"Kung Fu Hustle, " despite a fine dance number by the Axe
gang and the effective comic touches of the landlady, are
repetitive and over the top to the point of weariness.
Not Rated. 95 minutes. 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 39629 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1373171 X-RT-TitleID: 10004499 X-RT-SourceID: 570 X-RT-AuthorID: 1123 X-RT-RatingText: C
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