Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

'Kung Fu Hustle' is an utterly ridiculous film, and succeeds as a piece of pure entertainment all the more because of this. Shamelessly absurd and flamboyant, this film's hilarity comes not only from its comical characters but from how fast it dispenses of any semblance of logic. It doesn't pace itself evenly or fully flesh out its characters because it doesn't need to. What it does do is deliver on the goods; slapstick comedy and kung-fu fighting that starts off as fairly standard fair and just gets crazier and crazier. It never fails to surprise and delight, and keeps giving until the end. Also the axe gang has to have one of the best villain introductions in cinema. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kZ4SHVKlRA

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I can see why people love this movie. It had action, comedy, and lots of special effects. I fell into the liked it, didn't love it category.

What I loved about it was the cast. It was fun to see the incognito martial arts masters come out of their humdrum lives and reveal what they were capable of. Any time I see Yuen Wah featured, I'm a happy camper.

The Roadrunner and Coyote special effects were over the top and fun for the most part. Although the funniest gag in the whole movie didn't involve any CGI. The closer they kept it to reality, the better I liked it.

The martial arts scenes were entertaining, I enjoyed the early trio's more believable fighting the most. The latter fights which relied more heavily on CGI were comic book style and entertaining in their own way, if less satisfying.

Visually it was a stunning movie, the sets, costumes, and cinematography were well above kung fu movie standards.

I wasn't as fond of the first half of the movie with the death and dismemberment scenes. The landlady's schtick wore thin pretty quickly with me although she redeemed herself in the end. Bruce Leung made for a creepy supernatural kung fu madman. I found Stephen Chow's hustler more annoying than funny for most of the film. When he finally picked a side and came out of his cocoon I could get on board with his character even if his character growth and kung fu skills weren't properly explained. This movie cried out for a hero, not a Chosen One who did nothing to earn his greatness.

Perhaps the biggest problem I had with this movie is that I didn't care about most of the kung fu misfits and the ones I did care about didn't last long. Even in a comedy I need some thread of the story to be emotionally compelling and the only one they really offered was lollipop girl and the hustler which didn't touch me at all. The juxtaposition of slapstick over-the-top humor and brutal over-the-top killings failed to resonate with me as well.

While there were parts of Kung Fu Hustle I found amusing, more often I found it borderline cruel and repetitive with flashes of humor. The trio's fights and the final fight saved this movie for me. Oh, and Yuen Wah getting to strut his badass kung fu self helped a lot, too.

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Laughter guaranteed

I have watched this several times in my childhood. I don't quite remember the story, but i do remember that i laughed until my breath was gone. Specially because of that lady who was following the protagonists, and beating the sh*t out of them for some reasons that i don't remember . I am not exaggerating if i i said that i was crawling, shaking, and shedding tears because of laughing. Don't know if my feelings would stay the same if i watch this movie right now at this age.
And i also do remember the last few scenes of the village that was attacked by some kung fu masters or something that was tio funny too and a little bit scary for child as i do remember.

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I rarely write reviews but I decided that this is a classic that anybody who watches Chinese or Hong Kong works must have in their collection. I remember watching this movie when it first came out and since then I've lost count of how many times I've watched it although it has been a couple of years since my last viewing. I stumbled upon it on Netflix the other day and boy, the magic of this movie is that every time you rewatch, you pick up something new.

It's the perfect blend of action and comedy and it beautifully directed and honestly, it's just a masterpiece.

The movie itself is an absolutely ridiculous concept that makes it amazingly hilarious. Kung Fu Hustle feels like an adventurous dream the whole way through (if you can manage not to laugh yourself awake). Despite being completely outrageous the whole story makes sense and flows smoothly. The only reason I deducted a half mark on the story was that there were just some characters that I wanted to know more about.

This is the type of movie that makes you want to binge watch anything else with Stephen Chow and what more can I say then, please, give it a shot.

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