Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

6/10

Starring

Stephen Chow

Danny Chan

Yuen Wah

Yuen Qiu

Directed by Stephen Chow

Kung Fu Hustle is a lot better than Shaolin Soccer (2001) for me. The pacing is better, the acting is better and the movie made the romance take a back seat to the action and the comedy, which made the movie’s focus much better. Another thing you will enjoy in the movie is the story, the movie did not focus mainly on Stephen Chow’s character, but everyone seems to have likely an equal amount of screen time.

The movie starts with a very cool intro. We get to meet the axe gang (if that sounds familiar it is because that was the name of the gang that attacked Jackie Chan in the 1994 movie The Legend of Drunken Master). These guys are ruthless and they show us the depth of how mean they can be in the first five minutes of the movie. Then they gave us a cool dance to showoff that they are now in town and will not take no prisoners.

The movie then introduce us to Sing (Stephen Chow) who is a loser by all counts. He has the weird ambition of being a member of the axe gang. This ambition is not going well for him because with his friend who happens not to be one of the best at anything, they go about doing some mini stunts of robbing people to get by for the day. One of their stunts is pretending to be a member of the axe gang and using the name to rob stores of their money.

They go to a little town and that plan did not work, in fact it back fired because the real axe gang come into the town. Now Sing and his friend are outed as impostors, but the real axe gang gets into trouble in the town which left them disgraced. They have Sing in their custody to enact revenge on because it was his games that led to their disgrace, also the leader of the gang wanted to mess up the town to send a message.

How things turn for Sing and his friend, and a good guy movie how the axe gang got humbled is what this movie is about.

For me where Shaolin Soccer was lacking, Kung Fu Hustle came packing. The movie was both a commercial and a critical success. Its success and popularity supersede that of Shaolin Soccer, it is good to note that Stephen Chow, co-wrote, directed and produced both movies.

In the end one thing that catches my eye is the fight choreography, and it is something everybody will enjoy. The movie packages itself as an action-comedy and to play out the comedy it added some looney toons kind of effects.

This is one very good action movie to see if you like to see people getting beat up. Kung Fu offers the excitement the action and does not slack on the story.