As one more extra on our martial arts marathon, let’s finish with something silly yet awesome. It’s a film of gangsters, killer landladies, redemption, and total ridiculousness—it’s Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle.
Chow had already put himself on the map with Shaolin Soccer, a film that, surprise surprise, is all about combining football with kung fu. As in, physics-defying ball-igniting superhuman hyper-exaggerated kung fu. And so he continued in that vein with this more famous flick, cranking things up even further to achieve a peak of martial arts comedy. It’s a film that’s not afraid to literally go looney tunes style, and it’s all the more enjoyable for it.
In a hyperreal version of 1930s Shanghai, we have a horde of ne’er do wells known as the Axe Gang raising havoc simply because they can, until they set their sights on a slum where some of the locals (played by 1970s Hong Kong veterans (including Chiu Chi-Ling) just so happen to be masters of various schools of kung fu. Even one of the real stars of the film, Yuen Qiu as the ball-busting Landlady, apparently has mastered destructive sonic scream techniques by…smoking lots of cigarettes…or something. Either way, super-goofy the fights may be, there’s legitimate choreography behind them, making them all the more creative and enjoyable—and, well, really friggin’ awesome.
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| Could be worse. She could be smiling. |
The real main character, as it happens, is played by Chow himself—a loser hustler who, caught in the middle between the gang and the slum’s inhabitants, soon finds himself having to embrace redemption through kung fu. And getting punched in the face real hard. And accidentally stabbing himself with knives. One of the most hilarious moments is when he tries to scam himself as a martial arts master to the locals…only to find that everyone, young and old, is pretty much more than capable of kicking his ass.
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| Good job he wasn't trying to use a microwave, or we'd have a second Chernobyl up in here. |
Nearer the end we’re introduced to Leah Siu-Lung as the Beast—the most dangerous kung fu master alive, who also happens to be a schlub in flip-flops and a wifebeater. It’s that kind of nonchalance, combined with fight scenes that go way beyond what Crouching Tiger was doing, that make this one so much fun.
There’s not a whole lot more to say about this one, beyond that Chow knows that the only way to keep something like this going is to never stop upping the ante—and that takes us into a climax where everything truly goes insane, but ends only as satisfying as a divinely delivered palm to the face can, let’s just say.
Chow’s output has been sporadic since this one, even if he’s still talking about a Kung Fu Hustle 2. Still, nearly two decades on, it’s as fun and memorable as ever—if you want your martial arts so gloriously ridiculous that they’d give Bugs Bunny a run for his money, well, there’s no outdoing this one.
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