They say I look good as a porcupine.
The best way to describe the genre of Kung Fu Hustle (2004) is as a cartoon come to life. For the movie’s director, Stephen Chow, the laws of physics are mere play things for characters whose actions and natures are amplified by Chow’s special effects team, frequently using ideas borrowed from cartoons. Running involves the classic spinning legs of the Coyote from the Roadrunner cartoons; fights can move at ludicrous speeds; and when the fat lady sings, look out.
But these are not merely affectations to mark the movie as novel, but also serve to notify the audience of the moral dimensions of this movie, because this is a movie that disputes the notion that there is little connection between the behaviors, or morals, of a person, and his capabilities as a fighter. For example, every time the hero of the story attempts an evil act, he fails spectacularly. No, catastrophically. His own weapons wound him, he is detected and pursued, escaping only through happy happenstance. He’s never committed arson, murder, rape, or anything else – despite a stated intent to do so. Rebuffed at every turn, his most evil attainment may be his pick-lock skills, which save his and his partner’s life when he’s about to be executed by the very gang in which he covets membership.
These tricks highlight a plot of some intricacy and anticipation that has playful references to other movies, some of which I’m sure I missed. But the running theme is how there is always a sufficiently skilled fighter for good to defeat the almost magical powers of the kung fu master for evil. And if some magical Chinese thinking is necessary to bring forth the final fighter for good, so be it, for he’s been with us all along, and simply needed to be released from the chrysalis that had constrained him.
My Arts Editor may not care for this movie, but if you don’t mind some bright whimsy – no, a lot of whimsy – and a hidden smile behind almost every scene, then this movie is Recommended.
