Anyone else see "Kung Fu Hustle" yet?

Cafe Society
1

Last night MrWhatsit and I had planned to go see Sin City at a local brew & view type place, but at the last minute plans changed and we wound up at the 7 PM showing of Kung Fu Hustle instead. I literally knew nothing about this movie except that it had “Kung Fu” in the title, and I like kung fu movies, so we went.

Man! What an awesome movie! It had action, adventure, more action, kung fu masters, even more action, and at the end I actually cared about several of the characters, which is a feat of master filmmaking in a movie like this, I dare say.

My favorite bits:

“With great power…comes great responsibility.” MrWhatsit and I laughed our asses off at that line. Also dug how the main character reached weakly out from the pit in the ground that The Beast had just rammed him into and bonked The Beast on the head with a small stick. Also totally loved the Palm of Buddha technique, and the fact that all the characters were so well-versed in all the various maneuvers and kung fu masters. “That’s Wen Chow of the Turtle Fight School! Oh no!” As MrWhatsit says, it’s well that this movie wasn’t dubbed, because no English-speaking actor could pull off a line like that.

Anyway, loved the film. Anyone else get a chance to see it yet?

2

Saw it last night and loved it. It was a lot more fun than the pretty-but-pretentious Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and even better than Stephen Chow’s previous film, the hilarious Shaolin Soccer. The “musicial” fight involving the killers and their harp was one of the most creative, imaginative fight sequences I had ever seen. It really cheered me up after a horrible week, and I highly recommend it to all. I wish there had been more dancing and/or musical numbers, but that’s a minor nitpick. I have a few other concerns, but they didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the movie. Minor spoilers follow:

Sing (who turned out to be the big hero) was a very unsympathetic character throughout the movie – a wannabe gangster, a bully, and a coward. All it took for him was to get his ass kicked, and then not only did it unlock his body’s potential to be a true master, but he had a complete change of heart and protected Landlord and Landlady against the gang he had once desired to join. This bothered me – I guess I would like to see the unstoppable hero “earn” his powers, either through training (accomplished with a montage) or a superhero-like origin event. This also bothered me about The Matrix, where we had to accept on faith that Neo was “The One,” and how he learned all his martial arts and skills from data being downloaded into his brain in a matter of seconds, rather than through practice and experience.

But what bothered me more was how mean Sing was to the beautiful mute girl, and he never apologized to her. A scene where he sought her out seeking forgiveness, or at least a scene where she defiantly stood up to him, maybe slapping him in the face, would have made for a more complete character arc. After that, I could have accepted them falling in love, or anything else. Sing was also mean to his fat friend all the time and eventually pushed him away, and it would have been nice to see him make amends for that, before the out-of-nowhere happy ending.

I was also a little surprised by Landlady’s colossal character shift from unsympathetic emasculating bitch to concerned heroine. She forced the martial arts masters out of the neighborhood and was indirectly responsible for their deaths by not interceding, but all of a sudden she decided to stand up and fight after all. It would have been cool if she swung into action and had a change of heart a little bit sooner.

All that said, this was an awesome movie. Along with the martial arts/action fans who will probably see it anyway, I have to recommend it to anyone who likes Looney Tunes and other madcap, violent, zany cartoons of the '30s, '40s, and '50s.

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It was great. The entire point of it was to make everything as off-the-wall as possible, and the comparison to a Bugs Bunny cartoon is perfectly apt. In my theatre the audience was laughing virtually the entire time, and practically howling at the several points, particularly the opening sequence and the bit with the cat. My personal favorite was the chase scene on the road. With all the new visual tricks that have become available in the last ten years or so, you’d think that more directors would try making an outrageous farce like this.

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Saw it last night - loved it.

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he changed his heart before his transformation, with the first whack upon the toads head instead of the condor duo.

the main character cannot come to terms with his own ineptitude and cannot face his closest friend or acknowledge his love. having attained enlightenment, he apologised and made amends with both friend and girl with the opening of the candy shop.

the ‘retire from Jianghu’ theme is staple among wuxia serials, where the powerful is sick of the constant fighting for Number One and retires from the scene. this retirement is held sacred and not to be broken easily.

do not think that she had ignored the deaths however - there was no need to intervene during the first fight with the general mob, and the first of the trio dead went unnoticed by anyone. during the subsequent zither fight she had wanted to intervene numerous times, but was held back by her Taichi (art of pushing problems away) husband.

previous thread on topic

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I saw it last night, and thought it was really good, but I preferred Shaolin Soccer. I guess I’m just not too into the bugs bunny stuff. Surprisingly, I also thought there was too little dancing, and I’m really not into dance.

As an aside, I noticed that Patrick Tse was in Shaolin Soccer – I went to school with his son, Nick Tse. Does anyone know if Nick is the big HK star I’ve heard he is? shijinn?

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[QUOTE=shijinn]


he changed his heart before his transformation, with the first whack upon the toads head instead of the condor duo.

I know, but what brought that on? I only didn’t like it because it seemed to come from out of nowhere, without proper buildup.

[QUOTE=shijinn]

the main character cannot come to terms with his own ineptitude and cannot face his closest friend or acknowledge his love. having attained enlightenment, he apologised and made amends with both friend and girl with the opening of the candy shop.

My complaint is that he achieved enlightenment way too quickly and easily.

I’ve seen my share of martial arts movies, so I’m familiar with the formulas. I’m really good at suspending my disbelief for super powers, impossible physics, unlikely feats of strength, etc. I just don’t like drastic changes in character motivations that seemingly come from out of nowhere.

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Huge. Sings and acts. Had a brief brush with the law in an auto accident of some sort a while back, but he’s back in business. Just google 謝霆鋒 or Nicholas Tse.

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I’m on vacation visiting my brother in L.A. this week & he cajoled me into it.

I am so glad he did! I loved it! No complaints whatsoever, yeah- the conversion came kinda quick, but extreme situations can yield quick changes.
A few days later I saw MADISON, which is set in my hometown. Also liked it. I may start a thread later.

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this is true. that did came out of nowhere. but it’s the right thing to do dammit. :smiley:
Nicholas Tse

don’t know much about him. my (most likely wrong) impression is that he had made quite a number of movies, especially as the cool gangster/cop type with the floppy fringe. he was involved in some kinda reckless/drunk driving incident where he got off lightly and also got into a relationship with the much older Faye Wong.

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Damn, that Faye Wong is good lookin’!

I do remember my mom showing me a newspaper clipping about his high-speed accident. He tried to play it off as his driver’s fault or something…

Hilariously, Nick is the only person I’ve ever punched in the face. He stole my seat in grade 5 and he said, “come on! What are you gonna do? Why don’t you hit me in the face? Come on!”

I punched him in the face and immediately started crying. :smiley:

This hijack is over!

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I loved** Kung Fu Hustle**. I love wuxia movies, the more over the top, the better. I love movies like Dragon Inn, Swordsman 2, Once Upon a Time in China, and Deadful Melody.

Kung Fu Hustle was imaginative, funny, wonderfully stylish, and gutsy. I laughed out loud during the entire road chase scene.

The snakes! Her reflection in the knife! How she ended up like Wiley Coyete smacked up against the billboard! What a funny scene- Thank you, Steven Chow!

At times I was sitting on the edge of my seat, thrilled by what I was seeing. It was far better than I expected it would be. I guess I saw the mangled version of Shaolin Soccer. I plan to see it again next week with my sons, who are also admirers of ‘The World of Martial Arts.’