KUNG FU HUSTLE
By Joey Fernandez

Maybe it was my mistake. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe only the second coming of Buddha himself would’ve sufficed. But in the end I wasn’t satisfied with the movie. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad movie, but considering the high high benchmark I give to Stephen Chow, I guess I shouldn’t expect him to hit it again (or ever).

I came across Stephen Chow quite by accident. People were recommending to me to watch Shaolin Soccer, so I did the next best thing, watch the movie he did BEFORE Shaolin Soccer, which was the GOD OF COOKERY. That was a holy experience. If I were to die today and I was before St. Peter himself, and he asked me what was the single greatest movie experience I ever had? I would’ve said watching God of Cookery in Brash Young Cinema.

Okay, as you can see, I am setting my expectations that high.

Then came Shaolin Soccer. A perfect movie. If God of Cookery was holy, this was blessed. It was like the saints themselves made the movie. And there were six of them. Plus Stephen Chow. Chow made the perfect integration of Kung Fu and reality. It was like, what if you had super Shaolin Kung Fu in this world and integrated it with, uh, soccer? Sounds ludicrous, I know, but for some reason it worked. It was so good, that a World Cup football team watched it before their quintessential game.

Okay, okay, okay, but I still have not reached Kung Fu Hustle so let’s cut through the shizzle, and get to the hustle.

So Stephen Chow reached newfound glory and his movie style reached across the ocean and found America. And they gave him a big fat budget. So he created Kung Fu Hustle. He created his “dream” film. Which is what most directors do when they get that money. And then he casted all his acters from his youth. Which is another thing directors do when they get their dream film. Now I don’t know who these acters were, but there was no Ng Nat, the guy who played the coach in the prior film. But I will not quibble. He did cast impressive people that I’ve never seen before (but I’m sure are very familiar in Hong Kong). There’s this landlady who was fan-tas-tic. Her presence on the screen is just riveting, a true professional. Whoever she is, she deserves to be casted more (or I just have to see her older movies). And then there is the bad guy, I don’t know his name, let’s just use his moniker in the movie, The Beast. Kind of like a really old Mickey Rourke Hong Kong-style. But quite good.

The plot is typically Chow’s and also Hong Kong’s. Lots of dragging parts, with set-piece battles interspersed in the middle. There’s lots of dancing which is also quintessential Chow, but we’ll let him have his way. The fat guy was there. But what you also notice is that there isn’t enough Chow in the movie. It’s almost like he wrote himself out of the script, until there were huge battles. I guess he wanted to direct more then act. And he’s not that young anymore, so I’m sure kung fu scenes take a toll