Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

I confess I don't watch many martial arts movies. Even the popular ones rarely rise above average in my estimation, because they tend to have all the plot complexity of an '80s video game. They're almost a kind of porn that substitutes fighting for sex. But they don't hurt to watch once in a while, and I get curious about artists I haven't seen before.

In this case, the director and main actor is Stephen Chow, known for comedies first and foremost. Indeed, this one isn't just on-and-off humor like The Legend of Drunken Master; it tries to be funny pretty much all 99 minutes. And the loose physics and mysticism go beyond Zhang Yimou-style wuxia and straight into cartooniness. Bill Murray praised it supremely on this score.

Before I get into those details, I might as well describe what plot there is. In a stylized version of the '40s, Sing, a young man disillusioned by his childhood attempt at heroism, wants to join the Axe Gang, who reign over all but the poorest neighborhoods of Shanghai. While amazing at picking locks, he and especially his buddy are incompetent at acting like thugs. Sing draws the attention of the real Axe Gang to deal with a slum that won't respect them. Fortunately, the slum has a few excellent fighters to oppose them. It becomes increasingly apparent that Sing will revise his idea that bad guys always win -- and will then discover his untapped potential.

You probably have a good idea of what kind of humor turns up in the midst of martial arts: Some fighters are impossibly awesome, and some become the butts of slapstick (with a little overlap). The lowbrow doesn't end there, tho. With characters exaggerated in certain other ways, you may well think of '40s cartoon shorts. And not the better ones, in my opinion. Not much of the modern West would care for the depiction of women, for example, or the openly gay hairdresser. Even those who fall into that impossibly awesome group first invite us to laugh at them.

And how goes the violence? Since the lack of realism (with effects no more convincing than in Liza, the Fox-Fairy) prevents me from admiring the actors' physical abilities, I can only tell you that it's a tad too bloody for the Looney Tunes. Despite Sony's effort to soften it for the U.S. release (so much for our reputation of using more violence in entertainment than the rest of the world), it still garners an R rating. Yet no designated good guys evidently kill in the course of the story, so I guess there's a slight pacifism involved.

Since I rarely got the urge to laugh or felt an earnest surge of adrenaline, I have decided not to bother with Shaolin Soccer or any other Chow flicks. But if you enjoy frantic sights, sounds, and gags with little regard for intellect, you may find it worth your time.