Kung Fu Hustle

**Yog** · Jul 31st, 2005, 05:28:46 PM

Gong Fu / Kung Fu Hustle

IMDB: 7.9
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Box Office: $17,028,000
Trailer

I saw this today.. and let me tell you, I am officially crowning it THE cult movie of 2005. Its absolutely hysterical, the whole movie theater was rioting in laughter. If you planned to skip this while its still out on movie theaters SHAME ON YOU, RUN to the ticket boot RIGHT NOW and watch it with some good friends. You will have a blast, I promise you. You can thank me later for my infinitive wisdom!

So whats it about anyway? Well, you tell me. Some silly gangster plot based in Shanghai China. To tell you the truth, I was not paying that much attention to the story, because drama is not the point of this movie anyway. Its all about how brilliantly executed it is, with such insanely exaggerated style, you just have to laugh hysterically. Its just crazy. Who would have thought the most innovative movie production of the year would come from communist China, filled to the brim with so much self irony, brilliant parodic flare and deliciously politically incorrect scenes..

But what REALLY takes the cake is the tremendous, stupendously ludicrous, insane, gob smacking, totally mental hospital action sequences and stunts. Your jaw will drop in disbelief. So you thought you seen Kung Fu in its most extreme stylistic and absurdly exaggerated way possible in Crouching Tiger, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers? Haha, think again. At times I was stunned how much further this movie goes, its more a revolution than evolution. While Kung Fu Hustle may not have the cinematic beauty, multilayered characters, philosophical budha/Ying Yang mentality and the traditional good story the Chinese know how to produce, it gains on other areas in buckets and spades. After all, those 3 movies have qualities of serious drama, while this is slapstick comedy.

The fighting goes 2500% into steroid mode and breaks all laws of physics in ways you never dreamt possible. It invents new angles and makes fun of the fighting movies genre.. heck of action movies in general even. Some of the visual effects are amazing, not sure how they managed it outside of Hollywood. There are subtle hints of famous movie scenes and clever satirical references hidden all the way through. But not only that, the characters are absolutely hysterical. For example, there is this lazy old chinese woman with morning slippers, bathrobe, hair rollers who actually turn out to be one of the meanest and toughest bad.. uh.. "behinds" you will ever see on screen. She gives new meaning to the word "cigarette smoking". Never argue with women! I wont spoil too much, other than saying, the parodic characters, absurd situations and insanely exaggerated fighting makes it one of the funnies movies I have seen in a very long time, certainly the funniest I have seen for several years.

This movie is very DVD worthy and rewatch value is very good. But its even better in a collective atmosphere of a theater with some good friends. And Kung Fu Hustle is perhaps the most deserving of a movie ticket this year, I am debating wether I like it more or less than ROTS. Like I said, dont walk, RUN to see this