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| Saturday, April 23, 2005 01:45 PM |
| Fighting! |
 by Fëanor |
Last night, before a rather enjoyable meal at the Pagoda Noodle Cafe with Yagathai (he didn't particularly care for his meal, but mine was fine, and I do love their tea, especially on a chilly day like yesterday); and before an even more enjoyable, though brutal and bloody, session of role-playing with Yag, Peccable, TrackerNeil, Sarcasmo, and ST; I saw Kung Fu Hustle, the latest film from Stephen Chow.
Now, let me preface my review by offering this caveat: I did not like Stephen Chow's previous film, Shaolin Soccer. I know, I know. What can I say? I just thought it was kind of dumb, and cheesy, and bad. That childish, gross-out sense of humor just doesn't do it for me. The Hong Kong-style wackiness in general doesn't work for me, actually.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone (it didn't surprise me) that I felt similarly about Kung Fu Hustle, which is a very similar film. There aren't really any gross-out gags here, but there's plenty of the stupid, cartoonish gags, enhanced by a great deal of computer-generated special effects and wire-assissted stunts. I chuckled occasionally, and some of the fights were neat, but in general I thought the film felt confused, like it couldn't quite settle on a particular tone or pacing. It also all seemed rather pointless and dull.
As for the plot, there's very little of it to speak of, so summarizing it should be easy. The setting is Shanghai, China during the '40s. The city is ruled by vicious gangs, the worst and most powerful of which is the brutal Axe Gang. The only places safe from the gangs are the poorest districts, which hold no interest for them. But when two dumb aspiring punks blunder into one such poor area, known as Pig Sty Alley, itching for a fight and pretending to be members of the Axe Gang, they end up awakening the long-dormant kung fu skills of the residents, and starting a war of epic proportions.
For some reason, our main characters end up being the most unlikable people in the film--the cold-hearted, shrieking harpie who is the landlady of Pig Sty Alley; her sleazy, drunken husband; and the despicable, pathetic punk who starts all the trouble. Admittedly, all of these characters turn out to be a lot more than what they at first appear, but none of them really get developed at all. I never got to know enough about anybody to really care about them, and the film is so cartoonish that it was hard to ever feel like anyone was in real danger anyway, despite the occasional death (it didn't help that the death scenes are often strangely comical and tragic at the same time). So for most of the film, I felt detached from the action, noting the points where I was supposed to be amused, where I was supposed to be moved, and where I was supposed to feel triumph or excitement, but never really feeling any of those emotions with any force.
Kung Fu Hustle has some clever bits, and some funny bits, and some neat fight scenes, but in general I found it aimless, dull, stupid, and pointless. When it references other films (which it does very often, and with such disparate films as The Shining, The Matrix, and City Lights), it only serves to remind us how many other, better films there are than this one. |
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