Kung Fu Hustle

I know what you are thinking. Another Kung Fu Movie? But trust me, this one is special.

I’ve seen this movie before about 10 something years ago. At a Chinese spa, I walked into a small theatre that was showing a cool Kung Fu fight scene, which immediately captivated my attention. And so I sat down with great curiosity, feasting my childish fantasies with some blood-boiling action. But I never got to bring home the name of the movie with me. At the moment, it was cool and nothing more. My dad and I left the spa and I quickly forgot what I watched that night for the next decade. Ever since then, I remembered it as “the movie with the giant palm attack at the end”.

Fast forward to now, I am content to declare that the movie is no longer nameless. Today, I know it as Kung Fu Hustle. It was recently released on Netflix and a close friend of mine had recommended it, so I figured that a Chinese/Cantonese Kung Fu movie was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time amidst the current fad with superheroes. Turns out, Kung Fu Hustle is an all-around fun movie that has been known as a classic from the early 2000s, a period where there was a reinvigorated demand for martial arts cinema and director Stephen Chow was at the forefront of this new era. As far as its story is concerned, a quick search on Wikipedia will tell you this: “the film basically talks about a story of how a good-natured gangster chose to change himself from evil side”. While true, this storyline is much less central overall intention of the Kung Fu Hustle. The movie is not a sentimental fable about an underdog who realizes his full potential, which is, in my opinion, a very overused script in many generic Kung Fu movies. Kung Fu Hustle is unique in that it is more of a good-natured caricature of martial arts. If you are familiar with the anime series One Punch Man, then you may understand what I mean. For those who don’t, let’s talk about it because this is one of the crucial ways in which Kung Fu Hustle achieves its comedic stance.

The idea of One Punch Man is that this one special character with an inexplicably insane amount of strength can wreck the hell out of any opponent with a single punch. Traditionally, we see martial arts as a discipline, a respectful back-and-forth duel between two extremely skilled fighters who are superhuman-like but also limited by human fragility. Enter the titular one punch man. Now the duality no longer exists. Sadly for the enemy, the one punch man is invincible, has no patience for any of that “mannerly bullcrap” and needs only a single punch to end a lopsided duel. Simply put, One Punch Man is a satire/parody of anime fights and at times, martial arts. There are similar elements to be seen in Kung Fu Hustle as well. In it, the few number of martial artists within an ordinary society are absurdly superhuman and supernatural, with examples including summoning flying swords with a stroke of the chinese instrument guzheng and clearing out a mob of fifty axe wielders with nothing but bare kicks. The animal styles in Shaolin Kung Fu (e.g. tiger or leopard style) are also satirized to an extent. For example, if a martial artist in the movie is trained in the school of toad style (if that even exists in real life), then he would proceed to literally imitate a damn toad. Parodies or superhuman abilities like these can be also observed in many other Kung Fu movies that respect the art more, Kung Fu Hustle is unique in that it accepts the absurd portrayal of martial arts in popular media and further exaggerates these human feats to the point of comedy. The action itself is comedy, but still exciting and cool to watch anywaus. It maintains a perfect balance of cartoon foolishness and seriousness towards Kung Fu, which is a rare sight in modern movies where it’s either one or the other.

So once again, martial arts satire is the beef of the comedy in Kung Fu Hustle. However, it is also the best of its kind because of one crucial component: the story. There are many praiseworthy aspects to note but for one, the story gets to the point. It is able to juggle with multiple characters within a short amount of time and still help us grow onto them quite quickly. Even without the need for exposition dumps, the motives of the characters are easily understandable and causes behind the effects are as simple as a straight line. So naturally, this creates one swift adventure that time to time, allows us to stop and smell the flowers. What are the flowers, one may ask? To me, these comprise of two things: situational irony and cartoon violence. The first term should be familiar from high school, which is used to describe when the actual result of a situation turns out to be totally different from what is expected. A straightforward example would be an old geezer turning out to be the most lethal killer in the world. Similarly in this movie, you are warned to avoid judging a book by its cover. Yet you do it anyways and the realization of your mistake ends up being a hilarious experience.

Now, the view of cartoon violence as an entertainment is slightly more controversial. But in truth, it’s hard to say that many of us have not been exposed to cartoon violence before and have become accustomed (or even desensitized) to it. Looney Tunes’ The Road Runner and Tom and Jerry are two famous cartoon series where one can observe some hardcore painful violence inflicted upon the fictional characters. Spongebob Squarepants used to employ the same style in the past, but to a much lesser extent today. Yet, cartoon violence is what makes Kung Fu Hustle a classic comedy movie. It uses CGI – which given its era, is pretty well done – to depict outlandish fight scenes and funny beatdowns. Contrary to the description of "cartoon violence" though, Kung Fu Hustle is not violent. Not at all. The concept of a person flying 50 meters into a window is violent, but in no way shape or form is it violent if we believe it to be fiction. Such outlandish actions are not humanly possible, so our standards of violence do not apply. When was the last time we thought Looney Toons and Tom and Jerry were violent cartoons? They were only funny as heck, but never considered inappropriate for young children. Nevertheless, perhaps that view is now quickly changing. We are more socially aware of the consequences that certain media can have on children, particularly video games. In fact, I have yet to see any modern cartoons, in some cases even mainstream action movies, daring to suggest any sort of violent overtone, even though the filmmakers and the audience both easily overlook the fact that Thor’s hammer bashing into soldiers at Mach 10 speed should be literally punching a hole through their frail chests. True, cartoon violence in the context of real humans rather than a fictional cat is different and can have more serious implications. But if done right like Kung Fu Hustle, I think filmmakers should be more audacious in inspiring themselves with the absurdity and comedic effects of cartoon violence. Exposing myself to Tom and Jerry or The Road Runner at my early ages did not make me an aggressive person, but it did give me many reasons to spend a good time laughing as a child. In a way, Kung Fu Hustle has helped me rekindle that joy.

Kung Fu Hustle is what I can call a humble movie. The comedy mainly derives from satirizing its own martial arts culture and actors willing to self-deprecate themselves into punching bags yet still do so with exuberant confidence. We obviously know that these actors are not fools in real life - in fact, one could point out that acting a fool on stage actually requires tremendous skill and intellect. We have only revered the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Mr. Bean as comedic geniuses. Likewise, some actors in Kung Fu Hustle are legitimately trained Shaolin martial artists, including the director Stephen Chow himself. You may want to think twice before demeaning them as dimwits. The traits of the movie characters are almost never displaced onto the performer, yet I sense that actors nowadays are more reluctant to act “dumb” on screen. They seem to be bolder with performing sexual innuendos, but not idiocy. Why? I don’t know. It could be due to different eras, different values, different definitions of funny and other reasons ad infinitum. However, what I am sure about is that these “antiquated” features in Kung Fu Hustle has stuck to me for a long time. Just like music, movies seem to have a powerful amplification effect on our memories. When I recognize a scene, I recall the room I was in, the time when I saw it, who I was with, and the subsequent events that occurred soon after the movie has finished. This is what would be termed as the spreading activation effect in psychology, trigger by only a infinitesimal portion of one big motion picture. Freely recalling or reminiscing one’s past sometimes requires guidance, or at least an ignition for triggering an intricate neural network in the brain. In that sense, Kung Fu Hustle was like coming across an old friend, or rather catching up with someone who I used to know and looking back at everything else we did together 10 years ago. The past may have been a fun, enlightening, and nostalgic experience, but recollecting all of it together with a friend or a movie is worth shedding a tear for.

The character here gets accidentally stabbed multiple times with several knifes by his clumsy partner in crime. Yet this sequence, involving real non-fictional people, is supposed to evoke laughter.

*All images on this post are legally owned by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, Huayi Brothers Media, Taihe Film Investment Co. Ltd, Beijing Film Studio, China Film Group Corporation (CFGC), The Fourth Production Company Film Group, Star Overseas, China Film Co-Production Corporation, and Columbia Pictures.