p e n g u i n d e v i l

Admittedly, I’ve never been much of a fan of martial arts films. I’ve seen some Shaw Brothers films from the 1970’s that I found quite appealing, but not much else. And I really didn’t like those recent big extravaganzas like crouching tiger. But alas, Stephen Chow has bridged those two genres and made an instant classic. Easily one of the great films of all time, Kung Fu Hustle is a rambunctious mixed bag of dance, gangsterness, kung fu, comedy, action and superheroes. A nutty concept and story that could easily have been done wrong in so many ways but ended up being basically a flawless blend of the above.

When some insulted gangsters decide to beat a slum into submission, they don’t realize not only that a handful of Kung Fu masters have retired there, but that those dangerous masters are not their worst threat! While this old Shanghai seems to be overrun with warring gangs, the only problems in this slum are the badly maintained facilities and the pushy and mean old cheapskate landlord lady and her philandering silk pajama wearing husband. That is until Donut and Sing, two losers who claim to be members of the notorious Axe Gang show up and try to blackmail the barber! The two aren’t really part of the Axe Gang, but they dream of being gangsters and seem to think that if they act accordingly, they will realize their dreams.

The denizens of the place turn against the two and so they make an Axe Gang call for help. And help actually does arrive, lots and lots of help. The Axe Gang is a large powerful uber-stylish gang filled with men in black suit and tie, black top hats and wielding hatchets. Led by the thoroughly bad and ruthless Brother Sum, they care little for anything except for flaunting their coolness and power.

Right off the bat in this confrontation, one of the Axe gang leaders gets his back broken mysteriously and they take their threats of retaliation against the slum one step too far. After cowering for a while, one of the tradesmen steps up and everything changes! It turns out that some of the tradesmen are super-duper, fly through the air, kung fu masters. The film becomes an endless stream of crazy, over the top, cgi’d kung fu sequences, involving lots of silly humor and an amazing amount of resilience on the parts of the characters… And fun and stylish antics of the ever glorious members of the Axe Gang.

Surprisingly, even with the great numbers of gang members, the masters in the slum turn out to be too much for the Axe… Twelve Kicks from the Tam School, Iron Fist from the Hung School and The Hexagon Staff have outlandish and amazing warriors skills that leave the gang bruised and looking for some help itself. They call in the number two killers, a couple of top rank musicians who play a wicked mean Guqin and once again seem to be unstoppable! How many times can the masters meet greater masters.

Seemingly quite a lot, because that is all just the first half and it turns out that you never know who might be harboring some fantastic Kung Fu Master skills and maybe that chintzy Kung Fu book that Sing picked up when he was a kid had more to it than meets the eye… The moves they have in this are ridiculously wonderful and great fun to watch, especially with how serious they are all taken. I highly recommend it to anyone, even those who aren’t interested.