Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Kung Fu Hustle (Chinese: 功夫; lit. ‘Kung Fu’) is a 2004 action-comedy film directed, produced, co-written by, and starring Stephen Chow. The film tells the story of a murderous neighbourhood gang, a poor village with unlikely heroes, and an aspiring gangster’s fierce journey to find his true self. Eva Huang, Yuen Wah, Yuen Qiu, Danny Chan Kwok-kwan and Leung Siu-lung co-starred in prominent roles. The martial arts choreography is supervised by Yuen Woo-ping. Kung Fu Hustle was a co-production between Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese companies, filmed in Shanghai. After the commercial success of Shaolin Soccer, its production company, Star Overseas, began to develop the films with Columbia Pictures Asia in 2002. It features a number of retired actors famous for 1970s Hong Kong action cinema and has been compared to contemporary and influential wuxia films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.

The cartoon special effects in the film accompanied by traditional Chinese music, is often cited as its most striking feature. The film was released on 23 December 2004 in China and on 25 January 2005 in the United States. The film received positive reviews and grossed US$17 million in North America and US$84 million in other regions. It was tenth on the list of highest-grossing foreign-language films in the United States as well as the highest-grossing foreign-language film in the country in 2005. Kung Fu Hustle won numerous awards, including six Hong Kong Film Awards and five Golden Horse Awards. The film was re-released in 3D in October 2014 across Asia and America, marking the tenth anniversary of the film.

Plot.

In 1940s Shanghai, petty crooks Sing and Bone aspire to join the notorious Axe Gang under the leadership of the cold-blooded killer Brother Sum. The pair visit a rundown slum known as Pig Sty Alley to extort the residents by pretending to be Axe Gang members. Sing throws a firecracker that he claims will signal the rest of the Axe Gang, but his bluff backfires when the firecracker explodes next to a real Axe Gang underboss. Sing blames the residents for throwing the firecracker and the boss attacks them, but he is struck and killed by an unseen assailant. Gang reinforcements arrive but they are all quickly dealt with by three of the slum’s tenants: Coolie, Tailor, and Donut, who reveal they are actually kung fu masters. However, fearing the Axe Gang’s retaliation, the slum’s Landlady evicts the trio. Brother Sum captures Sing and Bone, intending to kill them for posing as gang members. However, Sing uses his exceptional lock-picking skills to free himself and Bone before they are killed by thrown axes.

The impressed Brother Sum allows them to join the gang on the condition that they kill someone. Sing laments being a failure in life. He recalls his childhood to Bone when he was tricked by a vagrant into buying a martial arts pamphlet with his meager saving because he was duped into thinking he was a natural-born kung fu master. After practising the pamphlet’s Buddhist Palm technique many times, Sing attempted to save a mute girl named Fong from bullies but was instead beaten and humiliated. Sing becomes adamant that heroes never win and resolves to be a villain. Sing and Bone return to Pig Sty Alley to kill the Landlady. However, their plan backfires as Sing is repeatedly stabbed by his and Bone’s missed knife throws. He retreats to a traffic pulpit where his body rapidly heals from his deadly injuries. The pain causes him to strike the sides of the metal pulpit, covering the surface with hand-shaped impressions. Meanwhile Brother Sum hires two Harpists that use a magical guzheng to kill their victims with sound.

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The assassins arrive at Pig Sty Alley just as the trio of kung fu masters are leaving. The Harpists kill Coolie and defeat Donut and Tailor with their magical instrument; however, they are defeated afterwards by the Landlady and her husband the Landlord, who are revealed to be kung fu masters as well. The Landlady then warns Brother Sum, who watched the fight with his adviser, to stay away from Pig Sty Alley. A frustrated Sing attempts to rob an ice cream vendor but discovers that she is actually Fong. When she recognises him and offers him a lollipop, he smashes it and leaves in shame; he also rebuffs Bone. Brother Sum offers Sing immediate gang membership if he uses his lock-picking skills to free the Beast, a legendary kung fu assassin from a Shanghai mental asylum. Sing brings the Beast back to the Axe Gang’s headquarters.

Development.

Kung Fu Hustle is a co-production of the Beijing Film Studio and Hong Kong’s Star Overseas. After the success of his 2001 film, Shaolin Soccer, Chow was approached in 2002 by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, offering to collaborate with him on a project. Chow accepted the offer, and the project eventually became Kung Fu Hustle. Kung Fu Hustle was produced with a budget of US$20 million. Chow was inspired to create the film by the martial arts films he watched as a child and by his childhood ambition to become a martial artist. A senior Hollywood executive said Chow was “forced to grind through four successive scripts” and “found it very laborious”. Chow’s first priority was to design the main location of the film, “Pigsty Alley”. Later in an interview Chow remarked that he had created the location from his childhood, basing the design on the crowded apartment complexes of Hong Kong where he had lived. The 1973 Shaw Brothers Studio film, The House of 72 Tenants, was another inspiration for Pigsty Alley. Designing the Alley began in January 2003 and took four months to complete. Many of the props and furniture in the apartments were antiques from all over China.

Casting.

Kung Fu Hustle features several prolific Hong Kong action cinema actors from the 1970s. Yuen Wah, a former student of the China Drama Academy Peking Opera School who appeared in over a hundred Hong Kong films and was a stunt double for Bruce Lee, played the Landlord of Pigsty Alley. Wah considered starring in Kung Fu Hustle to be the peak of his career. In spite of the film’s success, he worried that nowadays fewer people practice martial arts. Auditions for the role of the Landlady began in March 2003. Yuen Qiu, who did not audition, was spotted during her friend’s screen test smoking a cigarette with a sarcastic expression on her face, which won her the part. Qiu, a student of Yu Jim-yuen, sifu of the China Drama Academy, had appeared in the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun at the age of 18. After a number of other small roles, she retired from films in the 1980s.

Kung Fu Hustle was her first role in nineteen years. Qiu, in order to fulfill Chow’s vision for the role, gained weight for the role by eating midnight snacks every day. Bruce Leung, who played the Beast, was Stephen Chow’s childhood martial arts hero. Leung Siu Lung was a famous action film director and actor in the 1970s and 1980s, known as the “Third Dragon” after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. After becoming unpopular in the Taiwanese film market in the late 1980s following a visit to China, he switched to a career in business. Kung Fu Hustle was his return to the film industry after a fifteen-year hiatus. He regarded Chow as a flexible director with high standards, and was particularly impressed by the first scene involving the Beast, which had to be reshot 28 times.

Filming.

Filming took place in Shanghai from June 2003 to November 2003. Two-thirds of the time was spent shooting the fight sequences. Those scenes were initially choreographed by Sammo Hung, who quit after two months due to illness, tough outdoor conditions, interest in another project and arguments with the production crew. Hung was replaced by Yuen Woo-ping, an action choreographer with experience ranging from 1960s Hong Kong action cinema to more recent films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix. Yuen promptly accepted the offer. Yuen drew on seemingly outdated wuxia fighting styles like the Deadly Melody and Buddhist Palm. He remarked that despite the comedic nature of the film, the shooting process was a serious matter due to the tight schedule. Most of the special effects in the film, created by Hong Kong computer graphics company Centro Digital Pictures Limited, which had previously worked on films such as Shaolin Soccer,

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included a combination of computer-generated imagery and wire work. Centro Digital performed extensive tests on CGI scenes before filming started, and treatment of the preliminary shots began immediately afterwards. The CGI crew edited out wire effects and applied special effects in high resolution. Legendary martial arts mentioned in wuxia novels were depicted and exaggerated through CGI, but actual people were used for the final fight between Chow’s character and hundreds of axe-wielding gangsters. After a final calibration of colour, data of the processed scenes was sent to the US for the production of the final version. A group of six people followed the production crew throughout the shooting.

Releases.

Kung Fu Hustle premiered at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. It was later released across East Asia including China, Hong Kong and Malaysia in December 2004. The film was first shown in the US at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005, and then opened in a general release on 22 April 2005 after being shown in Los Angeles and New York for two weeks. The North American DVD release was on 8 August 2005. A Blu-ray version of the DVD was released on 12 December 2006 by Sony Pictures. A UMD version of the film was released for the PlayStation Portable. The United States DVD releases were censored, cutting a number of scenes that featured lots of blood or human excrement. A later release, called “The Kick-Axe Edition”, restored these scenes. In the United Kingdom the standard DVD was released 24 October 2005, the same day a special edition was released with collector’s items, which included playing cards, a keyring, a sweat band, and an inflatable axe. On 8 April 2007, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released a Blu-ray version.

Reception.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 90% approval rating based on 182 reviews and an average rating of 7.7/10. The site’s critical consensus reads: “Kung Fu Hustle blends special effects, martial arts, and the Looney Toons to hilarious effect.” On Metacritic, the film received a score of 78 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews.” Hong Kong director and film critic Gabriel Wong praised the film for its black comedy, special effects and nostalgia, citing the return of many retired kung fu actors from the 1970s. Film critic Roger Ebert’s description of the film (“like Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny”) was printed on the promotion posters for the film in the US. Other critics described it as a comedic version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Positive reviews generally gave credit to the elements of mo lei tau comedy present in the film. A number of reviewers viewed it as a computer-enhanced Looney Tunes punch-up. In a 2010 interview, actor Bill Murray called Kung Fu Hustle “the supreme achievement of the modern age in terms of comedy”. In 2021, American filmmaker James Gunn called it “the greatest film ever made”.

Box office.

Kung Fu Hustle opened in Hong Kong on 23 December 2004, and earned HK$4,990,000 on its opening day. It stayed at the top of the box office for the rest of 2004 and for much of early 2005, eventually grossing HK$61.27 million. Its box office tally made it the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong history, until it was beaten by You Are the Apple of My Eye in 2011. The phenomenal box office this work generated as well as the collective pleasure its local audience experienced potentially saved the Hong Kong film industry during a politically unstable time in the territory. Sony Pictures Classics opened Kung Fu Hustle in limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles on 8 April 2005 before being widely released across North America on 22 April.

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In its first week of limited release in seven cinemas, it grossed US$269,225 (US$38,461 per screen). When it was expanded to a wide release in 2,503 cinemas, the largest number of cinemas ever for a foreign language film, it made a modest US$6,749,572 (US$2,696 per screen), eventually grossing a total of US$17,108,591 in 129 days. In total, Kung Fu Hustle had a worldwide gross of US$101,104,669. While not a blockbuster, Kung Fu Hustle managed to become the highest-grossing foreign-language film in North America in 2005 and went on to generate more than US$30,000,000 in the United States home video market.

Cast:

Stephen Chow as Sing
Yuen Qiu as the Landlady of Pigsty Alley.
Yuen Wahas theLandlord of Pigsty Alley.
Leung Siu-lung as the kung fu master
Xing YuasCoolie, a Kung Fu specialist
Chiu Chi-lingas theTailor of Pigsty Alley.
Dong Zhihua as Donut, abaker in Pigsty Alley.
Lam Chi-chung as Bone
Eva Huang as Fong
Tin Kai-man as Brother Sum’s adviser.
Gar Hong-hay and Fung Hak-on as the Harpists.
Lam Suet as the Axe Gang.
Yuen Cheung-yan as the Beggar.
Feng Xiaogangas the leader of theCrocodile Gang.