List of characters in Kung Fu Hustle
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These are the main characters of the film Kung Fu Hustle.
Contents |
[edit] Martial artists
[edit] Sing
Sing is the protagonist of the movie, a loser in life whose ambition is to join the Axe Gang. When he was a child, a crazy man told him he was a "natural-born kung fu genius", selling him a secret manual (mìjí 秘笈) on the Buddhist Palm kung fu technique for 10 dollars, which was only worth 20 cents. Using the manual, Sing studied Buddhist Palm with no success. Having attempted to protect a mute girl from a band of bullies attempting to steal her lollipop, Sing was beaten up and urinated on. The girl offered him her lollipop, but he ran off humiliated. Since then, he has sworn to be a bad person.
Sing is indirectly responsible for the deaths of three martial artists of the Pig Sty Alley: The Coolie, Tailor and Donut the baker. Having sent the gang into the alley, the three defeated the gang, prompting revenge from the Axe Gang who sends two assassins to wipe them out. Sing eventually gets to join the Axe Gang when he mugs a mute ice-cream vendor, who reveals herself to be the girl Sing saved in his childhood. He frees the Beast, the Ultimate King of Killers, who fight the Landlord and Landlady of the Pig Sty alley. During the fight, Sing has a change of heart and helps the Landlord and his wife escape. However, he is brutally beaten up by the Beast for his treachery.
Sing has the ability to quickly recover from his wounds, no matter how serious they are. Early on, Sing got stabbed by three knives and bitten by two vipers. Having hidden in a housing structure of a traffic light for a day, he got out and met a surprised Bone, without a single scratch on him. Later in the film, he broke all his bones and tendons after being mutilated by the Beast. However, he was able to recover in a few hours with the help of bandages and medicine.
Sing may appear to be heartless and cold at first, but he displays a sense of romance towards the end of the film. When told that the mute ice-cream vendor is the girl he saved in his childhood, he sat on the pavement with his head down, ashamed of himself for mugging her. Before the final battle with the Beast, the wounded Sing is asked by the Landlord and Landlady if he had any final wishes. He then drew the lollipop on the ground, with his own blood, symbolizing his regret. At the end of the film, Sing invites the vendor into his newly opened lollipop shop and makes up with her.
Sing proceeds to defeat the Axe Gang, the remainder of which is now under the leadership of the Beast. After a relatively effortless fight, he then duels with the Beast and defeats him with his newly realized Buddhist Palm.
[edit] Landlord
At first impression, the Landlord of the Pig Sty Alley is a promiscuous and buffoonish man who loves to trick girls into kissing him and spy on women while they bathe. In spite of this, he gets along well with the residents of the Pig Sty Alley, receiving various favours from them like free congee and pastries from Donut.
In actuality, The Landlord's demeanor is an act he and his wife concieved to hide their true identities as a legendary Kung Fu couple after their son was killed in a fight. His true persona is of a courageous fighter and devoted husband. But while his wife favors explosive offense, the Landlord is a master of Taijiquan, trained to the point where he is able to deflect blows aimed directly at him away from his body, move with the lightness and grace of a falling feather, and evade most attacks anyone can bring to bear against him. During the encounter with the Harpists, the Landlord has them mostly hitting each other instead of him, despite being directly in the middle between them.
Despite that skill, he and his wife's techniques combined were no match for the Beast. Though no name was given to him in the movie, the Beast called him, "Paris" (After the Trojan Prince). In the original language and the English dub, he is known as Yang Guo. He and his wife were called the "Two Fated Lovers."
[edit] Landlady
Like her husband the Landlord, the Landlady of Pig Style Alley is actually quite gentle and kind but hides her true self and skills behind the false persona of a short-tempered, chain-smoking old woman who violently dominates both her husband and the slum residents. She practices a secret technique called the Lion's Roar (狮吼功), a roar-like yell powerful enough to shatter wood and glass, tear the plaster off walls, and lift men off the ground like ragdolls. An innocuous side-effect of her training is her ability to raise her voice loud enough to overpower a group of a hundred or so people speaking loudly in unison. She has been shown to have superhuman speed when she chased after Sing, also possessing superhuman speed.
Her powers can be compared to that of Mortal Kombat's Sindel or Black Canary's sonic scream. The Lion's Roar is also described in the Jackie Chan movie, Shaolin Wooden Men, though never demonstrated. The origin of the name "Lion's Roar" comes from ho'dong si (he dong shi 河东狮), a Chinese idiom which translates in the English language to "the lion east of the river", a slang for a dominating wife. In one of the film's more inventive fight scenes, the Landlady directs the Lion's Roar through the body of a modified large brass bell, which acts as a megaphone. The resulting shockwave generates so much force that it manages to injure and temporarily stun the Beast.
Though she was given no name, the Beast called her "Helen of Troy". In the original, she is Xiaolongnü or Little Dragon Girl; in the English dub, The Dragon's Daughter. She and her husband together were called the "Two Fated Lovers", citing a homage to Return of the Condor Heroes by the famous Wuxia novelist Jin Yong.
[edit] Donut (油炸鬼 in Traditional Chinese, Youtiao")
Donut is the person who mans the local noodle and congee shop in Pig Sty Alley. He is trained in the Eight Trigram Staff (八卦槍) martial art, including both fighting and throwing techniques. Early in the film, he threw a long baking rod (五郎八卦棍) with enough force to create an air vortex that sucked the Tommy guns right out of the gangsters' hands, even shattering them upon impact with the wall. He is quite capable of taking on groups of adversaries by himself in melee combat with any pole weapon, and his later fight-scene with the Harpists is a homage to wushu comics. He also possesses good agility, being able to jump ten or so feet into the air, and, during the friendly spar with Coolie and Tailor, manages to deflect a kick to the knee from Coolie which would result in dislocation for anyone else.
He dies from trying to forcefully recover after telling Landlady and Landlord that they cannot escape their fate and from severe concussive damage sustained during the fight with the Harpists. His last words, "What are you prepared to do?!", are almost certainly (Especially since they are in English!) a reference to the way Sean Connery's character died in The Untouchables.
[edit] Tailor
The Tailor is an effeminate man who seems cowardly and timid at first glance, but the Tailor is quite capable of handling himself in a fight. Although he appears to be an old, and fragile man, he is actually very powerful and fast for his age. He practices Hung family Iron Wire kung fu (洪家鐵線拳), and wears a long row of iron rings on his forearms when fighting that he can use to raise his power and defense. He merges them into a roughly-cylindrical form that protects his forearms and as the form obviously loses its shape as combat progresses, he has to "re-merge" them every once in a while. He is adept at punching people or hitting them with the merged rings, and has exceptional upper-body strength, able to hammer throw a heavy stone wheel thirty or more feet, and easily punching through stone walls (as seen during the fight against one of the Harpists).
He dies from injuries sustained during the fight with the Harpists, unable to combat them after their attack breaks his makeshift bracers and possibly his wrists.
[edit] Coolie (苦力 in Traditional Chinese)
Coolie is a hard-working labourer whose job at Pig Sty Alley is to carry heavy equipment to its destination. Coolie is the opposite of Tailor, using no weapons to fight, and has exceptional lower-body strength as he specializes in kicking. He practices 12 Kicks of the Tam School (十二路潭腿) and it shows. He is able to kick a heavy sack of rice from the ground and have it land across his shoulders, and during the fight later, jump high enough to kick people directly in the face. When not hitting people in the head, he prefers to kick them in the torso or legs, always with enough force to knock them down. However, he is not restricted to only using his feet. During the friendly spar with Tailor and Donut, he also used his hands to block blows from Tailor, though the Tailor was not using his full strength.
He is killed by a sneak decapitation attack from the Harpists.
[edit] Villains
[edit] The Harpists
The Harpists are a pair of hitmen hired by the Axe Gang to rid of Coolie, Donut, and Tailor. Their weapon of choice is the (immensely over-sized) Guqin-Guzheng hybrid. Although capable of melee combat, they much prefer to use their special fighting style, the Deadly Melody. They can use their qi to focus and mold the sound waves produced by the instrument into deadly forms, ranging from scimitars, to fists and even a small legion of sword-wielding undead in ancient Chinese armor. The ability is not purely offensive; it can be used to form a protective "wall" that actively blocks and forcibly repels incoming weapons. Practically with every string they play from their musical instrument, killer objects, usually invisible, would fly from it, aiming for the unfortunate target. However, most of their attacks seemed to originate out of strumming all the strings.
The first harpist appears to be the older of the two. He fights Tailor in his shop, luring him out to the courtyard where the second harpist awaits. He is better suited to unarmed close quarters combat, primarily using his long fingernails, but also uses the Guqin as a back up.
The second harpist appears younger and appears to be blind, due to his tendency to turn his face away from (and his ear toward) whatever he is focusing on, and an earlier scene in the movie when the first harpist had to assist him to his drink. But even blind, he seems to have excellent accuracy and skill with the Guqin at long range.
They are defeated by Landlord, who stands directly between them, directing their own attacks into each other. Then they are decimated, though not killed, by the Landlady with her Lion's Roar, effectively stripping them down to their underwear and forcibly hurling them into a wall. They crawl away and are not seen for the rest of the movie.
[edit] The Beast (火雲邪神 in Traditional Chinese; "The Evil God of the Fiery Cloud")
Incarcerated in a mental institution for alleged insanity, the Beast is the most powerful known martial artist alive. His appearance is no indication of his power; a disheveled old man with seemingly no physical fitness whatsoever, wearing a wifebeater, boxer shorts and flip-flops and suffering from a receding hairline. However, the man is deserving of his title; he catches bullets fired at point-blank with ease, leaps with enough force to crack the floor upon landing, drives kicks to the ground with enough power to create shockwaves that demolish walls, knocks holes in walls just by brushing against them with his fists or feet, and can survive damage that would kill anyone else.
The Beast possesses stupendous fortitude, able to take large amounts of damage. He responds to direct strikes and kicks to his head from the Landlady and Landlord with a mere chuckle, imploring them to use more force. His personal belief is that whoever is the fastest opponent will dominate, and he lives by that doctrine. His powerful counterattacks take only milliseconds to execute (they occur rapidly even when the film is playing in slow motion), and in the span of time it would take for a typical man to drive a single punch, he could perform a hundred or more.
His special attack is Kunlun Toad Kung-fu, a skill that allows him to emulate a toad (the Hamo style 蛤蟆功 is a well known fictional kung fu style mentioned in Jinyong's wuxia novels, this movie simply uses special effects to provide the visuals for it). Assuming the four-legged stance of a toad, his thighs increase noticeably in size which tears his trousers, and he can simulate the inflatable throat of the said animal with sufficient force to cause gusts in the local area. He is then able to leap and smash through concrete walls with ease, and headbutt people a mile or so into the sky.
His qi reserves seem to rival Sing's as his manifested energy is strong enough to warp the clouds above the mental institution into sinister spiral shapes. The only reason he hasn't broken out of the institution himself, he claims, is that he would do so only if he knew of someone outside that had a chance of winning in a fight against him. However, despite stating that he wishes to fight a challenge strong enough to beat him, he often does not act the part, and, upon defeat, he fakes conceding defeat, and then uses carrying spikes and lotus-shaped stabbing weapons bearing needles as last-resort weapons.
However, he is not totally "evil" or beyond redemption. At the end, when Sing aims his attack and demolishes a large section of Pig Sty Alley and not the Beast, the Beast finally calms down and asks Sing what skill he had just used. When Sing offers to be his teacher, he breaks down into tears (reacting to the mercy and forgiveness Sing had shown even after all the prior heavy fighting), kneels before Sing and acknowledges him as the greater of the two.
