Kung Fu Hustle | |
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Hong Kong film poster. |
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Directed by | Stephen Chow |
Produced by | Stephen Chow Chu Po-Chui Jeffrey Lau |
Written by | Stephen Chow Tsang Kan-Cheong Xin Huo Chan Man-Keung |
Starring | Stephen Chow Yuen Wah Yuen Qiu Chan Kwok Kuen Bruce Leung |
Music by | Raymond Wong |
Cinematography | Poon Hang-Sang |
Editing by | Angie Lam |
Distributed by | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Release date(s) | Canada: September 14, 2004 China: December 23, 2004 United States: January 23 2005 United Kingdom: June 24 2005 |
Running time | 95 min. |
Country | China Hong Kong |
Language | Cantonese Mandarin |
Budget | $20 million |
Followed by | Kung Fu Hustle 2 (2010) |
Kung Fu Hustle (Chinese: 功夫; pinyin: Gōngfu) is a 2004 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film co-written, co-produced, directed by and starring Stephen Chow. The film is a humorous parody and a homage to the wuxia genre, and contains most of the characteristics of a typical wuxia movie with exaggerations, serious situations and comic plots. Set in 1930s Shanghai, it is a tale of redemption for the central character, portrayed by Chow, a petty criminal who is trying to join the city's most powerful gang.[1]
The use of visual effects has been widely acclaimed and the cartoon style of the movie accompanied by traditional Chinese music is its most striking feature.[2][3] Although the film features the return of a number of retired 1970s actors of Hong Kong action cinema, it is in stark contrast to recent martial arts films that have made an impact in the West, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.[4]
The film was released on 23 December 2004 after two years of production and received positive reviews from critics. It went on to become the highest grossing film in the history of Hong Kong,[5] and the highest grossing foreign language film in the United States in 2005.[6]
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Kung Fu Hustle is a co-production of the Beijing Film Studio and Hong Kong's Star Overseas.[7] 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.[8] Major inspirations of the film came from the martial arts films Chow watched as a child and his childhood ambition to become a martial artist.[9]
Chow's first priority was to design the main location of the film, the Pig Sty Alley. He grew up in an environment similar to the Alley and the plot included many aspects of his daily life.[10] A 1973 Shaw Brothers Studio film, The House of 72 Tenants was another inspiration for the Pig Sty Alley.[11] Designing of 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.[12]
Kung Fu Hustle was produced with a budget of US$20 million.[13] Filming took place in Shanghai from June 2003 to November 2003.[14] Two-thirds of the time were spent shooting the fighting sequences.[9] The fighting scenes of Kung Fu Hustle were initially choreographed by Sammo Hung. Production suffered a setback when Hung quit after two months due to illness, tough outdoor conditions, interest in another project and arguments with the production crew.[15] Chow immediately contacted Yuen Woo-ping, an action choreographer with experience ranging from Hong Kong action cinema of the 1960s to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix in the early 21st century to replace Hung. Yuen swiftly accepted the offer. In doing so, certain scenes in production under Hung were cancelled.[8] Yuen managed to take seemingly outdated wuxia fighting styles like the Deadly Melody and Buddhist Palm and recreate them on the screen with his own imagination.[16]
Special effects were mainly created with a combination of computer-generated imagery and wire work.[17] Legendary martial arts mentioned in wuxia novels were depicted and exaggerated through CGI, but actual people, rather than digital effects were used to film the final fight between Chow's character and the hundreds of axe-wielding gangsters.[7] A Hong Kong computer graphics company, Centro Digital Pictures Limited was solely responsible for the CGI of Kung Fu Hustle. The company had experience in highly acclaimed films like Shaolin Soccer and Kill Bill. Their team had performed extensive tests on various scenes that could be depicted by CGI before filming started. A group of six people followed the production crew throughout the shooting. Treatment of the preliminary shots began straight afterwards. The CGI crew removed wire effects and applied special effects under high resolution. After a final calibration of colour, data of the processed scenes were sent to the United States for the production of the final version of the film.[14]
Kung Fu Hustle pays tribute to many famous veterans of Hong Kong action cinema of the 1970s. Yuen Wah, a member of the Seven Little Fortunes, plays the Landlord of the Pig Sty Alley. He has appeared in hundreds of Hong Kong films from the 1970s and was a stunt double of Bruce Lee. Yuen Wah considered the film to be the peak of his career. He remarked that despite the comedic nature of the film, the shooting process was a serious matter. With a tight schedule, there was no time for laughs. In spite of the film's success, Yuen Wah worried that nowadays fewer people practice martial arts.[18]
The part of the Landlady was offered to Yuen Qiu, another student of Yu Jim Yuen, sifu of the Seven Little Fortunes. Yuen Qiu was a girl in The Man with the Golden Gun at the age of 18.[19] Having retired from the film industry after her marriage in the 1980s, Kung Fu Hustle was her comeback. She admitted that she never expected to star in the film. When her colleague was on stage during a tryout for Kung Fu Hustle, she stood near her and smoked a cigarette with a sarcastic expression on her face. That pose earned her the part. To fulfill Stephen Chow's image of a "fat lady", Yuen Qiu deliberately gained weight before production by eating midnight snacks on a daily basis.[19]
Leung Siu Lung, who plays the Beast, is Stephen Chow's childhood martial arts hero.[10] 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. Having lost the Taiwanese film market in the late 1980s following a visit to China, he switched to doing business. Kung Fu Hustle was his return to the film industry after a 15-year hiatus. He regards 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.[20]
Besides famous martial artists, Kung Fu Hustle features legends of Chinese cinema. Two famous Chinese directors appear in the film: Zhang Yibai, who plays Inspector Chan at the beginning of the film and Feng Xiaogang, who plays the boss of the Crocodile Gang.[21]
Huang Shengyi made her debut to the film industry and played Fong, a mute ice-cream vendor. Having been asked whether she wanted to have any dialogue in the film, she decided not to speak so as to stand out only with her body gestures. She stated that it was an honour to work with experienced actors and directors and a great learning opportunity for future roles.[22]
The majority of the film's original score was composed by Raymond Wong and performed by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.[3] The score imitates traditional Chinese music in 1940s swordplay films.[23] One of Wong's works, Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained provides a stark contrast between the villainous Axe Gang and the peaceful neighbourhood of the Pig Sty Alley, depicted by a Chinese folk song, Fisherman’s Song of the East China Sea.[21] Along with Wong's compositions and various traditional Chinese songs, classical compositions are featured in the score, including excerpts from Zigeunerweisen by Pablo de Sarasate and Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian.[24] A song is sung in the background by Huang Shengyi at the end of the film. The song, "Zhi Yao Wei Ni Huo Yi Tian" (只要為你活一天) was written by Liu Jie Cheng in the 1970s. It tells of a girl's memories of a loved one, and her desire to live for him again.[25] Kung Fu Hustle was nominated for the Best Original Film Score in the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards.[26]
Asian and American versions of the soundtrack have been released. The Asian version of the soundtrack was released on 17 December 2004 by Sony Music Entertainment and has 33 tracks.[27] The American version of the soundtrack was released on 29 March 2005 by Varèse Sarabande and has 19 tracks.[28]
The 1930s Shanghai is in turmoil. Various gangs vie for power, the most feared of which is the Axe Gang, aptly named after their preferred weapons. The leader of the Axe Gang is the infamous Brother Sum. With the police powerless to stem the crime wave, people can only live in peace in poor areas which do not appeal to gangsters. An example is Pig Sty Alley, a tenement home to people of various trades, run by a lecherous landlord and his domineering wife. One day, two troublemakers, Sing and Bone, come to the alley impersonating members of the Axe Gang to command respect. Sing attracts the real gang to the scene, but the gangsters are repelled thanks to the martial arts mastery of three tenants (the Coolie, Tailor and Donut the baker).
Sing and Bone muse their failure, and Sing describes his childhood. He spent his life savings to buy a Buddhist Palm manual from a beggar with the intention of "preserving world peace". He practised his skills, but was beaten and urinated on when he tried to save a mute girl from bullies trying to steal her lollipop. Sing realises that the good guys never win and decides to become a bad person. The duo then steals ice cream from a mute female vendor and escape laughing maniacally on a tram.
Angered by his gang's defeat, Brother Sum hires the Harpists, a skilled pair of assassins who fight using a magical guqin. They strike the Pig Sty Alley at night as the Coolie, Tailor and Doughnut are getting ready to depart, having been evicted for antagonising the gang. The three are quickly overwhelmed, prompting the Landlord and his wife, also martial artists, to intervene (due to the Landlady being annoyed by the Harpists' music). Although the killers and the Axe Gang are driven off, the three evicts cannot survive either. The Coolie gets decapitated, the Tailor dies from severe stab wounds, and Donut dies from a sustained injury.
The following day, Sing mugs the mute ice cream vendor, who is revealed to be the girl Sing attempted to save in his childhood. Upset, he berates Bone, and while despairing in the gutter he is picked up by the Axe Gang and joins their ranks. Brother Sum, having earlier witnessed Sing's ability to quickly pick locks, instructs him to sneak into a mental asylum to free the Beast, the Ultimate King of Killers (終極殺人王) to kill the Landlord and Landlady.
Brother Sum is initially skeptical of the Beast because of his flippant attitude and sloppy appearance, but is ultimately convinced when he stops a bullet between his fingertips. The Beast approaches the Landlord and Landlady in Sum's casino. Landlady explains that the good cannot coexist with the bad, moving Sing and changing him for the better. The Beast, Landlord and Landlady then engage in a fierce battle. Using a giant funeral bell as a megaphone to amplify the Landlady's Lion's Roar, the couple nearly defeats the more powerful Beast, but they are outsmarted by his desperation move, resulting in the three getting stuck in mutual joint locks. Brother Sum instructs Sing to smash the Landlady's head with a table leg, but Sing hits Brother Sum, then the Beast, who angrily pulverises him. Fortunately, he is carried off by the Landlord and his wife while the Beast's back is turned. The angry Beast casually kills Brother Sum when rebuked by punching his head so hard that turns 360.
Back in the Alley, Sing, wrapped head-to-toe in bandages and treated with Chinese medicine, undergoes metamorphosis. He quickly recovers, and his potential as a Kung Fu genius is realised. He engages the Axe Gang and the Beast, dispatching the gangsters with ease. However, he is sent flying high into the air by the Beast's toad technique. Up in the sky, Sing realizes the Buddhist Palm, diving downwards with his body ablaze, holding out his palm. He creates a hand-shaped crater in the ground, defeating the Beast. He easily stops the Beast's desperation move and the Beast concedes defeat.
Some time later, Sing and Bone open a candy store that specialises in lollipops. When the mute ice cream vendor walks by, Sing goes out to meet her. The two see each other as their childhood selves, and run happily into the shop. Outside, the same beggar who sold Sing the Buddhist Palm manual offers a selection of martial arts manuals to a boy eating a lollipop.
Kung Fu Hustle makes references to a wide range of films, animated cartoons and other sources, drawing on ideas from Wuxia novels. The housing arrangement of the Pig Sty Alley is similar to that of a 1973 Hong Kong film, The House of 72 Tenants (七十二家房客). When Sing arrives at Pig Sty Alley, he shows fancy footwork with a football, then says, "You're still playing football?". This refers to his previous movie, "Shaolin Soccer". During the altercation between Sing and the hairdresser, the hairdresser states, "Even if you kill me, there will be thousands more of me!". This is a parody of a saying by Lu Hao-tung, a Chinese revolutionary in the late Qing Dynasty.[30] The scene where Sing is chased by the Landlady as he flees from the Alley is a homage to Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, characters in Looney Tunes cartoons, down to the pursuer's (the Landlady's) ill fate.[1] As Sing arrives at the door to the Beast's cell in the mental asylum, he hallucinates a large wave of blood rushing from the cell door, similar to a scene in The Shining.[31]
A major element of the plot is based on the 1982 martial arts film Ru Lai Shen Zhang (如來神掌). Sing studied the same Buddhist Palm Kung Fu style from a young age and realised it at the end of the film. In reality, it does not leave palm-shaped craters and holes on impact. Instead, the user delivers powerful punches using his palm. The Chinese name of the Beast, the Evil God of the Fiery Cloud (火雲邪神) and the fight with the Landlady and her husband are also references to the film, where a mortally wounded master strikes the patterns of his art's final techniques into a bell so that his apprentice can learn from it.[32] There are direct references to some characters from Jin Yong's wuxia novels. For example, the landlord and landlady referred to themselves as Yang Guo (楊過) and Xiao Long Nü (小龍女) from Jinyong's The Return of the Condor Heroes when they met the Beast.[33]
References to gangster films are also present. The boss of the Axe Gang, Brother Sum (琛哥) is named after Sam Han (韓琛), the triad boss in Infernal Affairs.[34] The Harpists imitate The Blues Brothers, wearing similar hats and sunglasses at all times. When they are flattered by the Axe Gang advisor, one of them answers "Strictly speaking we're just musicians", similar to a line by Elwood Blues.[35] When Donut dies, he says "in great power lies great responsibility", a clear reference to Spider-Man, said by Uncle Ben before his death.[30] Afterwards, with his dying breath, he gets up, grabs the Landlord by the shirt and utters in English, "What are you prepared to do?", a nod to Sean Connery's character Jim Malone in Brian De Palma's 1987 film The Untouchables.[36] The final fight between Sing and the hundreds of gangsters imitates the fight between Neo and hundreds of Agent Smiths in The Matrix Reloaded.[7][30].
The last scene, in which the beggar tries to sell martial arts manuals, refers directly to the greatest skills in Jin Yong's Condor Trilogy (Nine Yang Manual and Divine Finger Skill) and Smiling, Proud, Wanderer (Thousand Palm Skill and Nine Swords of Dugu).
Kung Fu Hustle had its world premiere at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. It was then released in China, Hong Kong and other countries in Asia with significant overseas Chinese populations in December 2004. The film was first shown in the United States 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 film was released to most of Europe in June 2005.[37] Kung Fu Hustle is rated IIB (not suitable for children and young persons) in Hong Kong, R in the United States for sequences of strong stylised action and violence and is rated to be viewed by people with a minimum age ranging from 13 to 18 in other countries.[38]
The North American DVD release was on 8 August 2005.[37] A Blu-Ray version of the DVD was released on 12 December 2006 by Sony Pictures.
The Portuguese title of the movie is Kungfusão, which sounds like kung fu and Confusão (confusion).[39] In the same way, the Italian and Spanish titles were Kung-fusion and Kung-fusión, puns of "confusion".[40][41] In France, the film is known as Crazy Kung Fu, and the Hungarian title is A Pofonok Földje, meaning The Land of Punches.[42][43]
The film was well-received by critics, earning the high score of 90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes based on a total of 166 reviews.[44] Film critic Roger Ebert described the film "like Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny" at the Sundance Film Festival.[45] The comment was printed on the promotion posters for Kung Fu Hustle in the United States.[46][47] Other critics described it as a comedic version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.[48] Positive reviews generally give 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.[44] Much of the criticism for the film is directed at its lack of character development and a coherent plot. Las Vegas Weekly, for instance criticised the film for the lack of a central protagonist and character depth.[49] Criticisms are also directed at the film's cartoonish and childish humour.[50] Richard Roeper gave it a negative review, saying he “never been a fan of that over the top slapstick stuff”,[51] even though he gave a positive review to Kung Fu Panda much later. Bolstering this, Kung Fu Hustle reportedly inspired the 2008 animated martial arts film Kung Fu Panda,[52] which includes Jackie Chan as the character, Master Monkey.
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$60 million. Its box office tally made it the highest grossing film in Hong Kong history, surpassing the previous record holder, Chow's Shaolin Soccer.[5]
The film began a limited two-week theatrical run in New York City and Los Angeles on 8 April 2005 before being widely released across North America on 22 April. In its first week of limited release in seven cinemas, it grossed US$269,225 (US$38,461 per screen).[53] 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.[54] While not a blockbuster, Kung Fu Hustle managed to be the highest-grossing foreign language film in North America in 2005, and it went on to find a cult following on DVD.[6]
Kung Fu Hustle received a large number of award nominations in the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards of 2005. It was nominated for 16 Hong Kong Film Awards and won 6: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Yuen Wah), Best Sound Effects, Best Visual Effects, Best Choreography and Best Film Editing.[24] In the Golden Horse Awards, Kung Fu Hustle received 10 nominations and won 5: Best Picture, Best Director (Stephen Chow), Best Supporting Actress (Yuen Qiu), Best Visual Effects and Best make-up and costume design.[55] Furthermore, the movie was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film,[7] as well as a BAFTA award for Best Film not in the English language.[56]
In 2005, Chow asserted that there will be a sequel to Kung Fu Hustle, though stated that he had not settled on a female lead. "There will be a lot of new characters in the movie. We'll need a lot of new actors. It's possible that we'll look for people abroad besides casting locals."[57] Production of Kung Fu Hustle 2 was delayed whilst Chow filmed CJ7 (formerly known as A Hope), a sci-fi adventure. As a result, Kung Fu Hustle 2 is slated for a 2010 release.[57]
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