Kung Fu Hustle is pretty much what you'd get if you took the most outlandish martial arts anime and turned it into a live action movie. And it is amazing! Everyone, and I mean everyone knows kung fu, the stunts and powers get crazier and crazier with each fight, the bad guys are sleek beyond believe, the good guys are humble and hardworking, the music accompanies everything perfectly and luckily the special effects can keep up with all this madness.

What really makes this film work, though, is the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a comedy at its heart, gently mocking and parodying the kung fu movies and anime series that have so clearly inspired it, yet at the same time it pays homage to them. It respects its genre and it shows. But, in the end, it's here to have some fun, which is great, because it'd be so easy for a movie such as this to be unbearable if it tried to have you buy all of its outlandishness as a straight up action.

The actors are also very talented, beautifully straddling the line of being just badass enough to be taken seriously and still lighthearted enough to garner the laughs needed. Special mention to Stephen Chow as Sing, the cowardly main character, and Qiu Yuen as the frumpy landlady that holds the whole block in terror under her dainty slipper shoe.

Kung Fu Hustle is over the top, it's ridiculous, it's loud and bombastic, it's unbelievable, it's funny and groan-inducing. And for what it is, it's absolutely perfect.