I was talking with a friend of mine, much more into martial arts movie than me, who didn't like Kung-Fu Hustle because of the way it went about showing the fights, and even for its goofy humor being too broad. While I could understand the latter part- everyone's got their own sense of humor (unless if someone's got none, which is dangerous)- the former puzzled me. What does someone expect, for example, after seeing the trailer? If anything, director Stephen Chow is successful most in making a decidedly non-serious martial arts movie. It almost reminds me of my youth seeing the Ninja Turtles fight- there too was martial arts, sometimes with well choreographed sequences with real martial-arts fighters fighting in the costumes. But, like that, Kung-Fu Hustle gets it right in being completely unpretentious entertainment. It's a comedy in the tradition of vaudeville and Looney Tunes, with specks of Tarantino, the Marx Brothers (yes, also vaudeville, but on a different plane), and with characters that are left to be, of course, cartoonish, but not characters that are too cruel or unlikeable either.

Take the landlady of the establishment that the bulk of the picture takes place. She's played by Wah Yuen as the ultimate bad-ass lady you don't want to mess with on the wrong beat. Namely because of her look, which is that of having been going too long at what she does to take any lip or disruption for her customers. But then when trouble comes her way, she then reveals herself as a screaming force to be reckoned with. And all the while it's done with a wink to the audience, but taken seriously in its own comic-book logic. Chow also acts in the film as well as co-writing it, as Sing, someone who wants to join up with the mob 'the Axe gang', but doesn't quite cut it- at least at first it seems. In the midst of this is a romantic sub-plot involving a girl he once knew whom he had to leave behind, and when this is rekindled it strikes up some extra ambivalence, and a little strife between him and his best friend (Bone, played as a deadpan idiot by Chi Chung Lam). This all leads up to a show-stopping finale where Sing finally has to step up to a certain gargantuan challenge against his evil opponent.

It's not necessarily a great comedy, as sometimes it starts to show how goofiness can backfire in a couple of scenes. Plus the romantic sub-plot, while very knowing of its own satirical place from kung-fu movies past, is still a little unnecessary at times. But overall it's the kind of film that I would recommend to non kung-fu movie fans; if you're expecting a work that takes its fights and stunts seriously like my friend did, look elsewhere. But if you want something that takes a grab-bag of ideas and tosses them altogether to become something original, this is the comedy to check out. It's visual effects go along with the tone of the comedy at most times, like a super-fast chase down a road by two of the characters. And even more "serious" fights like the one between the landlady and her husband against the Ax-thugs at night, still has that air of a battered, supernatural martial-arts tongue placed firmly in cheek. It is, for lack of a better critical term, a gas practically from start to finish.