Perhaps the best thing about Kung Fu Hustle is how self-aware it is. The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions may have had some very cool chop-socky fights, but the directors took it all so seriously it took a lot of the fun out of it for me. Kung Fu Hustle realizes how inherently silly it is and doesn't try to hide it. It revels in it.

In the film's hierarchy of gangs, the Axe Gang reign supreme. In the film's opening the leader beats a man to death and shoots a woman in the back with a shotgun. This is followed by axe dancing. The only people spared their choreographed doom are those who live in deep poverty. So Sing (Stephen Chow) and his partner decide to masquerade as Axe Gang members and extort some money from such a place. They are surprised to find out that three kung fu gurus live amongst the district's tenants.

It's a good rule of thumb that if you're going to spend a bunch of money on CGI that you might as well have fun with it. Kung Fu Hustle takes this to heart. One guy uses steel rings on his hand along with two other guys to beat up a legion of Axe Gang members. In another scene, Sing is chased by the landlady (Qui Yuen) with those little speed blurs that always followed the Roadrunner. And most memorably, the landlady catches her husband (Wah Yuen) with lipstick on his cheek and throws him out of a building. He falls down hitting a number of things on the way and when he hits ground a flowerpot falls on his head.

I'm going to take this minute to praise Stephen Chow because he stars in the film he directed yet avoids the pitfall of self-indulgence. Instead of making his character unbelievably witty and with an unattainable love interest (something Woody Allen can't seem to stop doing), he plays a pathetic and intensely despicable character up until about the last fifteen minutes. Actually, scratch that. He does have a love interest but she has so little screen time she's barely worth mentioning.

The oddest character though has to be the Beast (Siu Lung Leung). About halfway in the movie Sing is accepted as a member of the Axe Gang. The Axe Gang leader needs someone to get the Beast and Sing is the only person desperate enough to do it. You see, the Beast was so obsessed with kung fu he went crazy. And it's up to Sing to free him. I'm not going spoil the moment, but let's just say that he's hardly the image of terror and bloodlust Sing expected.

Kung Fu Hustle has such an infectious tone that it helps to cancel out some of its flaws. For example, just about everyone's personality changes immensely in the final few moments. And I'm even willing to forget the handful of gross-out humor moments. Because Kung Fu Hustle is a joyful film, and it's rare I ever see that these days.