I've been meaning to put up a review of this movie after I originally saw it during its cinema run and loved it. Watching this movie again on SBS TV the other night gave me a chance to check out whether the movie had stood up as well as I remembered. It has. For a lot of recent Hollywood movies I've reviewed here recently and given good scores to (say, 7 or more out of 10), I have had one quibble-would the movie have repeat viewing value? In the case of many Hollywood movies I liked, like, say, "Transformers" or "Iron Man" et.al., the answer would have to be "no". "Kung Fu Hustle" is thus getting full marks for me-it has 'repeat' viewing value.

Not sure if the intro to the TV version movie toned down its opening-I seem to remember the cinema release having a more gruesome scene than what I saw the other night. Or maybe it's just not as brutal as I remembered. In any case, the opening serves to illustrate the brutality of a large and villainous group of criminals known as "The Axe Gang", who terrorise even the town's police force.

Next we see two buddies, Sing (played by Stephen Chow) and Bone (played by Chi Chung Lam) who are small time scam artists trying to get financial advantage by pretending to be members of The Axe Gang. They try their scam in a part of town that refuses to be intimidated by them. Somehow, the real gang is drawn into their scam and the gang gets whipped by the residents of that part of town. The rest of the movie concerns The Axe Gang's attempts to teach these townsfolk a lesson and the choice of Sing and Bone on which group to ally themselves with.

Watching the movie again, I was reminded of how hilarious it was. There were numerous "laugh out loud" moments for me, e.g. the scene where Sing tries to act tough with the townspeople but finds all sorts of reasons not to fight them. Hilarious.

There is also a delightful romantic subplot concerning Sing and a childhood sweetheart of his as well.

This movie deconstructs/is a satire of Kung Fu clichés. In fact, whereas I found the seriousness of the unbelievable martial arts in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" too much to take seriously, the even insaner martial arts in this movie were a positive joy. It's quite cartoony at times, too. Reviews of this movie will often mention its debt to classic Warner Bros. cartoons, like "The Road Runner" etc.

91/100