Kung Fu Hustle

Though one of Hong Kong's biggest stars for much of the 1990s, the fact that Stephen Chow specialised in a somewhat unexportable form of nonsense comedy, Mo Lei Tau, reliant on Cantonese wordplay, inhibited his ability to breakthrough into English-speaking markets until fairly recently.

Then Miramax – who else – picked up his CGI-heavy kung-fu sports comedy Shaolin Soccer and retooled it for US audiences – although it was probably already the most accessible of Chow's films, with the possiblity of crossover perhaps somewhat in the filmmaker's mind as he was making it – and scored a minor hit.

Someone at Columbia obviously took note, co-funding Chow's latest film, a CGI-heavy kung-fu gangster comedy set against the backdrop of 1930s Shanghai.

Chow plays Sing. Ever since he had his ass handed to him on a plate after trying to be a noble kung-fu hero standing up for the weak and defenceless as a kid, he's decided that the only way to get on in this world is to be a badass. Thing is that, other than some mean lockpicking skills, he's really not terribly good at being bad.

One day Sing and his sidekick go into Pig Sty, a part of town so poor that no-one has ever bothered it before, posing as members of the feared Axe Gang.

Their con is quickly found out, but not before the real Axe gang has gotten involved. A fight breaks out, whereupon three of the Pig Sty residents reveal themselves to be martial arts masters – of the octagon staff, iron fist and 12 kicks schools respectively – and promptly beat the snot out of the Axe gang's hatchet men.

Face lost, the Axe gang leader calls in a couple of mystical zheng-playing assassins to dispose of the three masters. They're not the best – they speak in hushed tones of the mysterious The Beast, whose devotion to his kung-fu was such that he went insane – but they should be good enough. Feeling that Sing's lock picking stills could come in useful some day he also grants the troublemaker a reprieve.

A ferocious battle ensues, the assassins succeeding in their task but themselves being slain when owners of Pig Sty – a middle aged lothario and his buxom wife – reveal themselves to be even more powerful martial artists who had withdrawn from that world following the death of their only son…

Taking things to the next level, the Axe gang leader then hatches a plan to break The Beast out of hospital in the hope that he will prove able to defeat the rulers of Pig Sty. And who better to do the job than Sing, still smarting from his last embarrassment and eager for the chance to prove his worth…

Let's get the negative out of the way first: fans of old school down-and-dirty martial arts or authentic realism in the manner of a Lau Kar Leung won't like the wire-assisted, CGI-enhanced spectacle on display here.

That, however, is really the only criticism for a film that is geared simply, straightforwardly and, above all, honestly to providing absolute entertainment.

This has always been the major virtues of Hong Kong cinema's crowd-pleasers, who know that there's no point in making a film, however great and virtuous it may be in other terms, if it doesn't find an audience.

Yes, you could pick on the threadbare narrative, little more than a way of stringing together the sketches and set pieces. However, insofar as this is a comedy, that's all that's actually required. Moreover, Kung Fu Hustle is a damn sight more coherent and of a piece than the scattershot approach favoured by, say, the Wayans Brothers in the Scary Movie series or – probably more relevant in this instance – the old Aces Go Places and Lucky Stars series from Hong Kong's Cinema City studio in the 1980s.

In any case, Chow hasn't neglected to acknowledge the weight of history, in so far as his narrative and structure are in fact reminiscent of countless 60s, 70s and 80s episodic classics. Rather, he's bringing it all bang up to date.

Yuen Wo Ping, responsible for Jackie Chan's breakthrough films in the late 1970s and latterly with making various otherwise hopeless gweilos look good in The Matrix and its flo-mo ilk, is his action director, with all that entails in terms of quality.

If this wasn't enough, Sammo Hung, Chan's "big brother" and arguably the most underappreciated hyphenate talent to ever work in the Hong Kong industry – assuming producer-director-writer-star Chow gets the recognition he deserves here – is also on board.

Likewise along the way you notice countless allusions to their films and others of Hong Kong's late 70s-early 90s golden age – the "dai gor" of the heroic bloodshed cycle; the secret techniques, masters of death, noble "sifu's" and occult volumes of the Shaolin cycle; or the loving recreation of 1930s Shanghai reminiscent of Chan's Miracles. (The presence of bells meanwhile not only alludes to Chan's Frank Capra model here, Lady for a Day, but also the campanilismo of the spaghetti western, whose rhetoric of dramatic close-ups and grotesque physiognomies Chow also makes great use of as another way of showing his directorial chops.)

Yet, again, the viewer who is not familiar with all this cinematic and cultural background – or who doesn't recognise old, familiar faces such as Chan and Hung's classmate Yuen Wah among the cast – can undoubtedly enjoy Kung Fu Hustle, with Chow also throwing in nods to a variety of western films including The Shining and Gangs of New York; the latter hammering home the point, as the great French critic Andre Bazin recognised all those years ago, that the figure of the man (trying to) living by a code of honour is truly universal, whether he be a western gunfighter, "heroic bloodshed" gangster, wu xia chivalrous knight or wandering samurai.

No, Kung Fu Hustle is not Hero or House of the Flying Daggers. But, taken in its own terms, it's every bit as significant an achievement. Rather, it's a difference in styles, in so far as Zhang Yimou kicks high and Chow low. Both, however, connect with their targets with equally devastating impact.