Kung Fu Hustle

Personally, I really enjoyed the film Kung Fu Hustle. It's the only film that we've watched in class that I've actually seen several times before. However, I think that watching it the class, I looked at things from a different perspective than I normally would just watching it normally. I noticed some of the references that I hadn't thought of before and I think it made the movie funnier to me in that way.

Probably the one connection that was mentioned that I hadn't looked at but really made sense, was that this was like a Kung Fu movie combined with Looney Tunes. Originally, I saw parts like the high speed chase down the road as corny and over the top. However, looking at it as a cultural reference, it actually gave it some meaning and I found it more entertaining. Some of the other over the top, goofy special effects I looked at similarly and it began to make the movie as a whole a lot more meaningful from a cultural standpoint.

One of the things I've always noticed about this film though, is how far is strays from your traditional Kung Fu film. I've seen some older Kung Fu movies like ones starring Bruce Lee and you can't even compare them to this. The morals of this film are very grim and violent whereas with traditional films people would fight honorably (except sometimes for the main villain) and shows a moral code. One of the visual shocks in Kung Fu Hustle that show the lack of the code is when the leader of the axe gang shoots the woman in the back. It's such a blunt disregard for a sense of decency, but in a way, I think that is what helps to drive the plot.

Though a lot of the effects and ideas push Kung Fu Hustle away from traditional Kung Fu films, they're what make it more accessible to a more western audience. When people don't hold traditional ties to martial arts, they aren't as connected to when the film starts to bend the rules a little. I think this is where the success of this film lies. In a way, it's an exploitation Kung Fu film but not in a way that it exploits traditional martial arts. I think that it exploits the fact that it isn't traditional and it draws a much more varied crowd to the audience.