Kung Fu Hustle

My brother, his best friend and I went to see Kung Fu Hustle today. It looked interesting in the previews but I was really not sure what to expect. Generally when the critics like something I pretty much hate it. There have been exceptions, but not many.
The opening was pretty funny but it was clearly a reference to another movie. I have been trying to remember the scene...oddly, the one that comes to mind is from the Keystone Cops. I would say that was ridiculous...except portions of this movie definitely bore more than a faint resemblance to the Keystones. Weird.
The Axe Gang dance scene was hilarious. Evil gangsters doing heavily stylized and carefully choreographed musical style dances on a parquet floor...it both established the codes for bad guys (sharp suits, bad teeth, and goatees) and created a presence for the movie.
It was when the primary scene was presented that my jaw hit the floor, however. I am a fan of much of D.W. Griffiths work, Birth of a Nation not withstanding. It was obvious he had an influence on this, as well. His movie Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) was echoed throughout this movie.
The name of the slum nobody cared about shifted from Pig Alley to Pig Sty Alley...but some scenes were so exact I was stunned. The Bronx v some unnamed China location...and the line-up of the barrels, the movement through doors, it was a clear reference. So was the plot of redemption.
However, as both Kenneth and Kevin pointed out, many of the fight scenes clearly referenced the Warner Brothers cartoons from the Golden Age also. He showed no fear whatsoever about mixing it up.
Several interesting bits of by-play occurred. One of the primary ones was the beginning of a thoughtful and potentially very cool bit of social commentary when the man and woman who turned out to be key heroes referred to one man as a coolie. The references were clear. They were comparing him to a peasant, a serf, and a slave, a man with no potential.
He later save the lives of a woman and child and inspires the village to resist through the efforts of two other secretly powerful men living in the village. Two of the three look meek and timid. One of them is repeatedly referred to as a "fairy" to which he responds by mincing and prancing in red underwear.
The man and woman are the abusive landlords. They abuse their tenants unmercifully, call them coolies and the women much worse, the wife beating the husband is a running joke...and at the end they prove to be heroes just as the baker is a master fighter who gives his life in sacrifice for the tailor...who also dies.
Even the primary hero, the one who turns out to be The One, masquerades as a clueless wannabe crook for most of the movie. He is abusive to his friend and to random people. At one point he even destroys the symbol of his once pure outlook.
Ultimately then the over-riding outlook of this movie is about appearances. Nobody is what they appear to be. The police hide their plot to kill the first crime boss under a veneer of fear. The gang leader hides his coldness under style and an appearance of class. The hero is hidden by petty theft and harassment. Other heroes are hidden as slaves willingly taking abuse or as domestic violence pariticipants and tyrants.
I don't want to spoil too much of the movie for those who have not seen it but it is something to watch for when you do. Watch the backgrounds. Watch the interplay of shadow and light, who the camera focuses on, when, and why. Then examine the excuses for doing nothing while evil attacks the innocent.
Although the movie was marketed as light hearted fun a careful reading shows it was actually much, much more.