Kung Fu Hustle () is a 2004 martial arts action comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Stephen Chow, who also stars in the leading role, alongside Huang Shengyi, Yuen Wah, Yuen Qiu, Danny Chan Kwok-kwan and Leung Siu-lung in prominent roles. The story revolves around a murderous neighbourhood gang, a poor village with unlikely heroes and an aspiring gangster's fierce journey to find his true self. The martial arts choreography is supervised by Yuen Woo-ping. Film scholar Christina Klein describes Kung Fu Hustle as a transnational Chinese-language film whose mode of production is closely connected to its visual and narrative style.
The film was a co-production between Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese companies, filmed in Shanghai. After the commercial success of Shaolin Soccer, its production company, Star Overseas, began to develop the film with Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia in 2002. It features a number of retired actors famous for 1970s Hong Kong action cinema and has been compared to contemporary and influential wuxia films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. The cartoon special effects in the film, accompanied by traditional Chinese music, are often cited as its most striking feature.
Kung Fu Hustle premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, 2004, and released on 23 December 2004 in China and on 25 January 2005 in the United States. The film received positive reviews and grossed US$17 million in North America and US$84 million in other regions. It was tenth on the list of highest-grossing foreign-language films in the United States as well as the highest-grossing foreign-language film in the country in 2005. Kung Fu Hustle won numerous awards, including six Hong Kong Film Awards and five Golden Horse Awards. The film was re-released in 3D in October 2014 across Asia and North America, marking the tenth anniversary of the film.
Plot In 1940s Shanghai, the Crocodile gang is easily and brutally defeated by a much more powerful gang known as the Axe Gang, led by a young killer named Brother Sum and an unnamed vice general. Only Shanghai's poorest villages and slums are not affected by the Axe gang's killings. One such slum is Pigsty Alley. Two thieves named Sing and Bone visit the village to extort the residents by pretending to be Axe gang members, though Sing and Bone are revealed to be very weak and terrible at fighting. Sing eventually attracts the attention of some real gang members and their vice general after throwing a firecracker onto the vice general's head. Just as the vice general is about to kill one of the residents, an unknown force blows him 50 feet back while also breaking his back, causing him to summon the full gang. Three of the slum's tenants: Coolie (who revealed himself to be the one who killed the vice general), Tailor, and Donut, are revealed to actually be kung fu masters, and the three of them team up to defend the slum and defeat the gang. Fearing the gang's retaliation, the slum's landlady evicts the trio after Brother Sum orders the gang's retreat.
The gang captures Sing and Bone, and Brother Sum tries to kill them for posing as gang members. However, Sing and Bone narrowly escape using their lock picking skills, impressing Brother Sum, who offers to let them join the Axe Gang, on the condition that they kill someone. Sing recalls his childhood to Bone when he was tricked by a vagrant into buying a martial arts pamphlet with his meager savings. After practicing the pamphlet's Buddhist Palm technique, Sing attempted to save a non-verbal girl named Fong from bullies, but instead he was beaten and urinated on. Sing became adamant that heroes never win, and he resolved to be a villain.
Sing and Bone return to Pigsty Alley to kill the landlady by throwing knives at her, but they fail ridiculously and Sing is stabbed several times and bitten by venomous snakes. They are chased off the premises by the landlady. Sing retreats to a traffic pulpit where his injuries mysteriously heal. Meanwhile, Brother Sum, intent on vengeance against Pigsty Alley, hires two harpists that use a magical guzheng as their weapon. On the same night, they successfully eliminate all three masters, but they are destroyed by the landlady and her husband the landlord, who reveal themselves to also be extremely skilled fighters.
The next morning, Sing attempts to rob an ice cream vendor, but discovers that she is actually Fong. When she recognizes him and offers him a lollipop, which reminds him of the day he tried to save her, he smashes it and leaves. When Sing returns to the gang's casino, Brother Sum offers him immediate gang membership if he uses his lock-picking skills to free The Beast, a legendary and extremely powerful assassin, from a mental asylum. Sing succeeds and brings The Beast back to the Axe Gang's headquarters.
Brother Sum is initially skeptical of The Beast due to his flippant attitude and sloppy appearance, but quickly changes his mind when The Beast stops a bullet in mid-air. The Beast meets the landlady and landlord at the casino next door, engaging them in a fierce fight that ends in a stalemate, despite the Beast showing much better fighting skills and clever trickery. Sing, realizing the error of his ways, attacks Brother Sum and The Beast, who angrily retaliates but accidentally unlocks the Ren and Du channels in Sing. The landlady and landlord grab the unconscious Sing and flee. The Beast kills an angry Brother Sum and takes over as leader of the Axe gang.
The landlady and landlord treat Sing at Pigsty Alley and are surprised by his quick recovery. The landlady deduces Sing is, in fact, a natural-born kung fu genius. With his new-found powers, Sing effortlessly dispatches hundreds of Axes before fighting The Beast. Sing uses the Buddhist Palm technique to neutralize the Beast, who concedes defeat.
Sing and Bone open a candy store with Fong's lollipop as their logo. Fong visits Sing at his store, and the pair hold each other's hands as they appear to be younger version of themselves. The vagrant who sold the pamphlet to Sing can be seen outside selling other pamphlets.
Cast Stephen Chow as Sing, a loser in life who joins the Axe Gang but soon finds a higher calling. He specialises in the Fut Gar Buddhist Palm technique. After the Beast beats Sing to the brink of death, Sing "resets his qi flow", releasing the natural-born kung fu master within. Danny Chan Kwok-kwan as Brother Sum, the ambitious leader of the Axe Gang. Under his leadership, the Axe Gang wipes out all the other gangs of China. Yuen Qiu as the Landlady of Pigsty Alley. She is a master of the Lama Pai Lion's Roar technique. She has a sonic scream that can pierce through anything. The character is an allusion to Xiaolongnü, one of the two "fated lovers" from the classic wuxia novel The Return of the Condor Heroes. Yuen Wah as the Landlord of Pigsty Alley. He is a master of kung fu specializing in Tai Chi. He is flexible and able to hover in midair. The character is an allusion to Yang Guo, one of the two "fated lovers" from the classic wuxia novel The Return of the Condor Heroes. Leung Siu-lung as the Beast, an old but incredibly strong kung fu master. He is rumoured to be the most dangerous person alive, though his skill is disguised by his unkempt appearance. He is a master of the Toad Style from the Kwan Lun School. He can act as a toad including super-leaps and headbutt a person with immense force. Xing Yu as Coolie, a Kung Fu specialist of the Tan Tui Twelve Kicks technique from the Tam School. He has incredibly fast legs and can sense when an opponent is approaching. Chiu Chi-ling as the Tailor of Pigsty Alley. He specialises in the Hung Ga Iron Wire Fist technique and fights with iron rings on his arms. Dong Zhihua as Donut, a baker in Pigsty Alley. He specialises in the Eight Trigram Staff. He is a master of using staves and spears in battle. Lam Chi-chung as Bone, Sing's obese, clumsy sidekick who tends to follow Sing around. Huang Shengyi as Fong, Sing's mute love interest and childhood acquaintance. Sing saved her from bullies when she was young. Tin Kai-man as Brother Sum's adviser. He takes over as the head of the Axe Gang after Brother Sum is killed by Beast. Gar Hong-hay and Fung Hak-on as the Harpists, two assassins hired by the Axe Gang who kill their victims with a magical guzheng, or "Chinese harp". Lam Suet and Liang Hsiao as high-ranking members of the Axe Gang. Yuen Cheung-yan as the Beggar, the man who sold Sing the Buddha's Palm manual. He is a fraud who tricks kids to make money for himself. Yuen is the brother of Yuen Woo-ping, the film's fight choreographer. Feng Xiaogang as the leader of the Crocodile Gang. He is killed by the Axe Gang at the start of the film. He was the last gang leader to be killed by Brother Sum.
Production
Development
Kung Fu Hustle was a co-production of the and Hong Kong's Star Overseas. After the success of his 2001 film, Shaolin Soccer, Chow was approached in 2002 by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, offering to collaborate with him on a project. Chow accepted the offer, and the project eventually became Kung Fu Hustle. Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia’s involvement also connected the film to international production and distribution strategies for Chinese-language cinema. Kung Fu Hustle was produced with a budget of US$20 million. This partnership granted Chow unprecedented production scale while requiring adaptation to Hollywood's producer-driven system - Columbia executives insisted on extensive script development, with Chow noting the process was "very laborious" as he refined four successive drafts to meet studio standards. Klein argues that the film’s production brought together Hong Kong, mainland Chinese, and Hollywood film industries, making it an example of transnational Chinese-language cinema in the 2000s.
Chow was inspired to create the film by the martial arts films he watched as a child and by his childhood ambition to become a martial artist.
Setting Chow's first priority was to design the main location of the film, "Pigsty Alley". Later in an interview Chow remarked that he had created the location from his childhood, basing the design on the crowded apartment complexes of Hong Kong where he had lived. The 1973 Shaw Brothers Studio film, The House of 72 Tenants, was another inspiration for Pigsty Alley. Designing the Alley began in January 2003 and took four months to complete. Many of the props and furniture in the apartments were antiques from all over China. Xiaoyu Chen argues that Pig Sty Alley functions as a cinematic space that connects Shanghai and Hong Kong through nostalgia, local memory, and the visual representation of a lower-class neighborhood.
Casting Kung Fu Hustle features several prolific Hong Kong action cinema actors from the 1970s. Yuen Wah, a former student of the China Drama Academy Peking Opera School who appeared in over a hundred Hong Kong films and was a stunt double for Bruce Lee, played the Landlord of Pigsty Alley. Wah considered starring in Kung Fu Hustle to be the peak of his career. In spite of the film's success, he worried that nowadays fewer people practice martial arts.
Auditions for the role of the Landlady began in March 2003. Yuen Qiu, who did not audition, was spotted during her friend's screen test smoking a cigarette with a sarcastic expression on her face, which won her the part. Qiu, a student of Yu Jim-yuen, sifu of the China Drama Academy, had appeared in the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun at the age of 18. After a number of other small roles, she retired from films in the 1980s. Kung Fu Hustle was her first role in nineteen years. Qiu, in order to fulfill Chow's vision for the role, gained weight for the role by eating midnight snacks every day.