KUNG FU HUSTLE AND STEPHEN CHOW
By Julie Peterson
Austin Film Society Programming Apprentice
Born Chow Sing-Chi in Hong Kong on June 22, 1962, Stephen Chow grew up the only boy of the family, with three sisters. He spent his young years impoverished living in crowded apartment complexes in Hong Kong, which inspired the design for the Pig Sty Alley featured in Kung Fu Hustle. Chow’s first motivation to delve into cinema came at a young age after watching Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury in the theater. The artful fighting choreography along with the powerful language of the film left a strong impression on him, and he still remembers how his heart swelled with excitement and pride when the audience gave a standing ovation as the credits rolled. Chow says “that feeling of pride is something [he’s] never forgotten, and [he wants] to recreate that for [his] audience through [his films]” (Hwang).
Along with cinema, Chow’s passion for kung fu began as a child. Since his parents couldn’t afford lessons, Chow had to learn by watching television, reminiscent of his character in Kung Fu Hustle who first encounters kung fu training in a faked Buddhist Palm manual. Chow often incorporates aspects of kung fu within his films. He loves the sacrificial spirit of tradition Chinese martial arts that means “you are willing to give up your life for love, justice, friendship, for your family and for your country,” and he finds this fantastical element perfect for the big screen as “it is always attractive and always romantic” (Hwang).
Chow’s entrance into the world of cinema began with a whimper. After graduating high school in 1982, he auditioned for a TVB acting school and was rejected. However, using friend connections, he secured admission to night classes. The following year, he graduated from the acting school and found himself the host of a children’s television program, Space Shuttle 430. Having no great fondness for children, and having always dreamed of becoming either a kung fu master or a professional thespian, this was a slight slap in the face. But Chow didn’t let this fate undo him. While offering no real opportunity for outstanding performances, Chow used his role over the next five years as an outlet to further develop his brand of mo lei tau (nonsense) comedy, which includes puns, double entendre and jokes. His style of comedy helped him gain popularity throughout Hong Kong, and after a handful of TV roles, he finally achieved his first movie role, in the 1988 film Final Justice. After making his break, Chow began to appear in over a dozen films a year. By 1994, he was also writing and directing some of his own films. He was soon a well-known icon within Hong Kong; however, he still had very little fame outside of the local market. This would all change in 2001, when he directed and starred in Shaolin Soccer. This film became the highest grossing domestic movie in Hong Kong to date and quickly launched him to international fame. In 2004, Stephen Chow felt even more international success with Kung Fu Hustle.
KUNG FU HUSTLE
Kung Fu Hustle’s international success makes it a perfect addition to our Global Comedy Series as it shows how true comedy can translate across diverse languages and cultures. With an estimated production budget of $20 million, it has grossed $100 million worldwide ($17 million in the United States), and has been awarded Best Picture and Director at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Festival (2005), Best Picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards (2005), and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film (2006). Such success shows that a popular Hong Kong artist can transition from the local Asian market to a global one.
But how was this achieved? It may come as no surprise that Kung Fu Hustle’s international appeal was no fortunate accident, but instead, a deliberate attempt of Chow’s to target a global market. To do so, Chow downplays the verbal humor and wordplay his previous films highly rely on. For, while it’s this nonsense comedy that initially gained him his local audience, it limited his western impact as many of the jokes rely on an intricate understanding of the Chinese language and culture. Instead, he focuses on visual elements to attract a diverse audience. With enhanced CGI, wire flying, superb cinematography and detailed choreography, Kung Fu Hustle indeed excels at keeping us visually stimulated.
However, this is no Hero or The House of Flying Daggers. From the first scene, our understanding of the kung fu genre becomes unraveled. The film opens on a Detective Chan sitting behind his desk in his office. The mise en scene gives the illusion that a film noir story is in the works. However, a scream permeates the air, and the next cut shows a body smashing into a wall and falling to the ground. A guy with a cowboy hat and cowboy boots enters the scene. The room now feels more like a saloon than an office. “Anyone else?” he asks. The next shot takes us out onto a dirt road where suddenly hundreds of men in black pinstriped suits appear out of nowhere. The cowboy is hacked with an axe. It’s now time for the axe gang to take a dance break. What is going on? One second we’re set up for a detective story, the next a western, then a gangster film, and before we know it we’re watching a musical. And wasn’t the title Kung Fu Hustle? It’s a funny scene, though the first time through, I’m not entirely sure when to laugh. Something absurdly genius is unfolding, but where this will lead us, we know not what to expect.
HONG KONG ALLUSIONS
Kung Fu Hustle self consciously re-envisions the martial arts genre in many ways. Firstly, the film makes us aware of the genre’s past influences. Doing so, Stephen Chow respectfully pays tribute to past Hong Kong cinema by including aspects from both the kung-fu and wuxia genres. “Kung-fu” typically refers to films in which fighters bear no weapons and became popular in the 1970’s with Bruce Lee films. Wuxia films, on the other hand, tend to emphasize armament. Kung-fu influences from films such as The Heroic Ones, and The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter make their presence known from the first fight in Pig Sty Alley which is a hardcore hand-to-hand combat. The film also references a wide range of wuxia works from The Buddhist Palm and Six Finger Lyre Demon films to Ni Kuang’s novels. Allusions to old Hong Kong films include the cast which is made up of past stars from the 60’s and 70’s kung-fu and wuxia films. Veteran martial arts stars include Dong Zhi Hua, Leung Siu Lung, Chiu Chi Ling, Yuen Wah and Yuen Qui. In his article ‘The Politics of Historiography in Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle’, Szeto states “these allusions are not mere coincidence or empty pastiche, but instead have an agenda – to call attention to how the implementation of global power, capital and transnational visibility have worked to marginalize local cultures and history, in this case that of Hong Kong martial arts cinema.”
CHARACTER PARODIES
However, there is also an agenda of a less grave and serious nature at work: The agenda of hilarity. Along with revering martial art films, Chow also mocks and parodies them. One parody includes mocking the stereotypical heroes often found in these films. These heroes typically embody hegemonic masculinity and are physically fit and attractive, with the perfect examples being Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. However, Pig Sty Alley houses heroes far removed from these stereotypes and includes the local cook, an effeminate tailor, a middle-aged woman, and a coolie. When asked about his characters, Chow responded that “the Chinese are notorious for the strictness of their class divisions, and [he tries] to comment on that a little bit by making the poor, the weak, the stupid, actually the heroes: the strong, the kung fu masters, the ones who are actually the backbone of society” (Chaw).
In modern films, we can look at The House of Flying Daggers or Kill Bill to get a sense of the heroine typically presented in a martial arts film. Both films utilize an idealized female who serves as both female warrior and object of sexual desire played by Ziyi Zhang and Uma Thurman respectively. Kung Fu Hustle takes this idealized female and turns it on its head by offering our female warrior in the form of the middle-aged, overweight Land Lady. The Land Lady first appears on screen in a dumpy nightgown with curlers in her hair and a cigarette drooping from her mouth. She enters the scene ranting and raving to the tenants about paying rent. In the next scene, she beats up her husband and throws him out the second story window. Overpowered by his wife, the landlord fits the role of the hegemonic masculine hero as well as his wife embodies the object of sexual desire. However, throughout the film, these characters reveal themselves to be kung-fu masters and become the heroes of the story.
These satirical characterizations provide a high level of entertainment, and “may also comment upon and reformulate martial arts films by problematizing heteronormative narrative conventions, including myths of gender and sexuality in a patriarchal culture” (Szeto). However, Chow carefully notes that “he never goes into a film intending on making any kid of social statement. The gay guy, the old lady – the main purpose of all those characters is to mine them for broad humour and then to undermine those stereotypes for another, different kind of punch line later on down the line. It isn’t a commentary on a particular society so much as an observation of human nature” (Chaw). Social statement or not, the unconventional characters strongly reinforce our notions that Kung Fu Hustle is not your typical martial arts film.
HOLLYWOOD INFLUENCES
While looking at the kung-fu and wuxia allusions, I began to ask myself, what about those of us not familiar with Hong Kong martial arts films and past stars? How does this film keep up the comic affect when these allusions are lost on the viewer? I, myself, knew little about wuxia films and the old kung fu stars upon first viewing the film, but I still found myself rolling with laughter. The film continues to work for us because Chow has a global audience in mind and makes a point not to ignore the wants of his US viewers. Along with Hong Kong references, Kung Fu Hustle is full of Hollywood allusions and parodies.
Many of these references provide a response to Hollywood’s appropriation of martial arts traditions in films such as The Matrix and Kill Bill both in terms of technical styles as well as popular themes such as revenge and salvation. In Kung Fu Hustle, Chow worked with the fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping who also choreographed the fights in The Matrix. The use of CGI and special effects mixed with real fistfights and wire-work creates a unique blend of fighting styles that balance the different tastes of Eastern and Western audiences. In trying to find this balance, Chow comments that he has found “western audiences like the Matrix style of special effects, but cannot accept the wire work of people flying in the sky, so [he uses] real fist fights mixed with the computer CG effects to create something very different. With so many different styles [he] had to be very careful in running it fluently and smoothly so [he] wouldn’t confuse the audience” (Hwang). The box office record speaks for itself; confusion was not an issue.
Along with martial arts style, Chow also uses elements and references from Hollywood films based on pure nostalgia and adoration. For example, Kung Fu Hustle makes use of The Roadrunner cartoon style of running during The Land Lady and Sing’s chase scene. A reference to The Shining appears when Sing imagines floods of blood gushing through the hallways. A poster for Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s Top Hat hangs on the building where Sang meets his childhood love. Stephen Chow grew up on Hollywood movies and insists “he wants to take them and incorporate them to demonstrate how important those films were to him, how much he loved them. And he feels his willingness to incorporate so many western elements in his films will, in a way, humanize his own films for American audiences” (Chaw).
STEPHEN CHOW”S FILM PERSONA
One recurring criticism of Kung Fu Hustle has been the lack of character development in Chow’s character, Sing. In the final scenes, he undergoes a remarkable transformation for no believable reason and with little motivation. This out-of-nowhere ending leaves some critics distraught. I, myself was quite taken aback upon my first viewing. However, after days of becoming intimately familiar with Vulcan’s Stephen Chow selection (located under the Hong Kong section at the right hand side of the North location), I began to see how Chow’s film persona, firmly established throughout his array of comedies, makes such an ending not only plausible, but inevitable. Chow uses the underdog or rags-to-riches story to portray his characters. He typically plays somewhat of an asshole whose wacky facial expressions and naïve boyish charisma inevitably endear him to us. In the end, despite his conceit, we always want him to succeed and get the girl. And he always does. To get an idea of Chow’s array of characters, I would highly recommend the following.
In From Beijing With Love (1994), Chow plays a Chinese James Bond who is working as a butcher when the service asks him back to solve the case of a stolen dinosaur skull. Unlike Bond, Chow’s naivety with dangerous women makes him seem more of a Chinese Inspector Gadget, and instead of guns, Chow relies on his butcher knife to save the day. Full of murder, intrigue, and slapstick galore, this is a must see Chow film.
The God of Cookery (1996 ) shows a darker side of Chow. He plays an arrogant overachiever whose title of top chef is revoked when he’s revealed to be a fraud and conman. Having to start once more from the bottom, Chow miraculously discovers his latent kung fu abilities which help him develop his cooking skills and regain his title.
Shaolin Soccer (2001) tells the story of a Shaolin kung-fu practitioner, played by Chow, who is trying to find a way to make the world interested in kung-fu. Wanting to show the practical side of the forgotten art, Chow gets his kung-fu brothers to take up the art they have all put aside and form a kick ass soccer team.
These former films show enough struggle and perseverance that by the time Kung Fu Hustle arrives, Chow no longer has to prove himself an endearing underdog. His other films do it for him. In first appearance in Kung Fu Hustle, Chow shows his skills with a soccer ball and then smashes it saying, “No more soccer.” Referencing Shaolin Soccer shows that Chow is highly aware of his persona, and while he is no longer playing soccer, he is still the fool we have come to love. He will still persevere in the end.
THE FUTURE OF CHOW
A main concern of Stephen Chow fans in Hong Kong is that he, like so many before him, will pack up and leave for Hollywood. However, Chow continues to insist this is not a concern, for he will not sell out and compromise his creative vision. Chow cares greatly about the future of Hong Kong cinema which is currently in a fragile state. He explains that “when Hong Kong suddenly had such a massive export of talent, it just collapsed the infrastructure that had taken so long to build up. [Chow tries], very consciously, to cast young talent, to hire young crews to try to rebuild from within—but it’s been a long, uphill climb” (Chaw). With regards to Hollywood, Chow emphatically explains “Kung Fu Hustle was co-financed by an American company, but it’s a Hong Kong film through and through. [He] used all [his] own people, [he] had no interference from any outside source, and its success is testament to Hong Kong talent as viable talent” (Chaw).
Focusing on global appeal, Stephen Chow has this to say:
“Once I decide to make a film, it is always my ambition to go international. I am from Hong Kong, whose population is only 7 million, and that is not enough for us to stay alive on. "Kung Fu Hustle" was a record breaking film in Hong Kong but earned about $8 million U.S.. This was the record in history, a hit! So you have to go wider and broader. That's why the Hollywood films can spend $80 million for their production budgets, because they have a worldwide market. Why can't Hong Kong films do the same thing? Because they are local. So that is the only way to make progress. This is always my goal - to go wider; but how? I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I am still thinking and I am still learning. With ‘Kung Fu Hustle,’ I want to reach all sides - the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Someday it will happen, but I am still trying and learning.” (Hwang)
Stephen Chow is currently working on a sequel to Kung Fu Hustle set to be released in 2010.
Sources
Chaw, Walter. “Last of the Finest .” Film Freak Central. April 10, 2005.
Hwang, Ange. “An Interview Sidebar with Stephen Chow .” BBC Movies.
"Kung Fu Hustle ." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 5 Jun 2008, 19:37 UTC.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 10 Jun 2008
"Stephen Chow ." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 8 Jun 2008, 00:12 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 10 Jun 2008 .
Szeto, Kin-Yan. “The Politics of Historiography in Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle .” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media.
Walsh, Bryan. “Stephen Chow .” Time Magazine.
