Hong Kong-made Kung Fu Hustle features Stephen Chow, who happens to be the new martial arts "it" man. The film, set in '40s Shanghai, follows Sing (Chow), an alliance-shifting street rat who is caught in a gang war between the dreaded Axe Gang and the Pigsty Alley slum.
The film offers a heavy dose of CGI-aided martial artistry and a plethora of pop culture references, but it is light on plot and character arcs. The action is above-par (though nothing we haven't seen after three Matrix movies) but it gets dull as characters break into duels or metamorphose for no apparent reason.
Critics are calling Kung Fu a mix of Tarantino and Bugs Bunny, but it seems as though Chow has made a movie from the worst elements of the two.
Though the "nothing is really what it seems" theme does prevail (innocuous musical notes turn into swords, a short guy is really just a tall guy sitting down!), Kung Fu gets caught up in its own hustle of taking on too much at once and leaving the entertainment thin.
