1346 Kung Fu Hustle

[domino harvey]

Martial-arts mayhem meets Looney Tunes invention in this outlandishly entertaining extravaganza from Hong Kong comedy legend Stephen Chow. He brings his everyman magnetism to the role of Sing, a wastrel wannabe gangster in prerevolutionary Shanghai, whose destiny is revealed after he becomes embroiled in a war between an axe-wielding gang and the eccentric residents of a tenement complex, who turn out to be formidable adversaries. Soft-shoe-shuffling mobsters, a panoply of martial-arts icons, and a climactic battle that ascends to the heavens: Chow and legendary action choreographer Yuen Wo-ping throw all this and more into a showstopper that was a resounding success both in Hong Kong and internationally.
FILM INFO

Hong Kong, China
2004
99 minutes
Color
2.39:1
Cantonese, Mandarin
Spine #1346

New 4K digital restoration of the director’s cut, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Audio commentary featuring director-coscreenwriter-actor Stephen Chow and actors Danny Chan Kwok-kwan, Lam Tze-chung, and Tin Kai-man
New audio commentary featuring Griffin Newman and David Sims, hosts of the podcast Blank Check
New interview with film curator La Frances Hui
Making-of documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew members
Interview with Chow conducted by author Ric Meyers
Featurettes on the film’s fight choreography, production design, and costume design
Outtakes, bloopers, and deleted scenes
Film-to-storyboard comparison
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by comedian and writer Demi Adejuyigbe

[domino harvey]

Well we all saw this one coming

[midnitedave]

My face when I saw this thread!

[Finch]

Thrilled with this announcement! Wasn't expecting Sony to let this go.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Well, this is a surprise. A venue here screened this on DCP just last month, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a new master (and they normally would've advertised it as such if it were).

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

If Sony can give us one of their 10/10 sports movies, I better be seeing Lagaan in the collection by the end of the year.

[dwk]

Frank Djeng has confirmed he did the new subs for this.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

I actually watched a few clips of this online a few weeks ago after watching Chow's most recent abysmal feature, Kung Fu Soccer. Kung Fu Hustle luckily remained as every bit funny and visually dynamic in comparison to the bland AI visuals and half formed gags of his new film. Really one of the biggest drops in quality from a director in recent memory.

[denti alligator]

Fun film. Happy to upgrade my Blu-ray.

[Zot!]

I actually watched a few clips of this online a few weeks ago after watching Chow's most recent abysmal feature, Kung Fu Soccer. Kung Fu Hustle luckily remained as every bit funny and visually dynamic in comparison to the bland AI visuals and half formed gags of his new film. Really one of the biggest drops in quality from a director in recent memory.

I was thinking that Shaolin Soccer was like 20 years ago….after looking I realize he made a sequel.

[tenia]

A sequel that looks to be absolute garbage.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Shaolin Soccer has always struck me as unamenable to a sequel—it's a great concept, but how many ways are there to show a soccer ball being launched into the upper atmosphere, or whatever?—but even with those expectations it's a bad movie. Rewatching Kung Fu Hustle last month really drove home for me how much Chow's movies have lost since he stopped acting: his performances always had a measured and even dignified quality that lent the films a certain grounding no matter how over the top everything else became, but he's apparently incapable of getting that out of other actors and his movies now are just one-note and wearying. The lead actress in Kung Fu Soccer claims she modeled her performance on Chow, which implies that she either didn't bother to share this with her director or that Chow himself has no idea how he actually came across onscreen, since I don't recall him leaning so heavily on bug-eyed mugging and pointless yelling motivated only by the theory that loud = funny. The one thing I liked was the basic conceit of making the protagonists of the sequel essentially the villains from the first (i.e. a bunch of arrogant jerks who have risen to the top by simply kicking the mortal shit out of the other teams), but the idea doesn't really go anywhere.

[Mr Sausage]

Being shocked at a catastrophic decline in artistic quality is pretty much the norm for anyone continuing to follow the careers of the old Hong Kong masters.

At least Yuen Woo-Ping’s recent film was very entertaining. Watch that instead.

[zedz]

I thought Kung-Fu Hustle was catastrophically bad at the time, so I guess I was ahead of the curve!

[andyli]

I wonder if this 4K HDR/DV master is a genuine 4K rebuild (probably not judging by the caps). Not sure about Criterion's decision to have this on UHD, but I guess its fanbase won't mind shelling out some extra dollars to own it in the best format. Anyways, the original 2K DI was lackluster due to its time of production and the old encode for global Blu-ray releases was done in MPEG-2.

[domino harvey]

I thought Kung-Fu Hustle was catastrophically bad at the time, so I guess I was ahead of the curve!

Yeah, based on my memories from when this came out, this is not my cup of wackilly tossed tea either. But I have seen this film mentioned a lot in the wild, it’s def another “foreign” film with a surprising amount of current cultural cachet and I’m sure it will be a huge seller for Criterion

[hearthesilence]

This film's not for me either (and I also saw it when it came out), but it has its charms.

[andyli]

The story is the same old Stephen Chow arc of piece-of-shit protagonist growing into powerful man, but with a wuxia bent. A lot of people regarded this film as his late-stage masterpiece. The best part for me remains the imaginative depiction of different schools of martial art and how each overcome the last one. One familiar with Jin Yong wuxia novels and HK kung fu cinema might find more nostalgic value from this, with several veteran martial-art stars furnishing against-type performances.

[jbeall]

I recall finding Shaolin Soccer awfully disappointing, so I never bothered with Kung-Fu Hustle. Anyone care to champion this film?

[Michael Kerpan]

Not a Chow fan overall, I like the films he did with Johnnie To more than his own ones (as I vaguely recall).

[Murdoch]

I think I'll steer clear of seeing the uncanny valley special effects in UHD, they were horrifying enough in HD when I first saw the film a few years back.

Seeing this movie get brought up again brings back some nostalgic feelings for the DVD era. I remember this in particular being the most ubiquitous Asian film available in all the FYEs, Best Buys, etc. of the 2000s