This movie made me so happy on the inside. It was somewhere between an awesomely bad kung-fu movie and an awesomely epic parody. I do believe that my favorite part was the Looney Tunes-esque chase scene. I mean, it doesn't get much better than watching humans go Wile E. Coyote on one another. (Reference #2) And the "Lion's Roar" thing? I mean, how much sillier can you get? Karate chopping a bell to crack off the top and make a megaphone of doom intended to amplify the Lion's Roar to a point that it would make the bad guy's head explode? (Ok, so it didn't, but I'm sure that was the intent.)
There are so many references in Kung Fu Hustle that counting them might actually be impossible. As a class, we found: The Godfather, West Side Story, Looney Tunes, The Matrix, Blues Brothers, and every Kung Fu movie ever made. And as a theatre major, I'm ashamed that I didn't realize this one earlier: Casablanca. "This could be the end of a beautiful friendship," as spoken by the last of the masters to go up against the Blues Brothers. Gah. In your face, and yet I completely missed it. Moron.
I think it would be very silly to enumerate all of the references, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of them. Yay postmodernism and blank parody.
There were a few moments that confused me, so I'll muse about them. The One ends up getting his face swollen to hell, ends up in a stoplight, and beats the crap out of it from the inside. And this fixes his wounds? And he doesn't remember it? What's that all about? And the other one: if the Landlord and Landlady can fix up The One, why didn't they try to fix up the three masters? They did, after all, save the village. Wouldn't it be logical to try to save their lives?
Yeah, so, that's my rant.
It's all about that he's the chosen one and doesn't know it yet. Secret superpowers and all. L&L were still in 'not going to get involved' mode with the others, who also didn't have self-healing superpowers. So the logic is consistent.
ReplyDeleteI missed the Casablanca reference. Nice!
Well, there you have it. I didn't even think about the whole not getting involved thing. Thanks for clearing that up. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was going to mention something about his healing powers that made him the best candidate for the landlords' hospitality and care.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone ever seen Shaolin Soccer? I think it had the same actor in it, the one who played "The One". It's another one I've seen bits of, but never the whole thing.