I saw this, and I recommend it thus: funny, eccentric, energetic, Sith-free fun.
There are some beautiful moments, some fantastically funny shtick, some repetitive fighting (a must in most any Kung Fu film), and more gee-whiz pizzazz to the pleasures of its CGI than any filmmaker outside of Pixar’s stable.
I want to emphasize: the writer/director/star Chow has a real eye–not just Jackie Chan’s or Sammo Hung’s, for choreography, but for the look of film. There’s a loving homage to “Top Hat” (of all films!) midway through, and it never settles into some kind of fight-shot/edit groove, instead consistently altering the manner in which the big showdowns get put together. Very fun.
And maybe it’d be worth stepping back to unpack the film’s smorgasbord of generic influences, or to compare it to the local talent doing the same thing (primarily Tarantino), but… someone else can do all that.
watched this on the flight from l.a to singapore (along with 4 other films–singapore airlines gives every passenger their own video screen with 60 movies on demand). loved it. made sunhee watch it and she–who doesn’t care for kung fu movies–loved it too. i won’t take a stab at mike’s questions–the jet lag hasn’t worn off yet–but i will note that it seemed to me like chow was refracting the kung fu movie back through recent hollywood refractions of it: out-matrixing “the matrix” and, um, out-crouching “crouching tiger, hidden dragon”. a sort of postmodern re-re-appropriation. now i want to see his “shaolin soccer”.
like it now
go kung fu hustle go we like to watch it
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John?
i rather like this thread.