Kung-Fu-Zão

This kung-fu classic that parodies kung-fu movies is relatively cool, but after it has aged quite a bit after all these years. I found only about three scenes that were truly funny, and the fights are okay, although the wire work is a bit overdone. It is an entertaining movie, but Shaolin Soccer is closer to my heart. 6/10. (14/05/2021)

Kung fu and comedy go quite well together. Bruce Lee already had a sense of this, but the main star known for combining comedy and kung fu is Jackie Chan. I finally became acquainted with the work of another significant actor and creator of Hong Kong origin, Stephen Chow. His film Kung Fu Hustle is a beautiful example of how crazy a film can be while still maintaining a sufficient level of quality. Chow received a considerable budget for the film, and it shows. The effects are good if you accept the flying kung fu, but the creator also played with the visuals and, ultimately, the story. It’s a bit of Oliver Twist, a bit of Superman and The Matrix, and a bit of Kung Fu Panda. It’s all of these together and even more, and it works. (17/02/2013)

Quite often hammy humour, exaggerated emotions (as it is usual for Asians) and a few fleeting smiles, but the technical and visual effects coat is so lavish in the context of Hong Kong production that this flick is worth seeing. (16/03/2006)

Again an excellent movie from Chow and again I can’t get over the feeling that it could have been much better. While I find Shaolin Soccer is like a movie of two unconnected aspects - one is just filler between training sessions and matches and is really rather mediocre and the other involves the training sessions and matches, and they are simply perfect and amazing. Here it is more balanced, but again it lacks any actually funny scenes. This time it is sort of “endearing". You can appreciate nods to other pictures, laugh at genre clichés, marvel at the wonderful fight choreography by Woo-ping which wasn’t held down by any rules as it was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix and enjoyed himself royally, you wonder at the quality of the technical aspects from excellent effects through camerawork, to the music etc. Unfortunately, apart from a couple of scenes (yes, including of course the scene with the knife), instead of fits of laughter, it puts just a small grin on your face. Additionally, the first approx. 20 minutes are rather slow-moving, not bad at all, but I don’t really think they fit with the rest. Unlike the rest of the movie, these 20 minutes have too little humor, almost no pace and, from a storytelling point of view, they are rather superfluous. Which in my eyes is a wasted opportunity. While I know that if I watch my favorite scenes from Shaolin Soccer, they will get me going again, here there really isn’t much I feel like watching again, apart from a couple of moments here or there. I don’t want it to sound like this is a bad movie - far from it, it’s fun and good, but it has a lot places that “jut out", and they could have done better, I feel. So from me it gets a low 4*. (17/03/2005)