Kung Fu Hustle

This is one of the most purely fun movies I’ve ever seen. It’s not deep, but it is amazing to look at. The plot concerns a brutal gang’s intentions to destroy a poor neighborhood, but the plot is just a frame to hang the action on. Really weird and beautiful super-fu sequences give, for the first time ever, a real sense of what comic-book superpowers should look like in movie format. People here don’t just fly through the air and punch each other; they seem to do so with their own internally consistent physics. And the punches carry shock waves that cause brick walls to ripple and buildings to crash to the ground. It’s over the top, occasionally funny and never dull. Plus: real dance sequences! It’s like if Bruce Lee and Stan Lee had a baby, and it grew up to be Busby Berkeley.