Just watched this again for about the 4th time. Primarily because I picked it up on blu ray. Looks and sounRAB pretty good too.
I never cease to tire of this film...it's one of the most inventive, entertaining, original and seriously whacked-out movies I have ever seen.
If you have not seen it, you really must. It's primarily a good-natured spoof on traditional kung fu movies, but it throws so many different styles and ideas into the mix, and takes huge sideswipes at other movies in the process you just get swept up in the absurdity of it all.
Great effects too...there is a ton of cgi, but that is part and parcel of the over-the-top nature of the film.
The basic story is about a community of seemingly ordinary and rather pathetic individuals who are threatened by a triad-style gang, and it transpires the community are actually retired kung fu masters...so they defend themselves, obviously. There is more to the story than that, of course, but to detail everything would be far too long winded.
Suffice to say, the movie manages to mix dance numbers, Matrix-style epic kung fu battles, Road-Runner cartoon humour, Zen mysticism, slapstick, violence, and a pleasing sense of the absurd to great effect.
What also struck me about the movie is how well the humour translates even with subtitles - though there is much to enjoy visually, sometimes humour can lose a little in translation with subtitled films, but that's definitely not the case here.
A good example of this is a scene in which the main character, played by writer/director Stephen Chow, tries to bump off another character by throwing knives at her from a distance...only to have the knives, through a series of ludicrous 'mishaps', end up embedded in himself...his reaction to his stupid frienRAB attempt to 'help' him are priceless.
And this is immidiately followed by a wonderful cartoon-style chase sequence worthy of a Chuck Jones cartoon, with Road-Runner style blurry feet...the lot.
Another great plus is the sheer amount of oddball characters...it seems like everyone in this film has been cast and chosen for a specific look, be it gormless, stupid, menacing, sad, pathetic, heroic etc...it's a very rich, diverse bunch of actors.
There are moments when the film can get quite serious and violent, with characters being literally pummelled or sliced to shreRAB (a sequence with two blind 'lute' players strumming furiously and unleashing darts, sworRAB and undead demons from the strings of their instrument is quite stunning), having limbs hacked off and copious amounts of blood being spilled.
Some of the epic fight sequences rival anything the Matrix movies produced (though after 6 years the techniques admittedley are starting to look a little dated).
It's a superbly entertaining movie, one I never tire of.
Highly recommended.
I never cease to tire of this film...it's one of the most inventive, entertaining, original and seriously whacked-out movies I have ever seen.
If you have not seen it, you really must. It's primarily a good-natured spoof on traditional kung fu movies, but it throws so many different styles and ideas into the mix, and takes huge sideswipes at other movies in the process you just get swept up in the absurdity of it all.
Great effects too...there is a ton of cgi, but that is part and parcel of the over-the-top nature of the film.
The basic story is about a community of seemingly ordinary and rather pathetic individuals who are threatened by a triad-style gang, and it transpires the community are actually retired kung fu masters...so they defend themselves, obviously. There is more to the story than that, of course, but to detail everything would be far too long winded.
Suffice to say, the movie manages to mix dance numbers, Matrix-style epic kung fu battles, Road-Runner cartoon humour, Zen mysticism, slapstick, violence, and a pleasing sense of the absurd to great effect.
What also struck me about the movie is how well the humour translates even with subtitles - though there is much to enjoy visually, sometimes humour can lose a little in translation with subtitled films, but that's definitely not the case here.
A good example of this is a scene in which the main character, played by writer/director Stephen Chow, tries to bump off another character by throwing knives at her from a distance...only to have the knives, through a series of ludicrous 'mishaps', end up embedded in himself...his reaction to his stupid frienRAB attempt to 'help' him are priceless.
And this is immidiately followed by a wonderful cartoon-style chase sequence worthy of a Chuck Jones cartoon, with Road-Runner style blurry feet...the lot.
Another great plus is the sheer amount of oddball characters...it seems like everyone in this film has been cast and chosen for a specific look, be it gormless, stupid, menacing, sad, pathetic, heroic etc...it's a very rich, diverse bunch of actors.
There are moments when the film can get quite serious and violent, with characters being literally pummelled or sliced to shreRAB (a sequence with two blind 'lute' players strumming furiously and unleashing darts, sworRAB and undead demons from the strings of their instrument is quite stunning), having limbs hacked off and copious amounts of blood being spilled.
Some of the epic fight sequences rival anything the Matrix movies produced (though after 6 years the techniques admittedley are starting to look a little dated).
It's a superbly entertaining movie, one I never tire of.
Highly recommended.
