I knew this was going to be fun when I got my hands on it.  I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be good, but I WAS pretty sure that it was going to be a laugh riot.  It was going to be so lousy that I couldn’t help but laugh myself stupid at it.  And indeed, I got what I expected.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is pretty much what it says on the box.  It’s the legend of Chun-Li, going back to her childhood and growing up as a concert pianist before becoming the global crime fighter we all know and love.  (Special note for those of you who’ve played the game and know this is almost totally a crock, I know, I hear your cries.) She’ll take on the nigh-mythical Shadoloo crime syndicate in a bid to free the people of Thailand from oppression, and also recover her father from his captivity in Shadoloo’s clutches.  She’ll run into several of the game’s biggest names, including M.Bison, Balrog and Vega.

And it’s pretty much as I expected for a variety of reasons:

One, I’m sorry, but this new Bison–Neal McDonough–is a complete tool alongside the sheer over-the-top glee of Raul Julia.  Julia KNEW the role was a complete joke and he played it like a comic martinet gone insane, like Gilbert and Sullivan in the depths of a crystal meth haze.  Meanwhile this Bison is trying to be some kind of lunatic badass, and it just doesn’t match up.  It especially doesn’t help that McDonough can’t quite manage to lose his original accent, and thus leaves M. Bison sounding more like M. McBison.  Sure, they’ll concoct some ludicrous backstory about how Bison was the son of Irish missionaries, and an even MORE ludicrous backstory about how he got his powers from evil spirits, but frankly, this is all essentially window dressing and neither makes sense nor feels right.

Two, the plot’s logic is like some kind of madman’s logic.  For instance, does anyone want to hazard a guess how the clearly Asian little girl that was Chun-Li turned into the clearly Caucasian Kristin Kruek in just a few short years?  Or how Balrog managed to look exactly the same despite the fact that about twenty years passed between the first time he saw Chun-Li and the NEXT time he saw her?  Or how M.Bison did, for that matter?  Why is the Bangkok Business Times’ website printed in English?  All these and many, many other questions will be part of your Street Fighter experience.

Three, the depth of the cliches in this movie is just astonishing.  Just purely astonishing.  Pat Morita is rolling in his grave right now (assuming he’s even dead, I’m not totally sure on that one) thinking of all the wax-on-wax-off style kung-fu drollery that’s involved in this.  For instance, one great scene involves Chun-Li training with a former criminal named Gen, who informs her of such great kung-fu movie wisdom as “Anger does not guide”, “Believe in your true self”, and “You are only hurting yourself”.

And this is just the beginning.  Rest assured, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li will only get more aggressive in its sheer senseless lunacy.  The farther in you go the less sense it makes.  Some might enjoy this–I’m not one of them–and unless you do, chances are you’re not going to get much fun out of this one either.

As an action movie, it’s a terminal flop.  As a kung-fu movie, it simply restates all the old conclusions.  The phrase “thoroughly unwatchable” comes to mind, and with good reason.

I love Kung Fu Hustle.  Geniunely, I love this movie.

Okay, yes–it was just yesterday that I brought up Kung Fu Panda, and I can assure you that I’m not on some crazy kung fu kick.  Not that kung fu movies aren’t often great fun–I tell you, this is the one subgenre of film where you can count on the Chinese to be amazing.  They have done some FANTASTIC stuff.

But Kung Fu Hustle was something special.

The plot is one significant part of it–a young man from the country and his tubby cohort are out to join the Axe Gang, the most feared criminal syndicate in all of China.  They want the standard things that young men looking to join criminal syndicates want, money and women.  While out trying to join, they stumble into Pig Sty Alley, a run-down housing development full of honest, hard-working folks just trying to make their way in the world. In a series of unusual events, Pig Sty Alley manages to catch the attention of the Axe Gang, and we discover the Alley’s secret–it’s positively lousy with kung fu masters.  The coolie (basically a guy who moves heavy stuff for a living) is a thunder-legged master by the name of Twelve Kicks.  The tailor is an effeminate punching master known as Iron Fist, who hangs his dry cleaning up by the iron rings that protect his wrists in battle.  And the guy at the noodle shop, Donut?  He’s a staff fighter called Hexagon Staff.

And for those of you who think I’ve given away half the plot, oh no. Oh no no nooooo…there’s plenty more where they came from.

Naturally, the Axe Gang takes offense to this apartment building standing up for itself and thus sends an array of hired killers to take care of business.

Perhaps the best part of Kung Fu Hustle is the way Stephen Chow has managed to blend an adrenaline-fuelled rush of a movie with a rollicking comic riot of a movie.  There will be entire stretches of the movie with precious little dialogue, but you’ll scarcely notice because you’re too busy watching incredibly choreographed fight scenes.  And then, when the dialogue DOES come back into play, it’s brisk, it’s punchy, and it packs in plenty of laughs. There’s a very good reason that this movie had the widest cinematic release in the United States of a foreign language film–because it was THAT GOOD.  I actually remember seeing this one in a theatre near my house, and I live out in the middle of nowhere, so we don’t always get the newest movies right off.  But on one cold Sunday afternoon in April, I managed to catch this one.  And it stuck with me for quite a while, seeing the amazing fight scenes on a big screen.

Yes, for those who want a SERIOUS kung fu epic, well, this is not for you.  In fact, I’m hard pressed to name very many SERIOUS kung fu epics–most of the ones I’ve seen have had at least a little humor in them. And yes, there’s a heavy dependence on the wire-fu going on in here.  But these things are so small that they can easily be overlooked.  The plain and the simple is, I loved Kung Fu Hustle, and if you’re into action flicks with some humor, or action flicks with a LOT of humor, then Kung Fu Hustle will definitely be up YOUR alley too.