It's like a kung fu mobile.

Oh, man, not another surrealistic kung-fu musical comedy. I just saw one of those last month.

Wait, no I didn’t. In fact, I’ve never seen anything like Kung Fu Hustle, a movie that is dazzling in its willingness to try anything once. It’s not that unusual for a martial-arts type movie to defy the laws of physics – think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or The Matrix – but Kung Fu Hustle acts as though they don’t even exist, and has all the narrative logic of a Looney Tunes cartoon to boot.

Sing (writer/director Stephen Chow) is a down-on-his-luck hustler on the streets of Shanghai.  He pretends to be a member of the vicious Axe Gang in order to milk a little protection money out the residents of poverty-stricken Pig Sty Alley, but quickly finds out that even the neighborhood granny can kick his sorry ass. Soon, however, the real Axe Gang is involved and they’re a different matter. They’re about to bring the smack down when, one by one, neighborhood residents start revealing their hidden talents as kung fu masters.

One of the big draws of what follows is the amazing fight choreography by Woo-Ping Yuen, whose work has also been seen in Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger  and a couple of the Matrices. Here the grace and precision of his earlier work combines with a Jackie Chan-like creativity in employing whatever objects are at hand. The fight scenes in his previous movies may have been more elegant and more epic, but here they manage to be impressive while still getting the laugh. 

Even her hair rollers do kung fu.

And that’s crucial to Chow’s vision for this movie, which seems to be, “What if a cartoon came to life?” Characters can run like the wind, their legs cartwheeling into blurs beneath them. Sing, thrashing around inside a tower, leaves hand, foot and head-shaped impressions in the metal. A woman’s scream can shatter walls and an assassin can, literally, kill you softly with his song.

And while Sing’s story is ultimately secondary to the manic action-comedy aspects of the movie, it’s pretty good as well. This misguided street-hustler has “the bone structure and chi flow of a kung fu genius,” and it’s satisfying to watch him put that to work.

The world of Kung Fu Hustle is one where anything can happen, where there’s something surprising and imaginative and delightfully cheeky around every corner.  It’s truly an original, one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a while, and definitely the kung-fu-iest. Go on, don’t let the subtitles put you off. There’s not that much talking anyway.

Gorilla Pants rating: 3 out of 4 bananas