Plot Flaw in Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
I'll start by saying Stephen Chow is a comedic genius!
I watched this movie and Shaolin Soccer (2001) when I was a kid and I absolutely loved them and laughed too hard too many times while watching.
This guy was too good at bringing comedy and kung fu together, so once I saw the movie in Netflix I knew I had to watch it again now with my adult eyes. And I still loved it!
The movie is not just a comedy/action movie, it is a farce.
You know, one of those movies where the jokes and believability are exaggerated to the high heavens. This one was really well done and the stupidity didn't take away from the believability, class and creativity.
The action was also very entertaining, the cast did a great job too. A really well done movie if you love kung fu movies and don't mind exaggerated comedy.
The plot was also great, engaging, and logical, except for one mistake. (You know that's what my movie plot Flaw posts are always about).
The Plot Flaw Proper
In the story, the main character Sing and his friend Bone wanted to be part of a notorious gang called The Axe Gang.
He and his friend were losers who tried different tricks to get in the gang and it almost cost them their life at one point, but they were let off because the gang bosses discovered that Sing was great at picking locks.
Later on they needed Sing's lock picking talent to break someone out of an asylum and Sing delivered. So Sing was now part of the gang.
The person he broke out of the asylum was needed by the Axe Gang to fight a couple who were kung fu masters but during the fight Sing intervened and saved the couple, and this was the plot flaw.
How could Sing go against the gang he has always wanted to join just a day or so after being accepted? After it was his life's goal to join the gang and he had done a lot of stuff for years trying to join?
After he had pretended to be a member and almost lost his life in the process? How could he intervene in the fight when the guys being beaten are the same guys he desperately wanted beaten?
The couple he helped were people he had crossed paths with earlier on. And after he and his friend lost to them they came back for revenge only to be beaten and chased away again.
How could he then intervene in a fight that the couple were losing and go against a gang he dreamt his whole life of joining just a day or so after being accepted?
Doesn't make any sense.
Even though it was a farce, there was a certain logical integrity the story maintained and everything that happened in it was logical, even though exaggerated, except this one thing.
I realized that even when I watched this as a child once this stuff happened I wasn't so engaged in the movie anymore. Everything was perfect until this one event.
I wish they could have made him intervene in the fight for a good reason rather than just out of the blues. That would have made this a perfect movie.
I still love it, though, my emotions are all for it, my logic just a little against it.
The End
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Can't agree more to this post.
I love these movies, and as a kid I laughed so much. The style of Kung Fu, the epic fights and movements. Stunning.
“Everybody is Kung Fu fighting!”
Stephen Chow, and the Crew, are great. In the sense of acting, comical and the potion of message.
I like your point of view.
But isn't that the message? Fighting for the weak and good. One of the philosophies of Kung Fu.
Fight against those who abuse their power, place themselves above others and take advantage of them.
Cool!
But have you watched the movie, though?
He wasn't a moral dude trying to follow the principles of Kung fu, he was a bad guy whose dream was to be an even worse guy. And the very people that were beaten are people he's tried twice to beat, he was even the same guy that broke the assassin out from the asylum to come beat them.
That's why intervening was really off key. The story didn't even make it look like he did it out of pity or anything. Just out of the blues.
Yes, I did watch it. But never went deeper into that out-of-the-blue intervention. I think I get what you mean.
Maybe Chow didn't find a better way to make that change. Who knows what was in his mind?
Do you have an idea of how to give a good reason for that change /intervention?
Yeah, I'm a writer, myself, you may have seen that at the end of my post.
The better idea should have been shots of Sing's face while those guys were losing the fight. The shots should have showed him feeling pity and regretting his actions. Then that should have resulted in his intervention.
But in the movie he wasn't sober or reflective or worried, he just intervened for no reason.
Sounds good.
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Thanks.
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