The murderous and powerful Axe Gang become the deadly opponent that Stephen Chow's character must face.
Stephen Chow: Kung Fu's Jim Carrey
At its core Kung Fu Hustle captures a boy's yearning to become a hero. In chaotic pre-revolutionary China, a small time thief named Sing hopes to join the Axe Gang, ruler of the city's underworld. He tries to impress the gang by extorting money from the denizens of a crowded apartment complex known as Pig Sty Alley. In a series of comical encounters Sing discovers that the neighbors are more formidable than he had expected. When the Axe Gang is drawn into the fray, the two disparate worlds come into collision. Faced with questions of life and death, Sing comes to terms with who he is and what it means to be a kung fu master.
Chow added some touches to turn the film into a nostaligic tribute to his boyhood kung fu passion. The cast and crew contain many legendary figures of Hong Kong cinema, including choreographer Yuen Wo Ping, best known for The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Another is Sammo Hung who contributed to the action choreography. “When I realized that Columbia's backing gave me the ability to assemble the best creative team imaginable, I knew immediately that I wanted to work with legends like Yuen Wo Ping and Sammo Hung,” says Chow.
Another nod to his own past is setting the film in the teeming neighborhood known as Pig Sty, reminiscent of the labyrinthine Hong Kong apartment complexes Chow grew up in.
The women at the casino are one of the temptations of joining forces with the Axe gang.
“That style of building was very common in southern China in the 1940s, which is when the film is set,” says production designer Oliver Wong. “When Hong Kong's population exploded in the 1950s, the builders copied the building style from southern China. So what you see in the film is the type of neighborhood that most people in Hong Kong grew up in from the 1950s until the 1970s — crowded, crazy and fun.”
“The place I lived when I was a boy was just like that,” Chow says. “It was a crowded place where everyone lived jammed in close to everyone else. We thought we knew everyone and everything in the neighborhood, but in fact, there was much that was unknown and hidden underneath the ordinary neighborhood life. For instance, one day out of the blue, I discovered that a neighbor of mine was in fact a martial arts master. He had been there for ages and I always called him ‘old uncle’. Even in my wildest dreams, I wouldn't have imagined him to be a great master, but he was.”
The other key locale is a glitzy casino that also serves as the headquarters of the evil Axe Gang. “I tried to emphasize the distinction between the casino and the Pig Sty, which is very Chinese. In the casino there's a strong western influence throughout: in the furniture, the decor, and the paintings on the walls.”
After two months of set construction, production began at the end of June, 2003 in the midst of the intense tropical summer heat of coastal China and lasted four months, an eternity by Hong Kong film industry standards. The schedule was necessitated by the complex action scenes. “I did lots of martial arts fighting in this movie, more than any other movie I have ever done. This is the movie I pushed myself the hardest on.”
As a tribute to Bruce Lee's Chinese Connection, Chow wanted to take his shirt off to assume one of Bruce Lee's famous stances, showing off his rippling back muscles. On top of his regular martial arts training, Chow spent weeks building up the muscles on his back. “My back muscles still haven't come to a point where I am totally happy with them, but I'm taking my shirt off anyway,” Chow decided one day in exasperation. “That day was so cold! Making films is always like this: on the coldest day, you are asked to take your clothes off; and on the hottest day, you are required to put on layers and layers of clothing!”
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