Have to confess my disappointment

It's an over the top comedy depicting abilities using wirework and CGI, almost a parody of the films you mentioned with their 'sumptuous camera work'. It's an entertaining and funny film and never ever pretended to be a martial arts picture grounded in reality.

Sayonara, not to be confused with cyanide, which is, of course, goodbye in any language.

The thing is that Stephen Chow has a total different sense of humour. I totally dig Jackie Chan's movies both for their humour and fighting parts BUT it's very refreshing to see Kung Fu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer's humour. He does many things Chan would never do, for example Kung Fu has some very violent and brutal moments. And I've yet to se a movie where Chan plays character with lots of "bad" attitudes ... Stephen Chow otoh always plays a guy with massive flaws. He was a total loser, low-life criminal and mean to about everybody, including his sidekick and the lollypop girl. And while the humour and action scenes in Chan movies are great, he almost never has stylish/artsy scenes like the opening axe-gang-dance or the cat killing scene with nothing but shadows.

I found it difficult at first to have such a strange mixture of elements and styles but once I set my mood accordingly, I enjoyed it very much! I like to be surprised and Chow's movies are perfect for this.

probably because you don't know much about the choreography in the old martial arts movies(do forgive me if i was wrong). most moves refer to something memorable: fictional characters and films.

i still don't get why jackey chan is so popular. yes his moves are very solid but knowing now he got a women pregnant, dump her by saying he 'just commit a mistake that every man on earth would', bad month the woman, as well as his 'own daughter' every chance he got.

he is a disgrace of chinese males. i have no respect to him. in contrary, Chow yun fat, jet li are great guys deserve all the respect.

sorry, been a bit OT

Old man is scary when they're obsessed with young actress age of his grand-daughter. Run! Emma RUN!

Agreed. I enjoyed this movie on a certain level, but there's little going on in the way of kung fu... that finale had about as much actual martial arts fighting as a flying scene in a Superman flick. Chow did a couple of roundhouse kicks and the rest was an attempt to outdo The Matrix.

A shame, a lot of the movie is really enjoyable, especially as a comedy.

Agreed, a few laughs, some nice fight scenes, but ultimately disappointing.

I am not a complete idiot. Some parts are missing.

Well for you to say you were disappointed because it didn't feel like a real martial arts film is like saying the movie Airplane! didn't take itself seriously to be a real disaster film. You fail to note that this is a spoof as much as Airplane was to the disaster films of that era and even though the latter was a spoof it still had a narrative with everything else added in between which is much like Kung Fu Hustle.

Although I applaud you for coming here to say what you don't like about the movie but at the end of the day everyone to their own taste and as you said yourself that you "prefer martial arts films which rely on careful choreography and the skill of the performers" which Chow never intended it to be as he said in interviews. I watched it and I thought it was hilarious, not because I'm a pop corn munching movie goer with an IQ of a bat but because I appreciated it for its slap stick fight scenes and not taking itself seriously while films such as Crouching or Hero with the imaginative fight scenes that are humanely impossible disappoint me for the wired-fights and for trying to be serious when everything outside the narrative says otherwise.

Your disappointment isn't other people's disappointment...just yours. So don't watch the movie anymore if it bothers you. Ya' Dope!

Man i agree, ive been watching Stephen chow movies since i was a little kid - and seen most of em. This one was pretty weak compare to some of his other gem. Felt the movie started strong, but lack a good ending. Have no idea how this is rated higher than Shaoling Soccer, which i thought was far superior.