141-508: Kung Fu Hustle ( Chinese : 功夫 ; lit. 'Kung Fu') is a 2004 martial arts action comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Stephen Chow , who also stars in the leading role, alongside Huang Shengyi , Yuen Wah , Yuen Qiu , Danny Chan Kwok-kwan and Leung Siu-lung in prominent roles. The story revolves around a murderous neighbourhood gang, a poor village with unlikely heroes and an aspiring gangster's fierce journey to find his true self. The martial arts choreography
282-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
423-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
564-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
705-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
846-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
987-419: A combination of computer-generated imagery and wire work . Centro Digital performed extensive tests on CGI scenes before filming started, and treatment of the preliminary shots began immediately afterwards. The CGI crew edited out wire effects and applied special effects in high resolution. Legendary martial arts mentioned in wuxia novels were depicted and exaggerated through CGI, but actual people were used for
1128-597: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
1269-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
1410-520: A famous couple, have won the world championship in bowling, among other things. The inspiration for Shaolin Soccer came from Chow wanting a unique premise for a martial arts action film. According to an interview with Premiere Magazine , Chow stated, Actually the 'over the top' CG and kinetic soccer moves were an inspiration that came from the classic Japanese manga series Captain Tsubasa . The animation
1551-454: A fantastical yet compelling world. The review highlighted Stephen Chow’s skillful use of humor and action to deliver both entertainment and personal expression. However, it noted that some scenes felt slightly drawn-out, potentially affecting the overall pacing for certain viewers. Kung Fu Hustle opened in Hong Kong on 23 December 2004, and earned HK$ 4,990,000 on its opening day. It stayed at
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#17328593676741692-542: A foreign language film, it made a modest US$ 6,749,572 (US$ 2,696 per screen), eventually grossing a total of US$ 17,108,591 in 129 days. In total, Kung Fu Hustle had a worldwide gross of US$ 101,104,669. While not a blockbuster, Kung Fu Hustle managed to become the highest-grossing foreign-language film in North America in 2005 and went on to generate more than US$ 30,000,000 in the United States home video market. The film
1833-474: A global audience, stating, "I can't rely on the local market, because it's too small, so since Shaolin Soccer it's always my ambition to go international". Apart from several veteran actors, Chow stated in an interview with Premiere magazine that he cast several people in his entourage who had no prior acting experience before Shaolin Soccer . For example, Lam Chi Chung (Light Weight) had worked as Chow's screenwriter and Danny Chan Kwok-kwan (Empty Hand)
1974-449: A high-end department store after hours and offers to buy her one. She gets a makeover to impress him, though the team and her boss mock her exaggerated '80s look. When Mui hints at her feelings for Sing, he tells her he only wants to be friends. She disappears after her boss fires her. Team Shaolin enters the open cup competition in Hong Kong, where they see ridiculously one-sided victories due to their powers. They only meet their match in
2115-582: A large wave of blood rushing from the cell door, similar to a scene in The Shining . The Landlady says at one point, "Tomorrow is another day", which is a line from the 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and its 1939 film adaptation . A major element of the plot is based on the wuxia film series Palm of Ru Lai ( 如來神掌 ), released in 1964. Sing studied the fighting style used in Palm of Ru Lai (" Buddhist Palm style "), from
2256-451: A line by Elwood Blues. Many fight scenes and superhuman power displayed by Kung Fu Masters in the film are reminiscent of Dragon Ball Z and similar anime. When Donut dies, he says, " In great power lies great responsibility ", a reference to 2002's Spider-Man , said by Uncle Ben before his death. Additionally, in that scene, the Landlady says, "Like Donut said, everyone has his reasons",
2397-579: A magical guzheng as their weapon. They successfully eliminate the three masters, but are defeated by the Landlady and her husband the Landlord, who reveal themselves to be skilled fighters as well. A frustrated Sing attempts to rob an ice cream vendor, but discovers that she is actually Fong. When she recognizes him and offers him a lollipop, which reminds him of the day he tried to save her, he smashes it and leaves in shame. Brother Sum offers Sing immediate gang membership if he uses his lock-picking skills to free
2538-468: A martial artist. A senior Hollywood executive said Chow was "forced to grind through four successive scripts" and "found it very laborious". Chow's first priority was to design the main location of the film, "Pigsty Alley". Later in an interview Chow remarked that he had created the location from his childhood, basing the design on the crowded apartment complexes of Hong Kong where he had lived. The 1973 Shaw Brothers Studio film, The House of 72 Tenants ,
2679-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
2820-632: A more progressive generation throughout the history of Chinese cinema. Earlier in the kung fu film industry, it usually involved complex characters, and also tried to explore and expose constructs ranging from gender to race as well as to nation. One-dimension is the key feature of Kung Fu Hustle , as it is rooted in a filmic genre that connected with Hong Kong identity, but also represented the Western imagination of China's past and Kung Fu heroism. A review on Douban praised Kung Fu Hustle for its unique blend of exaggerated comic visuals and martial arts, creating
2961-503: A mortally wounded master strikes the patterns of his art's final techniques into a bell so that his apprentice can learn from it. Kung Fu Hustle also contains direct references to characters from Louis Cha 's wuxia novels. For example, the landlord and landlady refer to themselves as Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü , the names of characters in Cha's The Return of the Condor Heroes , when they met
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#17328593676743102-427: A mute girl named Fong from bullies, but was instead beaten and humiliated. Sing became adamant that heroes never win, and resolved to be a villain. Sing and Bone return to Pigsty Alley to kill the Landlady, but fail and are chased off the premises. Sing retreats to a traffic pulpit where his injuries mysteriously heal instantly. Meanwhile, Brother Sum, intent on vengeance against Pigsty Alley, hires two Harpists that use
3243-491: A politically unstable time in the territory. Sony Pictures Classics opened Kung Fu Hustle in limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles on 8 April 2005 before being widely released across North America on 22 April. In its first week of limited release in seven cinemas, it grossed US$ 269,225 (US$ 38,461 per screen). When it was expanded to a wide release in 2,503 cinemas, the largest number of cinemas ever for
3384-528: A promotional flash game was released by Sony Pictures Entertainment on their Japanese website. The game was created by Japanese game developer Point Zero and plays as a point-and-click beat 'em up . A side-scrolling game designed for mobile phones was later released in 2006 by developer Tracebit . Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')
3525-738: A reference to Jean Renoir 's 1939 film The Rules of the Game . Afterwards, with his dying breath, Donut gets up, grabs the Landlord by the shirt and utters in English, "What are you prepared to do?", a nod to Sean Connery 's character Jim Malone in Brian De Palma 's 1987 film The Untouchables . The dialogue that the Beast says while negotiating with the Axe Gang for killing the Landlady and Landlord—"... then young friend, I will make an offer you cannot refuse",
3666-412: A role suited for him. Kung Fu Hustle 2 remains incomplete. In February 2019, during a promo interview for The New King of Comedy , Stephen confirmed that the sequel is in the works. He will direct the movie and possibly cameo in the film, but the story will not be a direct sequel to the first one. Chow explains the sequel will be a spiritual successor to the first one, but set in modern times. In 2004
3807-413: A rundown slum known as Pigsty Alley to extort the residents by pretending to be Axe members. Sing's actions eventually attract attention of the real gang, who confront the villagers. Gang reinforcements arrive but they are all quickly dealt with by three of the slum's tenants: Coolie, Tailor, and Donut, who are actually kung fu masters. However, fearing the Axe Gang's retaliation, the slum's Landlady evicts
3948-537: A sarcastic expression on her face, which won her the part. Qiu, a student of Yu Jim-yuen , sifu of the China Drama Academy, had appeared in the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun at the age of 18. After a number of other small roles, she retired from films in the 1980s. Kung Fu Hustle was her first role in nineteen years. Qiu, in order to fulfill Chow's vision for the role, gained weight for
4089-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
4230-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
4371-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
Kung Fu Hustle - Misplaced Pages Continue
4512-570: A soccer ball, then says, "You're still playing football?". The second reference is the scene in which a clerk beats Sing up on a bus. The clerk also appeared in Shaolin Soccer as the leader of an opposing team who used hidden weapons to beat up the Shaolin soccer team. When Sing challenges a boy in the Pigsty Alley, Sing calls him "The Karate Kid", a reference to the 1984 film of the same name . During
4653-495: A stalemate. Sing, realizing the error of his ways, attacks the Beast, who angrily retaliates. The Landlady and Landlord grab the unconscious Sing and flee. The Beast eliminates Brother Sum and takes over as leader of the Axes. The Landlady and Landlord treat Sing at Pigsty Alley and are surprised by his quick recovery. The Landlady deduces Sing is, in fact, a natural-born kung fu genius. With his newfound powers, Sing effortlessly dispatches
4794-545: A stark contrast between the villainous Axe Gang and the peaceful neighbourhood of Pigsty Alley, depicted by a Chinese folk song, Fisherman's Song of the East China Sea . Along with Wong's compositions and various traditional Chinese songs, classical compositions are featured in the score, including excerpts from Zigeunerweisen by Pablo de Sarasate and Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian . The song, Zhiyao Weini Huo Yitian ( 只要為你活一天 ; Only Want to Live One Day for You ),
4935-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
5076-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
5217-516: A young age and used it at the end of Kung Fu Hustle . In reality, the Buddhist Palm fighting style does not leave palm-shaped craters and holes on impact. Instead, the user delivers powerful punches using his palm. The Beast's name in Chinese, Huoyun Xieshen ( 火雲邪神 ; Evil Deity of the Fiery Cloud), and the fight with the Landlady and her husband are also references to the Palm of Ru Lai , in which
5358-497: A young wanna-be Triad member in Chow's preceding movie, King of Comedy . Cecilia Cheung and Karen Mok , who briefly appear as Team Dragon Players 7 & 11 in Shaolin Soccer , had major roles in King of Comedy. Chow defends his decision to hire non-actors, saying, "In terms of finding talent, I try to bring out the funniest thing I notice about them during casting, if it made us laugh at
5499-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
5640-412: Is a 2001 Hong Kong sports comedy film directed by Stephen Chow , who also stars in the lead role. The film revolves around a former Shaolin monk who reunites his five brothers, years after their master's death, to apply their superhuman martial arts skills to play soccer and bring Shaolin kung fu to the masses. "Golden Leg" Fung, a Hong Kong soccer star, beats and berates his teammate Hung when
5781-689: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of
Kung Fu Hustle - Misplaced Pages Continue
5922-523: Is a reference of the dialogue from the movie The Godfather . Also, the Landlady's comment to Brother Sum—"We brought a gift you cannot refuse" is an obvious parody of the same , to which Sum replies (in the dubbed version of the film), "Ha! With the Beast on our side, we shall see for whom the bell tolls", a reference to the 1943 film . The final fight between Sing (who has been reborn into "the one", which pays homage to Bruce Lee by wearing his costume in Enter
6063-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
6204-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
6345-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
6486-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
6627-490: Is sung in the background by Eva Huang at the end of the film. Written by Liu Chia-chang in the 1970s, it tells of a girl's memories of a loved one, and her desire to live for him again. Kung Fu Hustle was nominated for Best Original Film Score at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards . Asian and American versions of the soundtrack were released. The Asian version of the soundtrack was released on 17 December 2004 by Sony Music Entertainment and has 33 tracks. The American version of
6768-587: Is supervised by Yuen Woo-ping . The film was a co-production between Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese companies, filmed in Shanghai . After the commercial success of Shaolin Soccer , its production company, Star Overseas, began to develop the films with Columbia Pictures Asia in 2002. It features a number of retired actors famous for 1970s Hong Kong action cinema and has been compared to contemporary and influential wuxia films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero . The cartoon special effects in
6909-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
7050-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
7191-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
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#17328593676747332-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
7473-466: Is utterly ridiculous, and the soccer in the movie is unlike any ever played anywhere on Earth, but watching Shaolin Soccer , you will probably find it impossible to care." On Metacritic , the film has a score of 68 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Chow disagreed with the Chinese Communist Party 's National Radio and Television Administration , which
7614-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
7755-735: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
7896-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
8037-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
8178-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
8319-473: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
8460-591: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
8601-646: The "Axe Gang"; Tin Kai-man (Iron Shirt) portrayed the loud-mouthed advisor of Brother Sum; and Lam Chi-chung (Light Weight) portrayed Bone , Chow's sidekick and partner in petty crime. Fung Min-hun (Team Rebellion Captain) briefly appeared as Cecilia Cheung's abusive boyfriend in King of Comedy and the Four Eyes Clerk who beats up both Sing and Bone when they make fun of him on the bus in Kung Fu Hustle . In Hong Kong,
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#17328593676748742-728: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Shaolin Soccer Shaolin Soccer ( Chinese : 少林足球 )
8883-494: The Axes before fighting the Beast. Sing uses the Buddhist Palm technique to neutralize the Beast, who concedes defeat. Sing and Bone open a candy store with Fong's lollipop as their logo. Fong visits Sing at his store, and the pair embrace. The vagrant who sold the pamphlet to Sing can be seen outside selling other pamphlets. Kung Fu Hustle is a co-production of the Beijing Film Studio and Hong Kong's Star Overseas. After
9024-407: The Beast, a legendary assassin, from a mental asylum. Sing succeeds and brings the Beast back to the Axe Gang's headquarters. Brother Sum is initially skeptical of the Beast due to his flippant attitude and sloppy appearance, but quickly changes his mind when the Beast stops a bullet midair. The Beast meets the Landlady and Landlord at the casino next door, engaging them in a fierce fight that ends in
9165-485: The Beast. References to gangster films are also present. The boss of the Axe Gang, Brother Sum ( 琛哥 ) is named after Hon Sam / Hon Sum ( 韓琛 ), the triad boss played by Eric Tsang in Infernal Affairs . The Harpists imitate The Blues Brothers , wearing similar hats and sunglasses at all times. When they are flattered by the Axe Gang advisor, one of them answers, "Strictly speaking we're just musicians", similar to
9306-611: The Dragon and using his fighting style) and the hundreds of gangsters imitates the fight between Neo and hundreds of Agent Smiths in The Matrix Reloaded . The scene in which the Beast prompts an Axe member to punch him harder is reminiscent of a similar scene in Raging Bull , with Robert De Niro 's character prompting Joe Pesci 's character. The last scene, in which the beggar tries to sell martial arts manuals, refers directly to
9447-457: The Hong Kong box office, Shaolin Soccer grossed HK$ 60,739,847, making it the highest-grossing film in the region's history at the time. It held the record until 2004 when it was topped by Stephen Chow's next feature Kung Fu Hustle . Shaolin Soccer earned a worldwide gross of US$ 42,776,760. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film has a 89% approval rating based on 95 reviews; the average rating is 7.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "The plot
9588-555: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
9729-584: The Looney Toons to hilarious effect." On Metacritic , the film received a score of 78 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Hong Kong director and film critic Gabriel Wong praised the film for its black comedy , special effects and nostalgia, citing the return of many retired kung fu actors from the 1970s. Film critic Roger Ebert 's description of the film ("like Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny")
9870-604: The Pigsty Alley is similar to that of a 1973 Hong Kong film, The House of 72 Tenants . It is set in a Shanghai Shantytown taking Hong Kong viewers back to their days of hardship but also making the audience in mainland China interested in, as Ho pointed out, "Chow appropriates Hong Kong's past to address China's current anxieties over rapid modernization and secures the former colony's bond with its semi-reunited motherland-in both emotional and film business terms". There are two references to Chow's previous film, Shaolin Soccer : When Sing arrives at Pigsty Alley, he plays skilfully with
10011-590: The altercation between Sing and the hairdresser, the hairdresser states, "Even if you kill me, there will be thousands more of me!". This is a reference to a famous quote made by Lu Haodong , a Chinese revolutionary in the late Qing dynasty . The scene in which Sing is chased by the Landlady as he flees from the Alley is a homage to Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner , characters in the Looney Tunes cartoons, even including
10152-435: The artists were careful to retain the likenesses of each actor who portrayed them. ComicsOne approached noted comic book artist Andy Seto with the idea of creating a two volume manhua -style graphic novel adaptation of the feature film. Seto attached himself to the project because the film was very popular and, therefore, had "a certain level of marketing value". The project was officially announced on 30 June 2003 and
10293-483: The ball downfield. The ball blows through Team Evil's goal while hurling along all its players, scoring the sole and winning goal. Later, Hung is imprisoned for doping, while the Team Evil players receive lifetime bans. Sing goes out for a jog and is pleased to see people around him using kung fu in their everyday lives, his lifelong dream having become a reality. A large ad on the side of a building shows that Sing and Mui,
10434-510: The beginning of the film, and Feng Xiaogang , who plays the boss of the Crocodile Gang. In casting Sing's love interest Fong, Chow stated that he wanted an innocent looking girl for the role. Television actress Eva Huang , in her film debut, was chosen from over 8,000 women. When asked about his decision in casting her, Chow said that he "just had a feeling about her" and that he enjoyed working with new actors. She chose to have no dialogue in
10575-525: The casting, it will also do on the big screen." Zhao Wei, who played the Mandarin-speaking Mui, said it was a different step for her to star in a Hong Kong production. However, Zhao admitted that she was not impressed with her look with less makeup because she is easily recognisable for her beautiful appearance. Three of the principal cast members appeared in Chow's Kung Fu Hustle : Danny Chan Kwok-kwan (Empty Hand) portrayed Brother Sum , boss of
10716-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
10857-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
10998-566: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
11139-521: The film for not having enough of a central protagonist and character depth. Criticism was also directed towards the film's cartoonish and childish humour. However, it was considered reasonable, as the Kung Fu Hustle production team chose to make the film's characters largely one-dimensional. In the movie, the directors "attempt(ed) to appeal to a transnational audience, affirms distinctly Western notions of Chinese that many earlier Kung Fu films set out to subvert." The Kung Fu Hustle team attempt to appeal to
11280-601: The film is known as Crazy Kung Fu , and the Hungarian title is A Pofonok Földje , meaning The Land of Punches . In Korea a Limited Collector's Edition DVD was released which included a leather wallet, Stephen Chow's Palm Figure with his signature, a photo album and Special Kung Fu's Booklet with a certificate of authenticity. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film received a 91% approval rating based on 191 reviews and an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: " Kung Fu Hustle blends special effects, martial arts, and
11421-667: The film so that she could stand out only with her body gestures. Filming took place in Shanghai from June 2003 to November 2003. Two-thirds of the time was spent shooting the fight sequences. Those scenes were initially choreographed by Sammo Hung , who quit after two months due to illness, tough outdoor conditions, interest in another project and arguments with the production crew. Hung was replaced by Yuen Woo-ping , an action choreographer with experience ranging from 1960s Hong Kong action cinema to more recent films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix . Yuen promptly accepted
11562-447: The film was released on DVD and Video CD on 14 September 2001. The DVD release was shortened by 10 minutes, with the option for viewers to access the deleted scenes in the middle of the film. The scenes deleted from the DVD version are the dance sequence in front of Mui's bakery, much of the conversation over Mui's makeover and the blooper reel before the end credits. Viewers can also access
11703-469: The film, accompanied by traditional Chinese music , are often cited as its most striking feature. Kung Fu Hustle was released on 23 December 2004 in China and on 25 January 2005 in the United States. The film received positive reviews and grossed US$ 17 million in North America and US$ 84 million in other regions. It was tenth on the list of highest-grossing foreign-language films in the United States as well as
11844-503: The final against Hung's Team Evil, who have superhuman strength and speed due to an American drug . The referee has also been bought out by Hung. Team Evil badly injures two of Team Shaolin's goalkeepers; the powerless members of Team Shaolin flee. As the team is about to lose by default, Mui, who has shaved her head, reappears to be their goalkeeper. When Team Evil's striker kicks the ball with flaming force towards Mui, she stops it with tai chi. She and Sing combine their skills and rocket
11985-665: The final fight between Chow's character and hundreds of axe-wielding gangsters. After a final calibration of colour, data of the processed scenes was sent to the US for the production of the final version. A group of six people followed the production crew throughout the shooting. The majority of the film's original score was composed by Raymond Wong and performed by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra . The score imitates traditional Chinese music used in 1940s swordplay films. One of Wong's works, Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained , provides
12126-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
12267-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
12408-599: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
12549-511: The greatest skills in Louis Cha's Condor Trilogy ( Nine Yang Manual , "Yiyang Finger", and " Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms "), "Thousand Hand Divine Fist", and The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (" Nine Swords of Dugu "). The scene in which the landlady confronts Brother Sum in the back of his car is a homage to Bruce Lee in Way of the Dragon , where she cracks her knuckles and gives a quick upper nod to
12690-409: The head with a soccer ball. The cocky players mock him and destroy a stone statue of his deceased master. Sing proceeds to use the soccer ball as a weapon. Another example is the fact the characters are visually different from the film. All of their comic book personas look to be in their twenties to thirties, with highly toned athletic physiques (with the exception of Light Weight); even Iron Head, who
12831-490: The highest-grossing foreign-language film in the country in 2005. Kung Fu Hustle won numerous awards, including six Hong Kong Film Awards and five Golden Horse Awards . The film was re-released in 3D in October 2014 across Asia and America, marking the tenth anniversary of the film. In 1940s Shanghai , petty crooks Sing and Bone aspire to join the notorious Axe Gang , led by the cold-blooded killer, Brother Sum. The pair visit
12972-494: The idea of promoting kung fu through soccer, Sing asks his former Shaolin brothers to join his team. Sing's brothers eventually agree. As a test, Fung arranges a game with a team known for vicious cheating. The thug team gives the Shaolin team a beating. When all seems lost, the Shaolin team members reawaken their powers and utilize them to defeat the other team. The thugs ask to join Sing's team. Sing takes Mui to try on expensive dresses at
13113-581: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
13254-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
13395-458: The latter offers him a cheque to lose the game, claiming to be the middleman. Fung takes the cheque in the end and loses the game. Angry spectators beat him and break his leg. Twenty years later, Fung walks with a limp and is the mistreated lackey of Hung, now a successful businessman. When Fung asks to coach Hung's soccer team, Hung mocks him and reveals he tricked him with a bad cheque and hired those who broke his leg. While drinking his sorrows in
13536-670: The mafia boss, telling him to back off. Kung Fu Hustle premiered at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival . It was later released across East Asia including China, Hong Kong and Malaysia in December 2004. The film was first shown in the US at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005, and then opened in a general release on 22 April 2005 after being shown in Los Angeles and New York for two weeks. The North American DVD release
13677-525: The making of key special effects scenes as well. The film was also released in UMD format for the Sony PSP on 23 December 2005. The 2004 US DVD release by Miramax Films deleted 23 minutes of footage from the original cut; the omitted footage includes "Golden Leg" Fung's flashback opening sequence and Sing's interactions with Mui. This version features an English dub with Chow dubbing his own voice and Bai Ling as
13818-457: The modern age in terms of comedy". In 2021, American filmmaker James Gunn called it "the greatest film ever made". The combination of the necessary cynicism and sentential nostalgia which makes the audience laugh implies that a world of human complexity is beneath the interesting deceptive surface. Much of the criticism for the film was directed at its lack of character development and a coherent plot. Las Vegas Weekly , for instance, criticised
13959-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
14100-420: The movie. For example, in the film a group of bar thugs beat up Sing and Iron Head after listening to their lounge -style tribute to Shaolin kung fu . The following day, Sing seeks out the group and uses his Shaolin skills to beat the thugs using a soccer ball. Fung sees the brawl and comes up with the idea of fusing kung fu and soccer. However, in the comic book, Sing is meditating in the park when he gets hit in
14241-411: The movie. We'll need a lot of new actors. It's possible that we'll look for people abroad besides casting locals". In January 2013, during an interview, Chow admitted that plans for making Kung Fu Hustle 2 have been put on hold. "I was indeed in the midst of making the movie, but it is currently put on hold in view of other incoming projects". Production of Kung Fu Hustle 2 was delayed while Chow filmed
14382-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
14523-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
14664-505: The offer. Yuen drew on seemingly outdated wuxia fighting styles like the Deadly Melody and Buddhist Palm. He remarked that despite the comedic nature of the film, the shooting process was a serious matter due to the tight schedule. Most of the special effects in the film, created by Hong Kong computer graphics company Centro Digital Pictures Limited, which had previously worked on films such as Shaolin Soccer and Kill Bill , included
14805-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
14946-427: The pursuer's (the Landlady's) ill fate. During the opening scene in which the leader of the Crocodile Gang is killed by Brother Sum of the Axe Gang, in the background a poster for the 1939 film Le Jour Se Lève is visible. In the scene in which Sing robs the ice cream vendor, a poster for the 1935 film Top Hat is in the background. As Sing arrives at the door to the Beast's cell in the mental asylum, he hallucinates
15087-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
15228-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
15369-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
15510-623: The release of vol. 1 was scheduled to coincide with the film's US premiere in August, but the film was pushed back. The Miramax film corporation bought the American film rights to Shaolin Soccer before its release in China, so they helped publish the comic book along with two Chinese film companies who originally produced the film. Volumes 1 ( ISBN 1-58899-318-3 ) and 2 ( ISBN 1-58899-319-1 ) were released in August and November 2003 and sold for US$ 13.95 each. Their suggested reading level
15651-483: The role by eating midnight snacks every day. Bruce Leung , who played the Beast, was Stephen Chow's childhood martial arts hero. Leung Siu Lung was a famous action film director and actor in the 1970s and 1980s, known as the "Third Dragon" after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan . After becoming unpopular in the Taiwanese film market in the late 1980s following a visit to China, he switched to a career in business. Kung Fu Hustle
15792-507: The science fiction adventure film CJ7 . As a result, Kung Fu Hustle 2 was slated for a 2014 release. By 2017, Chow had already completed The Mermaid and Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back . Due to his focus on behind-the-scenes production and the fact that he has not made an appearance since CJ7 , it was suspected that he had stopped acting. However, Chow clarified that he still wants to act, but has not found
15933-505: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
16074-557: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
16215-503: The soundtrack was released on 29 March 2005 by Varèse Sarabande and has 19 tracks, with 14 tracks missing compared to the Asian release. The soundtrack for the trailer was mastered at Epiphany Music and Recording, Inc. in Santa Rosa, California . Kung Fu Hustle makes references to a wide range of films, animated cartoons , wuxia novels, anime and other sources. The housing arrangement of
16356-422: The streets, Fung comes across Sing, a Shaolin kung fu master who wants to promote the practical benefits of the martial art to the world. No one takes kung fu classes from Sing, however, as he is dirty and poor. He steals mantou from Mui, a woman with severe acne who uses Tai chi to make the food. At first disdainful, Fung soon discovers the power of Sing's leg and offers to coach him in soccer. Compelled by
16497-433: The success of his 2001 film, Shaolin Soccer , Chow was approached in 2002 by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, offering to collaborate with him on a project. Chow accepted the offer, and the project eventually became Kung Fu Hustle . Kung Fu Hustle was produced with a budget of US$ 20 million. Chow was inspired to create the film by the martial arts films he watched as a child and by his childhood ambition to become
16638-559: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
16779-466: The top of the box office for the rest of 2004 and for much of early 2005, eventually grossing HK$ 61.27 million. Its box office tally made it the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong history, until it was beaten by You Are the Apple of My Eye in 2011. The phenomenal box office this work generated as well as the collective pleasure its local audience experienced potentially saved the Hong Kong film industry during
16920-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
17061-454: The trio. Brother Sum captures Sing and Bone, intending to kill them for posing as gang members. However, Sing and Bone narrowly escape, impressing Brother Sum, who offers to let them join the Axe Gang, on the condition that they kill someone. Sing recalls his childhood to Bone when he was tricked by a vagrant into buying a martial arts pamphlet with his meager savings. After practicing the pamphlet's Buddhist Palm technique, Sing attempted to save
17202-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
17343-707: The voice of Mui. In addition, the DVD gives viewers the option to play the original Hong Kong version. In the UK, the film was released on Blu-ray by Optimum Releasing on 26 January 2010. The Japanese version of the film was released by Pioneer LDC on 22 November 2002. It was reissued by The Clockworks Group on 21 December 2003. The Italian dub of the film features the voices of professional footballers Damiano Tommasi (as Mighty Steel Leg Sing), Vincent Candela (as Empty Hand), Marco Delvecchio (as Iron Head), Siniša Mihajlović (as Hooking Leg), Giuseppe Pancaro (as Iron Shirt) and Angelo Peruzzi (as Light Weight Vest). At
17484-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
17625-508: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
17766-454: Was a stunt double for Bruce Lee , played the Landlord of Pigsty Alley. Wah considered starring in Kung Fu Hustle to be the peak of his career. In spite of the film's success, he worried that nowadays fewer people practice martial arts. Auditions for the role of the Landlady began in March 2003. Yuen Qiu , who did not audition, was spotted during her friend's screen test smoking a cigarette with
17907-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
18048-465: Was age 13 and above. Seto worked to make the novel as faithful to the film as possible but he admits that Stephen Chow's brand of Mo lei tau comedy does not translate well into illustrations. He stated in an interview that "the Shaolin Soccer comic is 80% movie adaptation with 20% new content." This new content includes a backstory about Steel Leg's training in Shaolin before the death of his master, as well as completely rewriting entire sections of
18189-505: Was another inspiration for Pigsty Alley. Designing the Alley began in January 2003 and took four months to complete. Many of the props and furniture in the apartments were antiques from all over China. Kung Fu Hustle features several prolific Hong Kong action cinema actors from the 1970s. Yuen Wah , a former student of the China Drama Academy Peking Opera School who appeared in over a hundred Hong Kong films and
18330-421: Was concerned that the film's title would insult Buddhists. He refused to change the title to Kungfu Soccer , and the film's producer was banned from shooting in mainland China for one year. The first of a four volume Shaolin Soccer manhua was published in Hong Kong roughly nine months after the film originally premiered in 2001. The characters were drawn with large manga -like eyes and cartoonish bodies, but
18471-481: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
18612-417: Was his return to the film industry after a fifteen-year hiatus. He regarded Chow as a flexible director with high standards, and was particularly impressed by the first scene involving the Beast, which had to be reshot 28 times. In addition to famous martial artists, Kung Fu Hustle features legends of Chinese cinema . Two famous Chinese directors appear in the film: Zhang Yibai , who plays Inspector Chan at
18753-741: Was later nominated for six Satellite Awards and one MTV Movie Award for best fight scene. In the United Kingdom at 59th British Academy Film Awards the film was nominated for a BAFTA . In 2011, the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival listed Kung Fu Hustle at number 48 in their list of "100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films". The majority of the voters originated from Taiwan, and included film scholars, festival programmers, film directors, actors and producers. In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. Kung Fu Hustle
18894-419: Was listed at 50th place on this list. Chris Goodes (sound editor) Vic Kaspar (sound editor) Jo Mion (sound editor) Andrew Neil (sound editor) Paul Pirola (sound design) Steven Ticknor (sound design) Mario Vaccaro (foley artist) In 2005, Chow announced that there would be a sequel to Kung Fu Hustle , although he had not settled on a female lead. "There will be a lot of new characters in
19035-773: Was nominated for sixteen Hong Kong Film Awards , out of which winning Best Picture, Best Action Choreography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects, Best Supporting Actor and Best Visual Effects. Five more awards were later picked up at the Golden Horse Awards including an award for Best Director for Stephen Chow. In the United States Kung Fu Hustle was well received by various film critic associations, nominated as Best Foreign Language Film in Golden Globe Award, and winning Best Foreign Language Film from Boston , Chicago , Las Vegas and Phoenix-based critics. it
19176-470: Was on 8 August 2005. A Blu-ray version of the DVD was released on 12 December 2006 by Sony Pictures. A UMD version of the film was released for the PlayStation Portable. The United States DVD releases were censored, cutting a number of scenes that featured lots of blood or human excrement. A later release, called "The Kick-Axe Edition", restored these scenes. In the United Kingdom the standard DVD
19317-417: Was printed on the promotion posters for the film in the US. Other critics described it as a comedic version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . Positive reviews generally gave credit to the elements of mo lei tau comedy present in the film. A number of reviewers viewed it as a computer-enhanced Looney Tunes punch-up. In a 2010 interview, actor Bill Murray called Kung Fu Hustle "the supreme achievement of
19458-543: Was released 24 October 2005, the same day a special edition was released with collector's items, which included playing cards, a keyring, a sweat band, and an inflatable axe. On 8 April 2007, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released a Blu-ray version. The Portuguese title of the film is Kungfusão , which sounds like Kung Fu and Confusão (confusion). In the same way as Kungfusão , the Italian and Spanish titles were Kung-fusion and Kung-fusión , puns of "confusion". In France,
19599-442: Was the dance choreographer hired to design the " Michael Jackson dance number" that followed Sing and Mui's first meeting early in the film. Chow comments he made Chan wear Bruce Lee 's yellow-and-black tracksuit because only the goalkeeper "can wear a special uniform." Tin Kai-man (Iron Shirt) had been Chow's production manager on several movies, but had acted in numerous minor roles in previous films. For instance, he played
19740-432: Was the eldest of the six brothers, appears younger than he should. Several online reviews have criticised the American adaptation for its apparent lack of story line coherence, mixture of realistic and cartoonish drawing styles, and bad Chinese-to-English translation, among other issues. In regards to the translation, one reviewer stated, "It's almost as if the book was translated with a first-year English student referencing
19881-512: Was very big in Hong Kong over ten years ago when it swept kids of all ages and even adults loved it. It has a cult following in Europe as well. But it was only possible with pen and ink back then, now with the advent of CGI, it can really be done....(the idea of combining it with Kung Fu was in my head for many years but we had to wait for the CG technology to mature) Chow had intended for this film to appeal to
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