The 1930s Shanghai is in turmoil. Various gangs vie for power, the most feared of which is the Axe Gang, aptly named after their preferred weapons. With the police powerless to stem the crime wave, people can only live in peace in poor areas which do not appeal to gangsters. An example is Pig Sty Alley, a tenement home to people of various trades, run by a promiscuous landlord and his domineering wife. One day, two troublemakers, Sing and Bone, come to the alley impersonating members of the Axe Gang to command respect. Sing attracts the real gang to the scene, but the gangsters are repulsed thanks to the martial arts mastery of three tenants (the Coolie, Tailor and Donut the baker).
Sing and Bone muse their failure, and Sing describes his childhood. He spent his life savings to buy a Buddhist Palm manual from a beggar with the intention of "preserving world peace". He practised his skills, but was beaten and urinated on when he tried to save a mute girl from bullies trying to steal her lollipop. Sing realises that the good guys never win and decides to become a bad person. The duo then steals ice cream from a mute female vendor and escape laughing maniacally on a tram.
The Coolie fends off the Axe Gang with his Twelve Kicks from the Tam School.
The Coolie fends off the Axe Gang with his Twelve Kicks from the Tam School.
Angered by his gang's defeat, Brother Sum hires the Harpists, a skilled pair of assassins who fight using a guqin. They strike the Pig Sty Alley at night as the Coolie, Tailor and Donut are getting ready to depart, having been evicted for antagonising the gang. The three are quickly overwhelmed, prompting the Landlord and his wife, also martial artists, to intervene. Although the killers and the Axe Gang are driven off, the three evictees cannot survive either.
The following day, Sing mugs the mute ice cream vendor, who is revealed to be the girl Sing saved in his childhood. Upset, he berates Bone, and while despairing in the gutter he is picked up by the Axe Gang and joins their ranks. Brother Sum, having earlier witnessed Sing's ability to quickly pick locks, instructs him to sneak into a mental asylum to free the Beast, the Ultimate King of Killers (終極殺人王) to kill the Landlord and Landlady.
Brother Sum is initially skeptical of the Beast, but is ultimately convinced when he stops a bullet between his fingertips. The Beast approaches the Landlord and his wife in Sum's casino. Using a giant funeral bell as a megaphone to amplify the Landlady's Lion's Roar, the couple nearly defeats the more powerful Beast, but they are outsmarted by his desperation move, resulting in the three getting stuck in mutual joint locks. Brother Sum instructs Sing to smash the Landlady's head with a table leg, but Sing hits Brother Sum, then the Beast, who angrily pulverises him. Fortunately, he is carried off by the Landlord and his wife while the Beast's back is turned. The angry Beast casually kills Brother Sum when rebuked.
Sing fights the Axe Gang.
Sing fights the Axe Gang.
Back in the Alley, Sing, wrapped head-to-toe in bandages and treated with mystical Chinese medicine, undergoes metamorphosis. He quickly recovers, and his potential as a kung fu genius is realised. He engages the Axe Gang and the Beast, dispatching the gangsters with ease. However, he is sent flying high into the air by the Beast's toad technique. Up in the sky, Sing realises the Buddhist Palm, diving downwards with his body ablaze, holding out his palm. He creates a hand-shaped crater in the ground, defeating the Beast. He easily stops the Beast's desperation move and the Beast concedes defeat.
Some time later, Sing and Bone open a candy store that specialises in lollipops. When the mute ice cream vendor walks by, Sing goes out to meet her. The two see each other as their childhood selves, and run happily into the shop. Outside, the same beggar who sold Sing the Buddhist Palm manual offers a selection of martial arts manuals to a boy eating a lollipop. (from Wikipedia)
Kung Fu Hustle
