Kung Fu Hustle

Stephen Chow's martial arts comedy is probably one of the most purely enjoyable films of this year. He revels in the implausibility of the situations, but fans of the genre are likely to walk away with more than a few strong laughs. Chow plays a pathetic street hustler who dreams of becoming a vile gangster -- a member of the dreaded Axe Gang -- but he's just no good at it. Some of the moments he gets humiliated provided some of the better comic moments in any film this year. There are various kung fu masters in the film, and just as soon as you think the film has settled on the greatest warrior, another shows up and leaves the lesser mortals in awe (or dead). It plays out purely for entertainment, and delivers. It doesn't have the poetry, beauty, depth of a film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but it does have the physical comedy and athleticism of a Jackie Chan or even a Buster Keaton, with a cartoonish bent.