Why Kung Fu Hustle Should be Understood as an Example of Transnationalism in Contemporary Chinese - Language Cinema

Why Kung Fu Hustle Should be Understood as an Example of Transnationalism in Contemporary Chinese -Language Cinema
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Why Kung Fu Hustle Should be Understood as an Example of Transnationalism in Contemporary Chinese -Language Cinema
Kung Fu Hustle movie revolutionized Chinese cinema because of its transnational mode of production and it brought together several players from diverse backgrounds. Though the producer and scriptwriter is Chinese who hailed in Hong Kong and had experience in producing movies, he was unable to reach a global audience especially in America which could greatly improve his fortunes. He worked with several players in Hong Kong, China, and Hollywood to produce the movie which broke many records locally and abroad. The many players he brought onboard helped structure every aspect of the movie production and distribution for the global market. It, therefore, became a transnational product produced and distributed by many players each of whom had diverse goals and interests in the movie. The product, Kung Fu Hustle movie, became the melting pot of their interests and goals and it embodied a complex form of transnationalism.
The script was co-written by Chow and Hollywood studio executives
Chow first approached the Colombia Asia executive with a two-sentence script detailing his idea for the movie and announced that he was ready to start shooting CITATION Lau06 \l 1033 (Holson, 2006). His approach was tolerable in Hong Kong but not in Hollywood. The executives send him back to rewrite a full ‘Hollywood’ style script which captures all the details which will go into the movie. Chow was not used to submitting such scripts when he worked on the Chinese movies he had done before. He was used to just giving a short synopsis of the plot to the executives and they funded his idea for the movie which he continually edited and improved until he produced the final product. In Hollywood, that is unacceptable and unheard of as they are very meticulous and conscious of the details. A single script can be written and rewritten for months before it is funded for production and Chow ended up spending seven months in pre-production and four months in shooting the movie. This was unlike the Chinese approach to the scripting or pre-production routine of just submitting ‘unformed’ ideas which if accepted by the studio, you would go on to shoot the movie. Kung Fu Hustle movie, therefore, was a creation which was co-written by Chow in collaboration with the Hollywood experts. The experienced and hugely successful experts from different and diverse cultures with different experiences in movie production sat down and worked together to produce the Kung Fu Hustle movie.
In the movie, it is evident that there were many compromises and borrowing of foreign-based ideologies on very intricate parts or details of the movie because of the co-authorship of the script. For example, unlike no movie before produced by Chow, which necessitated some parts to be outsourced to overseas firms. Kung Fu Hustle was edited by an Australian form which would be very expensive for Chinese producers and directors. But since Hollywood studio producers knew the importance of the value they would get from such firms, they insisted on that firm to do the post-production details. The sound was also contracted to an experienced sound engineer in Hollywood known for doing sound for English blockbusters such as Spiderman. The sound engineer was specifically brought on board to help on a specific scene (the harp playing scene). Hollywood studios pay a lot of attention to detail and they perfect every scene to ensure they deliver the best product to the viewer. And they usually have that budgeted to ensure it does not look vague and all the visual and audio aspects of the movie come together to give the viewer the best experience. The Hollywood style of developing the plot is usually aimed at heightening the experience of the viewer at the end. Though Chinese movies have this aspect too, in Hollywood movies, every scene in the movie is modeled out of this unlike in most Chinese movies which are largely centered on comics and martial arts which often seem to overshadow the storyline.
The diversity of the team which was assembled to do the movie came from different backgrounds and had experiences in different markets and regions but they collaborated on scriptwriting and other preproduction, filming and post-production processes. The movie itself became the blend of different experiences, skills, and networks of Chinese and American experts who helped produce a very good movie script. The first scene which details Axe gang killing a rival gang and ends with the gang dancing is well orchestrated compared to a similar scene Chow shot in God of Gamblers III (1991) which detailed gang killing another rival gang in a street. Almost all the aspects of the scene in the earlier movie depicting a gang fight in a street with axes and guns wearing western suits are identical to the first scene in the Kung Fu Hustle movie. However, for the Kung Fu Hustle, there are few more details which are absent in the earlier depiction done by Chow. The camera work seamlessness and the combination of long, medium and the positions are poorly done compared to the scene in Kung Fu Hustle. The street is even smaller and it is structured to enhance the comic spectacle than in the latter, Kung Fu Hustle scene. It shows a likely hand in Hollywood camera work and choice of physical setting which gives the viewer the feeling that he/she is in the hands of an experienced director. CITATION Kle07 \l 1033 (Klein, 2007) observes that, ‘this scene is simply less textually rich; visually, aurally, thematically, dramatically than its recycled version in Kung Fu Hustle.’ Hollywood executives insisted on ‘maturity’ of the script such that it conforms to the classical storytelling convention of Hollywood. ‘Virtually every scene on the movie is connected to the Sing’s goal of getting into the gang’, CITATION Kle07 \l 1033 (Klein, 2007). That level of consistency is absent in previous movies by Chow and it can be attributed to the Hollywood executives who co-worked with Chow on the movie. The signature comic mayhem notable in earlier movies written and produced by Chow were punctuated with intimate details of the way of life of the community depicted in the movie. Children playing, killing bugs in the house, open defecating etc which are scenes which allow the viewer to ‘regroup mentally. CITATION Kle07 \l 1033 (Klein, 2007)’ The movie combined approaches of Chinese storytelling and Hollywood basic convections.
The movie performed very well locally and internationally which hints at its transnationalism. It grossed $20 million in China which is its primary market and it was the biggest box office returns in China at the time. Internationally, the film also performed exceptionally very well. For example, in the United States, it grossed $17 million which made it the top-earning foreign language film in the country in the United States. The performance of the movie was largely due to several factors. One, in China it was due to the fact that it was a Chinese language movie produced and directed by a Chinese. It was marketed as such and the people could attribute to it to their identity as a people. Secondly, it performed very well internationally because Chow tapped into the existing distribution channel of Columbia Asia which is the Asian branch of Sony Pictures. Therefore, the vast network and experience of Sony worked to make the movie a box office success overseas. The movie was promoted and screened in 40 countries Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. In the United States alone, it was screened in over 2500 theatres across the country. The distribution network of Sony is largely the reason why the movie performed so well in the international market. Grossing $17 million in the United States was not even a conceivable vision for Chinese producers for a Chinese language movie. The money Kung Fu Hustle grossed worldwide was because it blended the Chinese market with the global viewership expectations and then it was marketed all over the world.
Additionally, Chow got the global exposure and recognition for his work through tunneling his work through Sony and Sony also got a piece of the Chinese market. The expectations of Chinese films diverged and were well received in the global stage while the international and foreign (to China) companies such as Sony got a piece of the Chinese market which wa...