Kong Fu Hustle is a comedy-action film produced, directed, and co-written by Stephen Chow in 2004. Most of the scenes in this movie were filmed in Shanghai Chedun Film Park, where many old shanghai buildings were constructed or rebuilt for filmmaking and exhibition. These days, when visiting the Shanghai Chedun Film Park, people can also identify many buildings or facilities that appeared in the film; for example, figure 1 shows a traffic light, and it is used by Stephen Chow to detoxify himself from the snake venoms.
Many other spaces and buildings are also worth discussing, such as Cage walled city, which is originated from Kowloon Walled City. In this report, I will first compare how the spaces or buildings are presented in the Cage walled city in the film with the ones experienced by real people. It will then move on to the purpose for it to exist.
In Kong Fu Hustle, Cage walled city is located in the countryside, and it is not well-functioned in terms of resident’s daily life. When viewing the similar buildings of Cage walled city, it can be observed that both the entire building and the one in the film were densely populated, with each building unit and room so close to each other. However, the environment presented in the movie was worse than the real one. Apart from the environmental factor of the Cage walled city, all the residents were lived under the threat of the landlady. Residents need to wash their clothes and take a bath downstairs, and the landlady even closes the water supply frequently for no reason. In addition, the building and space in the film bring people a sense of restlessness. In many scenes, the film was added many darkened elements to become emotional. For example, when Ace Gang came to the Cage walled city, the dark cloud started to spread across the sky. Nevertheless, the actual building provides visitors with a harmonic atmosphere. The shape of the Cage walled city in the nird view is semi-closed, much similar to a safe and warm womb.
The existence of Cage walled city is meaningful in terms of the leading actor, Stephen Chow’s personal experience. The idea of Cage walled city originated from the hometown of Stephen Chow. He added the element of Cage walled city not only for memorizing his living environment in childhood, but also try to resonate with people from the same generation. He carefully combines Kong Fu with the residences many people used to live in, satisfying many people’s fantasy of martial arts. It seems that many children fantasize to become a hero. However, they start to feel disappointed by the reality as they grow up. Stephen Chow uses the Cage walled city to convey the idea that people should never forget their childhood because it is the only period that people feel curious about everything outside their world.
Zou Chunyu
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You made some observations of how the cage walled city was portrayed in the film and mentioned some of the visual techniques used. As you identified that the cage walled city is inspired by the Kowloon Walled City, you could have collected more information about the latter for a more direct comparison. Overall, the virtual fieldwork seems rather limited. You are also reminded to properly cite any references used. The title of the film should be “Kung Fu Hustle”.