List of characters in Kung Fu Hustle
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These are the main characters of the film Kung Fu Hustle.
Contents |
[edit] Martial artists
[edit] Sing
The protagonist of the movie, who initially seems to be a normal man with no martial arts training, ultimately uses an immensely powerful technique called Buddhist Palm, which can project attacks into buildings, the ground, and other solid objects in the shape of a massive, open hand. He also has the personal ability to completely regenerate any injuries, recovering in one instance from multiple stab wounds and two cobra bites. Sing starts out as a wannabe criminal, but as the film progresses, the goodness within starts to surface in often unexpected or humorous ways.
However, until the film's conclusion, Sing cannot use the Buddhist Palm technique, and while he is eventually found to be one of the extremely rare folks with large reserves of qi, his energy points are blocked, and thus he cannot make use of it.
Sing attempted to, when he was younger, protect a girl from a band of boys, which attempted to steal her lollipop. They struck him down and urinated on him. The girl, who was mute, offered him her lollipop, but he ran off. Up until present day, when Sing robs an ice cream stall, the girl behind it recognizes him, but he doesn't recognize her until she shows him the lollipop she's been keeping for all these years. She now offers it to him once again, only to have it smashed by him.
What happens to Sing follows a very typical wuxia film plot. When he was a child, a crazy man told him he was a 'natural-born kung fu genius", and sold him a secret manual (mìjí 秘笈) on the Buddhist Palm kung fu technique for an outrageous ten dollars, which was only worth 20 cents. (Sing was unaware of that fact at the time). Using the manual, Sing studied Buddhist Palm with no success. After his metamorphosis in the film (this theme was played out during the movie; a butterfly was hatching from its cocoon while he was emerging from his own cocoon-like full-body bandage cast during his healing process), his knowledge of Buddhist Palm has finally matured.
Before the final battle with the Beast, Sing was asked by the Landlord and Landlady if he had any final wishes. He then drew the lollipop on the ground, with his own blood.
After defeating the Beast with his Buddhist Palm, he took Beast on as apprentice studying Buddhist Palm. Also, he and his faithful sidekick Bone established a lollipop shop, with a sign inspired by the lollipop the girl offered him. She walks by this shop, and Sing looks out and sees her. The camera pans around, rendering both Sing and the girl as children. Sing offers her his hand and she takes it, and they both enter the shop, while several loving couples walk by just before the credits roll, including the Landlord and Landlady and a member of the axe gang with a woman that almost looks like the crocodile gang lords wife.
Just as the story ends, the crazy old man who sold Sing the manual on Buddhist Palm appears, this time telling a child that he could be a "kung fu genius"- just like Sing- and offering him a Buddhist Palm manual. When the child says no, the man produces a multitude of booklets on various styles- showing that the protection of the people and the world shall continue.
[edit] Landlord
The Landlord, a man dominated by his wife, is a master of Taijiquan, trained to the point where he is able to deflect blows aimed directly at him away from his body, move with the lightness and grace of a falling feather, and evade most attacks anyone can bring to bear against him.
During the encounter with the Harpists, the Landlord has them mostly hitting each other instead of him, despite being directly in the middle between them.
Despite that skill, he and his wife's techniques combined were no match for the Beast.
[edit] Landlady
The short-tempered, chain-smoking wife of the Landlord, the Landlady practices a secret technique called the Lion's Roar (狮吼功), a roar-like yell powerful enough to shatter wood and glass, tear the plaster off walls, and lift men off the ground like ragdolls. An innocuous side-effect of her training is her ability to raise her voice loud enough to overpower a group of a hundred or so people speaking loudly in unison.
Her powers can be compared to that of Mortal Kombat's Sindel, or the Shi Shi Houkoudan performed by Ryoga Hibiki of Ranma ½. The Lion's Roar is also described in the Jackie Chan movie, Shaolin Wooden Men, though never demonstrated.
The origin of the name "Lion's Roar" comes from ho'dong si (he dong shi), a Chinese idiom which translates in the English language to "the lion east of the river", which is slang for a dominating wife.
In one of the film's more inventive fight scenes, the Landlady directs the Lion's Roar through the body of a modified large brass bell, which acts as a wave guide. The resulting shockwave generates so much force that it manages to injure and temporarily stun the Beast.
[edit] Donut (油炸鬼 in Traditional Chinese, Youtiao")
Donut is the person who mans the local noodle and congee shop in Pig Sty Alley. He is trained in the Eight Trigram Staff (八卦槍) martial art, including both fighting and throwing techniques. Early in the film, he threw a long baking rod (五郎八卦棍) with enough force to create an air vortex that sucked the Tommy guns right out of enemy hands, even shattering them upon impact with the wall. He is quite capable of taking on groups of adversaries by himself in melee combat with any pole weapon, and his later fight-scene with the Harpists is a homage to wushu comics.
He dies from trying to forcefully recover after telling Landlady and Landlord that they cannot escape their fate and from severe concussive damage sustained during the fight with the Harpists. His last words, "What are you prepared to do?!", could be a reference to the way Sean Connery's character died in The Untouchables.
[edit] Tailor
The Tailor is an effeminate man who seems cowardly and timid at first glance, but the Tailor is quite capable of handling himself in a fight. Although he appears to be an old, and fragile man, he is actually very powerful and fast for his age. He practices Hung family Iron Wire kung fu (洪家鐵線拳), and wears a long row of iron rings on his forearms when fighting that he can use to raise his power and defense. He merges them into a roughly-cylindrical form that protects his forearms and as the form obviously loses its shape as combat progresses, he has to "re-merge" them every once in a while. He is adept at punching people or hitting them with the merged rings, and has exceptional upper-body strength, able to hammer throw a heavy stone wheel thirty or more feet.
He dies from injuries sustained during the fight with the Harpists.
[edit] Coolie (苦力 in Traditional Chinese)
Coolie is a hard-working man whose job at Pig Sty Alley is to carry heavy equipment to its destination. Coolie is the opposite of Tailor, using no weapons to fight, and has exceptional lower-body strength as he specializes in kicking. He practices 12 Kicks of the Tam School (十二路潭腿) and it shows. He is able to kick a heavy sack of rice from the ground and have it land across his shoulders, and during the fight later, jump high enough to kick people directly in the face. When not hitting people in the head, he prefers to kick them in the torso or legs, always with enough force to knock them down.
He is killed by a decapitation sneak attack from the Harpists.
[edit] Villains
[edit] The Harpists
The Harpists are a pair of hitmen hired by the Axe Gang to rid of Coolie, Donut, and Tailor. Their weapon of choice is the (immensely over-sized) Guqin-Guzheng hybrid. Although capable of melee combat, they much prefer to use their special fighting style, Deadly Melody. They can use their qi to focus and mold the sound waves produced by the instrument into deadly forms, ranging from scimitars, to fists and even a small legion of sword-wielding undead in ancient Chinese armor. The ability is not purely offensive; it can be used to form a protective "wall" that actively blocks and forcibly repels incoming weapons. Practically with every string they play from their musical instrument, killer objects, usually invisible, would fly from it, aiming for the unfortunate target.
The first harpist appears to be the older of the two. He fights Tailor in his shop, and primarily uses his long claws as fighting means, and is better suited to unarmed close quarters combat, but also uses the Guqin as a back up.
The second harpist appears younger and appears to be blind, due to an earlier scene in the movie when the first harpist had to assist him to his drink. But even blind, he seems to have excellent accuracy and skill with the Guqin at long range. His main offense is the Guqin which he plays a deadly melody; his secondary defense is punching.
They are defeated by Landlord, who was between them; their attacks merely were deflected by him and onto each other. Then they are decimated by the Landlady with her Lion's Roar.
[edit] The Beast (火雲邪神 in Traditional Chinese; "The Evil God of the Fire Cloud")
Incarcerated in a mental institution for alleged insanity, the Beast is the most powerful known martial artist alive. His appearance is no indication of his power; a disheveled old man with seemingly no physical fitness whatsoever, wearing a wifebeater, boxer shorts and flip-flops and suffering from a receding hairline. However, the man is deserving of his title; he catches bullets with ease, leaps with enough force to crack the floor upon landing, drives kicks to the ground with enough power to create shockwaves that demolish walls, and can survive damage that would kill anyone else.
His body, or at least his head, is immensely tough. He responds to direct strikes and kicks to his head from the Landlady and Landlord with a mere chuckle and implores them to use more force. His personal belief is that whoever is the fastest opponent will dominate, and he lives by that doctrine. His powerful counterattacks take only milliseconds to execute (they occur rapidly even when the film is playing in slow motion), and in the span of time it would take for a typical man to drive a single punch, he could perform a dozen or more.
His special attack is Kunlun toad kung fu, a skill that allows him to emulate a toad (the Hamo style 蛤蟆功 is a well known fictional kung fu style mentioned in Jinyong's wuxia novels, this movie simply uses special effects to provide the visuals for it). Assuming the four-legged stance of a toad, his thighs increase noticeably in size which tears his trousers, and he can simulate the inflatable throat of the said animal with sufficient force to cause gusts in the local area. He is then able to leap and smash through concrete walls with ease, and headbutt people a mile or so into the sky.
He is not one to play fair, carrying spikes and lotus-shaped stabbing weapons bearing needles, as last-resort weapons. His qi reserves seem to rival Sing's as his manifested energy is strong enough to warp the clouds above the mental institution into sinister spiral shapes. The only reason he hasn't broken out of the institution himself, he claims, is that he would do so only if he knew of someone outside that had a chance of winning in a fight against him.
However, he is not totally "evil" or beyond redemption. At the end, when Sing aims his attack and demolishes a large section of Pig Sty Alley and not the Beast, the Beast finally calms down and asks Sing what skill he had just used. When Sing offers to be his teacher, he breaks down into tears (reacting to the mercy and forgiveness Sing had shown even after all the prior heavy fighting), kneels before Sing and acknowledges him as the greater of the two.
