REVIEWED - KUNG FU HUSTLE: Kung Fu hustle is a bouncy, buoyant chopsocky comedy, writes Michael Dwyer

ASIAN superstar Stephen Chow follows his international breakthrough with the entertaining Shaolin Soccer by upping the ante and piling on the special effects for a series of gravity-defying stunts in this delirious action-comedy. The setting is 1940s Shanghai, where the roost is ruled by the extortionist Axe Gang, dapper athletes in matching top hats, white shirts and smart dark suits and ties, and moving like dancers choreographed to the score as they take aim to kill.

Chow plays Sing, a petty crook and aspirant gangster who naively believes he can make his mark in the slum area aptly named Pig Sty Alley. Being one of the poorest districts, it holds no interest for the gang, but Sing promptly gets his comeuppance from the locals - to whom there is much more than meets the eye.

They include three retired martial arts aces who have lost none of their youthful resourcefulness and expertise, and the formidable character known only as Landlady (Yuen Qui), a domineering, middle-aged woman with curlers in her hair, a cigarette permanently attached to her lips, a piercing scream that keeps evil spirits at bay, and a lecherous, drunken landlord husband.

Although there is a token romantic subplot, in which Sing falls for a sweet-natured, mute ice cream vendor, it seems to be imposed primarily to allow the audience time to draw breath in between the elaborate action sequences that are the movie's raison d'etre.

Chow stages these dazzling, eye-popping sequences in collaboration with one of world cinema's finest action choreographers, Yuen Wo Ping, the Hong Kong maestro whose international credits include Crouching Tiger, The Matrix and the two Kill Bill pictures. Another virtuoso, Sammo Hung, provides additional action choreography.

For all its indebtedness to those movies - and to Bruce Lee's classic action extravaganzas, and in one scene, to Gangs of New York - this is essentially a Stephen Chow film. Kung Fu Hustle is marked by the star/director/co-writer/co-producer's unstinting flair for visual humour and an evident eagerness to entertain.

As the movie is propelled at a relentless pace towards a spectacular finale - we are primed to expect nothing less - it registers as a heady hybrid of live-action cartoon, Hollywood musical, slapstick comedy, yakuza gangster movie and demented computer game.

There is always far too much going on for us to notice that the characters are one-dimensional, the plotting obvious and the storyline threadbare. And when we realise all of this - after the movie has finished and we've left the cinema - we're too busy smiling to care.