Kung Fu Hustle comes to Piedmont | July 10 at 4:15 p.m. | 801 Magnolia Avenue
Comic actor Bill Murray called Kung Fu Hustle “the supreme achievement of the modern age in terms of comedy,” and the American filmmaker James Gunn called it “the greatest film ever made.” Can Kung Fu Hustle possibly live up to such praise?
You can judge for yourself, right in your own home town, because Kung Fu Hustle is the choice of this month’s Piedmont Flix Fest.
One of the rewarding pleasures of movies is seeing one with friends and then chatting about it when the lights come up. That’s just what the Piedmont Flix Fest, which meets on the second Thursday of each month, offers: a great movie in a comfortable setting, and then a lively discussion of it afterward.
Released in 2004, and written produced and directed by Stephen Chow, it stars Chow, one of entertainment’s martial arts greats, in the leading role of Sing, in a madcap mashup of gangland encounters in Shanghai, featuring lots of sizzling king fu encounters that may remind you of the spectacular feats in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Kung Fu Hustle was nominated as the Best Foreign Language Film of 2006 by BAFTA and the Golden Globes. Roger Ebert described it as “Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny.” Another critic said she was torn between shouting Wow! and laughing out loud.
Please note time change: Flix Fest films usually screen at 1:00 PM, but because of a scheduling conflict, King Fu Hustle will be shown this month at a changed time of day, from 4:15 till 6:30, on July 10.
Sponsored by the Rec Department, the event takes place in the Center for the Arts at 801 Magnolia Avenue on the second Thursday of each month. Doors for this showing will open at 4:00. The event is free and available to anyone over 18 years of age. Participants are invited on a drop-in basis, though registration with the PRD is encouraged and can be done at online HERE. Everyone is welcome to bring snacks.
The next movie in the Piedmont series is The Social Network, to be screened on August 14.