Screening Analysis: Kung Fu Hustle
I watched Kung Fu Hustle by Stephen Chow in 2004. It is an action comedy. Usually action movies are using a lot of visual effect to draw our attention, so Kung Fu is also famous for its visual effects such as fight scenes, chase scenes, and emotional drama scenes. Therefore, there are many concepts and elements from Block’s The Visual Story were used in this film.
Movement is most important part for action movie. There are four ways movement: actual, apparent,induced, and relative. Also in screening world there are three things can move: object, camera, audience’s point-of-attention as they watch the scree. In Kung Fu, it uses movement as major element to tell meanings.
The first shot is a 45-second long take. It was camera movement. This shot start at Inspecter Chen’s office. Then the camera moves out to hall way of police office. After that, camera moves up to second floor, and it stays in the sign of “星剋惡罪”(Sin buster). All the people are freezing in this long take, but the only object moving is a fan in the first floor. In this scene, everybody is watching toward same direction but they are not moving, but there is fighting sound alone with the camera moving. Stephen Chow wants to draw audiences’ attention to what is going on there. This scene wants to satirise the chaotic time period and the weakness of police because police men are bullied in the police office.
This shot is an apparent movement. Block defines ” When one stationary object is replaced by another stationary object, the change between the two objects may be perceived as the movement of a single object. This creates apparent movement.” (Block 7) All the “freez” people is replaced one after another alone with the movement of camera. It is a good way to draw audiences’ attention.
Second typical movement scene is when Landlady chase Sing. It is a funny scene because they run like cartoon character. This scene uses a lot of relative movement. “Relative movement occurs when the movement of one object can be gauged by its changing position relative to a second, stationary object.” (Block 7). In this scene, one people chase another, so they are objects that actual moves. Then the landscape and background are stationary objects. The stationary objects constrast how fast these two people are.
Also this shot shows function of moving objects’ position. It is getting closer of farther. At first, the lady is behind Sing, and it means she is still far away from Sing. Then she appears from Sing’s right shoulder, so it means she is getting closer. After that her image is on the right shoulder farther and bigger, so it means she is almost to get Sing.
Last scene uses a lot of slow motion. “Generally speaking, a slower camera move creates affinity, because changes in the visual components occur slowly.”(Block 7) Fighting scene uses slow motion to focus on how Sing fights a whole group gansters, and slow motion has more visual impact.
Also, the whole image is an good example of contrast and affinity. ” The greater the contrast in a visual component, the more the visual intensity or dynamic increases. The greater the affinity in a visual component, the more the visual intensity or dynamic decreases.” (Block 2). Stephen Chow uses very simple color black and white to create the contrast and affinity. Gangsters are wearing black suit, and Sing wears white suit. And black color is around white color, so it uses black suit to contrast the white suit because he wants to draw attention to Sing which is white suit.
