Another manic, cartoonish martial-arts comedy from Hong Kong filmmaker Stephen Chow, this time about a showdown between a vicious street gang and the relatively peaceful denizens of a dilapidated tenement in 1940s Shanghai. I found it all overwhelming and
decidedly more graphic than Chow’s equally zany but more enjoyable Shaolin Soccer. The
mixture of geniality and cruelty here bring to mind a Looney Tunes cartoon as directed by Quentin Tarantino.
