It rocks! It chops! It belly-flops! Stephen Chow’s thrilling kung-fu comedy – a fandango of top-hatted gangsters, cartoonish lunacy and pounding action – is a summer blockbuster like no other. It’s actually supremely entertaining for one thing. The giddy, anarchic plot sees a lowly wannabe gangster (Chow himself – the gifted multi-tasker also wrote, directed and produced) wander into a '40s Shanghai slum to shake down the impoverished residents.
Alas, he’s picked on Pig Sty Alley, a rickety tenement populated by retired kung-fu masters. Worse, he inadvertently invites the attentions of some real hatchet-happy gangsters and all hell breaks lose.
Between the exhilarating wirework of Matrix stunt co-ordinator Yuen Wo-Ping’s and Chow’s brilliantly innovative use of CGI (Mr. Lucas, please take note), there’s never a dull moment. Axe-fights erupt into Busby Berkeley choreography, chase scenes pay homage to the Roadrunner cartoons. Hong Kong action fans can take delight in fabulous turns from such luminaries as Broken Oath’s Bruce Leung Siu Lung and Yuen Qui.
The latter, a former Bond killer-cutie (The Man With The Golden Gun) thumps the picture over the head and drags it home in her part as a chain-smoking, ass-kicking fishwife.
Novices, meanwhile, can sit back and marvel. It’s the most fun you’ll have in the cinema this summer without incurring the wrath of the security people.

Running Time 95mins. Cert 15a. Opens June 24th.