Why Kung Fu Hustle Should be Understood as an Example of Transnationalism in Contemporary Chinese - Language Cinema

Why Kung Fu Hustle Should be Understood as an Example of Transnationalism in Contemporary Chinese -Language Cinema
Name
Name of Class
Professor
Institution
Date
Why Kung Fu Hustle Should be Understood as an Example of Transnationalism in Contemporary Chinese -Language Cinema
Kung Fu Hustle movie revolutionized Chinese cinema because of its transnational mode of production and it brought together several players from diverse backgrounds. Though the producer and scriptwriter is Chinese who hailed in Hong Kong and had experience in producing movies, he was unable to reach a global audience especially in America which could greatly improve his fortunes. He worked with several players in Hong Kong, China, and Hollywood to produce the movie which broke many records locally and abroad. The many players he brought onboard helped structure every aspect of the movie production and distribution for the global market. It, therefore, became a transnational product produced and distributed by many players each of whom had diverse goals and interests in the movie. The product, Kung Fu Hustle movie, became the melting pot of their interests and goals and it embodied a complex form of transnationalism.
The script was co-written by Chow and Hollywood studio executives
Chow first approached the Colombia Asia executive with a two-sentence script detailing his idea for the movie and announced that he was ready to start shooting CITATION Lau06 \l 1033 (Holson, 2006). His approach was tolerable in Hong Kong but not in Hollywood. The executives send him back to rewrite a full ‘Hollywood’ style script which captures all the details which will go into the movie. Chow was not used to submitting such scripts when he worked on the Chinese movies he had done before. He was used to just giving a short synopsis of the plot to the executives and they funded his idea for the movie which he continually edited and improved until he produced the final product. In Hollywood, that is unacceptable and unheard of as they are very meticulous and conscious of the details. A single script can be written and rewritten for months before it is funded for production and Chow ended up spending seven months in pre-production and four months in shooting the movie. This was unlike the Chinese approach to the scripting or pre-production routine of just submitting ‘unformed’ ideas which if accepted by the studio, you would go on to shoot the movie. Kung Fu Hustle movie, therefore, was a creation which was co-written by Chow in collaboration with the Hollywood experts. The experienced and hugely successful experts from different and diverse cultures with different experiences in movie production sat down and worked together to produce the Kung Fu Hustle movie.
In the movie, it is evident that there were many compromises and borrowing of foreign-based ideologies on very intricate parts or details of the movie because of the co-authorship of the script. For example, unlike no movie before produced by Chow, which necessitated some parts to be outsourced to overseas firms. Kung Fu Hustle was edited by an Australian form which would be very expensive for Chinese producers and directors. But since Hollywood studio producers knew the importanc...