With movies like &Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,& &Hero& and &The House of Flying Daggers& gleaning praise at theaters, there may be a feeling amongst some that recent martial arts films from Hong Kong are becoming a bit too &artsy.&

Then along comes Stephen Chow, writer, director and actor, in his latest movie &Kung Fu Hustle.& He brings the humor and slapstick back to martial arts movies. Reminiscent of classics like Jackie Chan&s &Project A,& &Hustle& plays out like a live-action cartoon with kung fu that is both highly ridiculous and entertaining.

Set in China in the 1940s, Chow plays Sing, a petty thief who aspires to join the ruthless criminal organization, the Axe Gang.

His plan to pose as an Axe Gang member and extort money from the locals of a rundown apartment complex called Pig Sty Alley backfires when the residents fight back, involving several passers-by members of the real Axe Gang.

Unbeknownst to Sing and the Axe Gang, the complex is home to several martial arts masters in hiding, but to protect the locals the masters expose their secret and give the gangsters a severe beating.

Disgraced by its defeat, the Axe Gang&s leader Brother Sum (Chan Kwok Kwan) hires his own deadly martial arts masters to take control of the town, resulting in some spectacular kung fu battles.

Meanwhile, Sing desperately tries to prove himself to the Axe Gang despite his good nature, until he discovers the true spirit of a kung fu master.

Chow draws from several inspirations for this movie, including his childhood admiration for Bruce Lee and other martial arts heroes, Hollywood musicals and classic &Looney Tunes& cartoons.

The cartoon element is evident in several of the CG special effect shots, which show characters moving at fast-forward speed, complete with exaggerated blur effects.

There is even one scene when Sing and the landlady of the apartment complex engage in a Wile E. Coyote-Roadrunner-style race, complete with legs moving like spinning tire wheels.

It looks cheap and silly, but that was probably the intent.

The action and fighting scenes, directed by legendary action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (&The Matrix&) and Sammo Hung (&Martial Law&), are also quite exceptional.

These scenes are also given a cartoonish feel with added CG effects, including a scene when two harpists attack the kung fu masters of the apartment complex and each of the wind attacks from the harps are visualized as flying swords that are dodged or deflected by the kung fu masters.

Luckily, the movie is presented in its original Chinese dialogue with English subtitles, and with the exception of a few edits to tone down the blood in a failed attempt to avoid an R rating, the movie is exactly the same as the Hong Kong version.

After Miramax butchered Chow&s &Shaolin Soccer& when it was released in U. S. theaters last year with its terrible English dub and more than 20 minutes of footage cut from the movie, it&s great to see that Sony Pictures Classics kept most of &Hustle& intact.

In a sea of predictable romantic comedies, sub-par horror movies and mediocre action films used as filler before the summer blockbuster season, &Kung Fu Hustle& stands out as one of the best action and comedy movies to come out this season.

For anyone tired of the usual stuff that Hollywood tries to shove down viewers& throats, &Hustle& should come off as a refreshingly funny martial arts film that dishes out the fists, kicks and laughs.