IF Zhang Yimou's Hero and House of Flying Daggers were the well-dressed parents of the martial arts genre, Kung Fu-Hustle is its Ritalin-addled problem child.

It has special effects that owe more to Tex Avery cartoons than live action, some of the bizarrest characters you're likely to meet and unassuming old men kicking some serious ass.

Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow the man behind the country's previously most successful film, 2001's Shaolin Soccer, which Kung Fu Hustle has just outstripped has crafted an endlessly imaginative and surprising film.

Chow started out as a children's TV presenter but has become Hong Kong's biggest superstar. He wrote, directed and stars in King Fu Hustle and, such is his seeming pervasive input, probably whipped up a mean chow mein when the film crew got peckish.

Set amid the chaos of pre-revolutionary China, the film follows small-time thief Sing (Chow) and his attempts to become a member of the notorious Axe Gang whose underworld activities overshadow the city.

The gang's influence stops short of the city's seediest area, Pig Sty Alley.

The residents here appear a meek bunch in thrall to domineering landlords but when the Axe Gang threaten their livelihoods, the stinking shanties show up some surprising saviours.

For all its martial arts action and broad slapstick humour, Kung Fu Hustle is an intelligent film that is forever keeping you guessing.

Just when you think the heroes of the piece who will, Magnificent Seven-like, save the day have been revealed, an even more unlikely hero emerges.

There's a camp tailor martial arts veteran Chiu Chiu Ling's performance makes John Inman in Are You Being Served look a model of subtlety who slips his forearms into a load of curtain rings to give his chops a bit more bite and the lady landlord who does all her fighting with a cigarette dangling from her lower lip like a Kung Fu Hilda Ogden.

Chow is even more Magpie-like with more influences than Quentin Tarantino, who purloined liberally from B-Movie genres for his Kill Bill double-bill.

Chow throws in big dance numbers, songs, humour and chase scenes that play like Wiley E Coyote trying to catch Roadrunner.

You won't have seen anything like it but you'll be very glad you did.

Mark Edwards