Funny. So very funny. This is a fairy-tale told with a lot of humour, a lot of fighting and some really interesting special effects.

Director Stephen Chow plays a man desperate to be a tough guy. He and his gentle giant of a side kick pose as members of the Axe Gang and enter Pig Sty Alley, a small tenement seemingly filled with loser misfits, to try and extort some money. When the real Axe Gang, a particularly vicious gang by the way, arrives an all out war begins when the tenants fight back. Chow begs to join the Gang but in the end finds something in his heart that shines of gold.

The movie races quickly along and is filled with many kung fu battles as masters of this and that take each other on with increasing skill levels. It is all highly exagerated but that is where the charm of the movie is – if you aren’t smiling at the extraordinary action sequences you are laughing at the wacky slapstick gags.

Good clean, if a little bloody and violent, fun.