KUNG FU SHOWDOWN!

George Collazo:

Dark “Horse” Style: Jackie Chan is awesome if you love Disney imports, and hey, his cartoon from the ’90s was great. God, I loved him starring next to generic up-and-coming edgy comics, not to mention his hack rubber-faced comedic style while chewing his way through broken English dialogue.

Current “Crane” Style: Bruce Lee was a trendsetter, but then again some people believe the ’60s were a golden age. How about we pick someone from our lifetime? The man’s been dead a lot longer than he was alive. Maybe instead of contemporary music, we can blast some freedom rock!

Obscure “Name Drop” Style: Sonny Chiba’s claim to fame is Quentin Tarantino’s claim that Sonny Chiba is great. It is a vague reference in a movie Tarantino didn’t even direct. Chiba gets five minutes of screen time to show how underground and relevant Quentin Tarantino is.

WTF “Jet Li” Style: I think somebody made a mistake and accidentally put him on this list. Might have been a spell check fail.

Consider Kung Fu as the art of discipline and comedy as the art of timing – and not comedy in the Jackie Chan formula of let’s laugh at the foreign guy saying words funny half the time and the other half misunderstanding basic directions and then slapsticking his way with some chopsocky action; rather, think of comedy in the “Hey, I wrote this scene with equal measure comedic timing and original thought and then I am using Kung Fu as a foundation ” sense. In this arena, Stephen Chow is the master. Stephen Chow writes, directs and stars in his own films that, while having universal crossover appeal, do not pander to Western audiences and are still funny with subtitles. Take that, fellas!