Augustin, King Of Kung-Fu: Reviews

Reviews Reviews:
Augustin, King Of Kung-Fu
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    by Wide Sight

ALTERNATE SYNOPSIS:
The solitary and largely self-contained Augustin (Jean-Chretien Sibertin Blanc), an obscure young actor of bit-parts and advertisements, has but one ambition: to play the lead role in a kung fu epic. But hours of kung fu practice alone in his room are not enough. Augustin knows he must pack up and start a new life in China--or at least that part of China within bicycling distance: Chinatown in southeast Paris. There he meets Ling (Maggie Cheung), a young Chinese woman who practices acupuncture; and little by little, Ling's needles awaken emotions in Augustin that his virginal body had never dreamed of. Where will this lead him? To kung fu stardom, maybe not, but to another destiny, a quirky but logical continuation of the same dream.
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    by Gary W. Tooze




What a loveable and touching bittersweet comedy. Don't let the title fool you... it has very little to do with the martial art. Instead it eventually laments on fatalistic timing and its influence on relationships and missed opportunity.

Augustin is an affable, yet severely geeky, young actor playing obscure bits-parts in television advertisements etc. His delusional passion is Kung Fu. He is drawn to it, not for the physical disciplines, but a calling that he is barely aware of; to travel to China. His obsession with Kung Fu leads him to seek formal teaching in the Chinatown of Paris, but he quickly realizes his psychological failing is a roadblock - he faints when he is touched. This severe hindrance to his keen goal causes him to seek homeopathic therapy in the form of an Acupuncture Doctor, and recent émigré from China, Ling (played by Maggie Cheung). Acceptance and understanding of a particularly sensitive and simple soul drives the plot. We meet Augustin, smile at his unusual demeanor, are impressed by his unique charm and chuckle at his affliction while eventually feeling pity for the cruel hand that fate had delivered him on one important night.

This film has not been given its fair due... mostly, I would guess, because of the misconstrued title. Don't let that stop you from indulging yourself in this marvelous human interest experience. A true hidden gem!

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