Music pounds, pixels pulse; a digital butterfly floats through a rust-colored canyon. Swooping along with the animated bug, the “camera” lifts up over the rock formation, which turns out to be the Chinese ideograms for “Kung Fu Hustle.” As ostentatious credit sequences go, this is fairly ho-hum, serving no obvious purpose other than to advertise the chunk of change Columbia Pictures invested in this movie.

But hey, flaunt it if you’ve got it: Stephen Chow’s chop-socky knockout represents the wackiest $20 million an American studio has forked over since the costume budget on “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” – and quite possibly the best. Made locally but aimed globally, “Kung Fu Hustle” has the same crossover ambitions as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or the stately martial-arts super productions of Zhang Yimou. Don’t let the vulgar exuberance fool you; this is every bit the tour-de-force of those polite pictures. And twice as fun.

Dizzy for weeks on the romper-room rush of this superabundantly silly entertainment, I went back for a second look and found myself thinking differently about that opening scene. If a CGI butterfly flaps its wings in China, will it alter the movie going climate in America?

Columbia’s investment wasn’t much of a gamble; Mr. Chow is one of the most popular and successful filmmakers in Asia. His previous film, “Shaolin Soccer,” was a worldwide box-office smash and cleaned up at the Hong Kong critics’ awards. A crowd-pleasing demographic triple-whammy of sports shenanigans, kung fu hijinks, and slapstick comedy, it ought to have been the must-see summer movie of every soccer-playing, prepubescent PlayStation junkie in America.

Problem was, it was bought by the infamously capricious Miramax, which endlessly delayed the release, promising then canceling a half-dozen release dates. Long after every Sinophile cinephile had caught up to the film on imported DVDs, the studio gave it a lackluster push and watched it fall flat on its face.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Chow’s latest, and greatest, has been another massive popular and critical hit elsewhere on the planet. (It divvied up the 2004 Hong Kong awards with Wong Kar-wai’s “2046”). Time will tell whether Columbia succeeds where Miramax failed, but “Kung Fu Hustle” should uplift every audience from Brooklyn to Beijing.

One of the most inventively derivative movies of the CGI era, “Kung Fu Hustle” won’t be kicking off any pop revolution. Like the underrated “Charlie’s Angels” movies of McG, Mr. Chow’s cine-spectacular is a berserkazoid genre pastiche, juiced to the gills with digital effects.

As if warming up for the meta-movie acrobatics to come, “Kung Fu Hustle’s” opening scene flies through a half-dozen modes in as many minutes – Western, musical, gangster, kung fu, homage to Scorsese, parody of Wong Kar-wai. The next hour and a half will bring us nods to Chaplin, Kubrick, “The Matrix,” and the entire legacy of martial arts cinema from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan to Tsui Hark and beyond.

Critic Sam Ho has drawn attention to less obvious but crucial influences from the 1960s, such as the five part “Buddha’s Palm” series and “72 Tenants.” I wouldn’t be surprised if every shot carried the DNA of another movie. “Kung Fu Hustle” is as steeped in homage as the overrated “Kill Bill,” but wondrously free of its suffocating solipsism.

The movie begins with an overheated introduction to its retro back lot universe; a pseudo- Shanghai frontier town ruled by the ruthless, tuxedo-wearing Axe Gang. Only the grubbiest districts of the town are free from harassment, and Pig Sty Alley is the grubbiest of them all.

A monumental, U-shaped tenement block located on the outskirts of town, Pig Sty Alley seethes with squalor and vaudeville crazies. There is a coolie named Coolie (Xing Yu), a tailor named Tailor (Chiu Chi Ling), and a simpering noodle-shop owner in red-hot man-panties named Donut (Dong Zhi Hua). A horse-mouthed floozy slinks around in lingerie; a surly teenage hairdresser sashays in very low-rise trousers.

Dressed in silk pajamas and crocodile loafers, the lounge lizard of a Landlord (Yuen Wah) twitters his eyebrows and flirts with the womenfolk. This gets him smacked upside the head, chucked out a window, and beaned with a flowerpot by the Landlady (Yuen Qiu), his better, and much bigger, half. With a cigarette perpetually dangling from her mouth and curlers permanently lodged in her hair, Landlady is a foul-mouthed, bug-eyed, butt kicking force of ill nature. Ms. Yuen came out of a 28-year retirement to breathe fire into this hilarious harridan, and she should be welcomed back with a ticker-tape parade.

Life is normal in Pig Sty Alley – which is to say totally bonkers – until the arrival of Sing (Mr. Chow) and his sidekick (Lam Tze Chung), a sad-sack Laurel and Hardy duo with delusions of kung fu grandeur. Masquerading as Axe Gang members, they provoke the wrath of Landlady just as a pack of real gang bangers moseys into town. Enter Yuen Wo-ping, superstar action choreographer of “The Matrix,” who pulls the strings of the ensuing digifu hysteria. Coolie, Tailor, and Donut turn out to be secret martial-arts masters, and, after much fancy footwork and gravity defiance, send the Axe Gang packing. Post-smack down, Sing and his sidekick are kidnapped by the Gang, but offered a chance to join up if they prove their mettle by killing someone. Sing targets the unstoppable Landlady with a handful of throwing knives – all of which end up ricocheting into his own shoulder. Out of nowhere, “Kung Fu Hustle” chucks a Road Runner cartoon into its mix, as Landlady dashes after Sing in a superhuman blur of legs.

Shameless one-upmanship of its own over-the-top zaniness is the genius of “Kung Fu Hustle.” More is more when Mr. Chow’s giving it. In a representative bit of gonzo tomfoolery, Axe Gang capo Brother Sum (Chan Kwok Kwan) is put in his place by (who else) Landlady, and sulks off in his thugmobile. His lackey pops a Zippo to light his cigarette; Brother Sum’s hair does a Michael Jackson. The minion tries to help by pouring liquid on his head – from a flask. Bigger fire, more smoke, more panic; the scene goes on and on, getting funnier the more absurdly drawn out it becomes. Finally, in an inspired punchline, the camera swoops back away from the car as it barrels down the road, trailing a cloud of burnt hair behind it.

The ensuing enjoyments include an unexpectedly witty “Matrix”-style subplot (a butterfly will emerge from his cocoon), and a Chaplinesque romance involving a girl (Huang Sheng Yi) from Sing’s past. But “Kung Fu Hustle” essentially comes down to a string of set pieces in which the Axe Gang tries to beat down Pig Sty Alley.

In the most inspired sequence – a real imaginative tour de force – they hire a pair of blind assassin-musicians whose harp-like instrument conjures invisible flying swords, giant fists, and a gaggle of ghosts from “Pirates of the Caribbean.” More ominous yet is the release of “The Beast,” a man so devoted to kung fu he went insane. (He is sprung from the “Atypical Pathology Center.”) Don’t be fooled by this stringy haired geezer in plastic flip-flops: He is a master of the Kwan Lun Froggystyle!

The true master here is Mr. Chow, who can be forgiven for his sweet-natured (and digitally assisted) pretension to kung fu supremacy. Every scene exhibits the timing and control of a killer comedian; there’s not a wasted shot in the film, every cut is propulsive. He cares for his craft, adores his audience, worships his cast (a remarkable who’s-who of Chinese cinema legends). Anyone can buy CGI and wirework; love elevates “Kung Fu Hustle.”