We rented Kung Fu Hustle the other night. It was a very good, very fun movie. But it struck me that as much as anything else, as much as being a martial arts movie and a comedy, it was a fantasy film. Basically, it's a story about kung fu sorcerers in 1940s China. And they are sorcerers. You've got the assassins who use a chinese harp to throw ghostly swords, fists and skeletal warriors. You've got Sing's supernatural recuperative powers. You've got the superhero martial arts moves.

In fact, Kung Fu Hustle is probably the most fantasy film I've seen for a long time.

When Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came out, many people claimed it as a fantasy movie. It won the Nebula for best script. Yet it has far less of a fantasy element to it.

Perhaps it's because Crouching Tiger fits more closely the stereotype of What Fantasy Is: there are sword fights and quests. There are heroes. It's set a long time ago.

I haven't seen the same enthusiasm to claim Kung Fu Hustle. Maybe that's because it doesn't easily fit the formula-fantasy jacket. It's set in Shanghai in the '40s. The protagonist is very unheroic, at least until the end. There really aren't any sword fights.

We've been very conditioned to think that fantasy is Lord of the Rings/Narnia/Harry Potter, and of course those are fantasies, and good ones. But they are one end of the spectrum, traditional, rational fantasies. Kung Fu Hustle is much more innovative and interesting. It's an urban fantasy with an original setting and a complex story. If you like that kind of fantasy, check it out. You won't be disappointed.

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In the news today:

Women cannot complain of being raped while they are too drunk to remember what happened, a High Court judge ruled yesterday. Judge Roderick Evans said that "drunken consent is still consent" after the rape case of a student was thrown out of Swansea Crown Court yesterday.

Drunken consent to sex is still consent, judge rules, in The Independent.

No, Judge Evans, it is not. If one person is thoroughly drunk and the other is sober, there is no way in the world that the drunk person can be considered to have given consent.

The number of recorded rapes of women in 2004/5 was 12,867 - up 4% on the year before - although police estimate that just 15% of rapes come to their attention. Only 6% of reported rapes result in a conviction.

Women 'get blame for being raped', in BBC News.

With attitudes like Judge Evans', it is not surprising that only 6% of reported rapes result in a conviction. It is an appalling figure. Certainly there are cases of untrue allegations and the wrong suspects being charged, but there is no way that that accounts for 94% of cases. And, of course, rape is a hard crime to prove, in most cases, as it relies on one person's word against another. But the real reason conviction rates are so low are the attitudes of the public to the victims. And while judges like Evans feel free to make such ridiculous remarks, it's hard to see how that will change.

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Also in the news:

Six weeks after the massive earthquake that devastated parts of Pakistan, the United Nations and relief agencies are racing against time to avert a horrendous, avoidable humanitarian tragedy.

Pakistan earthquake: A tragedy the world forgot, in The Independent.

It's hard to know why the Pakistan Earthquake has attracted so much less of a charitable/governmental response than the Asian Tsunami of last year. Perhaps it's because almost no white tourists were caught up in it. Perhaps it really is "compassion fatigue" after several disasters. Perhaps it's because there wasn't the same dramatic television coverage. Whichever, the situation is terrible and desparate. You can still donate, to organisations like The Disasters Emergency Committee.