Geng Hao (Huang Bo) wasn't always a loser. A dim but well-meaning champion cyclist, he became the pitchman for a shady "masculinity tonic" and was promptly stripped of his medals and banned from professional racing when scandal erupted. Three years later, reduced to a life of anonymous disgrace as a delivery boy, Geng Hao spots the Superman-obsessed shyster who ruined him and vows vengeance, but a series of insane contrivances and mishaps, including multiple mistaken identities, a freeze-dried transsexual assassin and Taiwanese gangsters with their own Mandopop theme song all conspire to stand in his way.

An oldtime Hollywood farce on jacked up on speed, Crazy Racer burns rubber into NYAFF compliments of the Chinese box office super-team of director Ning Hao and star Huang Bo. Ning Hao was previously an artfilm director (Mongolian Ping Pong, Incense) who was acclaimed overseas but couldn’t get arrested back home. Finally sick of being broke, he cast an unknown Huang Bo in his nose -thumbing chaotic comedy, Crazy Stone, and made millions at the box office. Their follow-up, which earned millions more, is Crazy Racer and it’s a master class in choreographed idiocy, a demented voyage into Looney Tunes slapstick featuring intricately absurdist setpieces and exactly one flaming, flying sea turtle. Spot the spoof of the Universal Studios logo, the local undertaker's glamorous, "Mafia-style" funeral services and luxury graves, and the offhanded jeer at A Better Tomorrow, and you'll begin to understand the soaring, lunatic ambition at work here.

Ning Hao's puzzle-box narratives and gonzo gangsters are sometimes compared to Guy Ritchie's crime capers, but Ning's work is fresher, oozing with ample heart and a crackpot imagination. Screw-up or not, you won't be able to stop yourself from cheering Geng Hao on as he confronts his destiny in an impromptu marathon ride for his life.