The Karate Dog

A dog suspended from the ceiling by a cable attached to a harness. Pat Morita pretending to be Chinese. A dog coaching a human on what to say to his dinner date through an earpiece from the bushes. A police detective who owns a million dollar house on the San Francisco bay. A Dalmatian that plays the cello. A fat kid with an earring. A terrier djing the party and scratching on the turntables. A woman who never closes her mouth. A movie named KARATE dog where everyone is supposed to be doing Chinese martial arts. A bumbling, overzealous dog catcher who keeps all the animals in a Guantanamo bay styled facility where they scrawl "woof" and other graffiti on the wall.

Sound great already? It only gets better: A dog takes on 5 human assassins who just defeated his human master and beats them into submission using the martial prowess he achieved spending much of his life as his masters top student. In a flurry of punches and kicks he renders all of them unconscious and/or sets their butt on fire. He bites the leader on the wrist (who is wearing a mask) and spends the rest of the movie trying to solve the mystery of the bitten leader by looking for visual clues such as a band-aids on the wrist etc. Apparently, the greatest canine martial artist to ever live made some sort of Faustian deal where he traded in his canine sense of smell for the ability to roundhouse kick people who are over 6 feet tall.

An all dog band called "the puppies". A repairman disguise kit for infiltrating hi-tech corporate headquarters that says "barker industries" on the back. A Trojan'd compact disc that literally blows up every computer within a 50 foot radius and cuts the building's power when you stick it in a CD drive on a PC.

This movie is great.

Underlying it all is a malicious thread of species-ism in the form of dog-cat hatred. At every opportunity defamatory and slanderous anti-feline sentiments are expressed, implied, and presented in a manner that reveals the deep seated prejudice of the screen writer. The only human minorities in the movie are two moron policemen who constantly make lowbrow, lewd innuendos at every given opportunity, referencing bestiality. Their ethnicity? Surprise! LATINO.

If this wasn't already some of the most exciting cinema of the new millennium, add to that the physics defying martial choreography, featuring mouth-breathing blonde bombshells doing two legged back kicks after running up the wall and septuagenarian sport board breaking.

It concerns me deeply that English speaking children are shown mindless drivel like this without consideration of the lasting emotional and spiritual injury that could be incurred.

The only disappointment? On the cover of the DVD it shows the dog wearing a headband. The dog NEVER wears a headband ONCE in the whole movie.

In summation: the greatest film ever made.

Not even worth watching for free...that is about the best way to put it after watching this mess on TV for free. I know Simon Rex is NOT an actor...so why was he cast as a lead in anything? We are suppose to believe he is a detective? But the plot gets even BETTER!! He becomes the owner of a dog who was a witness to a murder...and that dog can TALK!!! OMG...it gets even crazier! The dog lets tt he cop in on the fact that ALL animals can talk..in their own language, of course..but us humans just can't hear it. The detective decides to help this dog solve his masters' murder..and goes bumbling around doing various stupid things in an attempt add some humor to the mix. He meets a patrol cop who has plans to be detective some day too..and of course she jumps right in to help him out. Jamie Priestly is the eye candy for this film...and that is about all she is good for here I am not sure if she is really a talented actress at all. Seeing an accomplished actor like Jon Voight lower his standards to do this was almost a sad thing. He was suppose to be some amazing karate master? His moves were stiff and anything but realistic. Even his attempts at being tough was lame. Taking a concept that has been done before...a talking dog in a movie..was fine..but doing it on what must have been a low budget was not a good plan. Even the actors playing the children of Jon Voights' character were bad choices..they looked too old to be believable. Someone who was as skilled in martial arts as he was would have also taught his children the skills too at some point...in reality anyway. Not much was realistic or believable here...and I think even kids would become bored after a while. Seeing dogs dancing, playing music and spinning records was just way too much. I felt sorry for the real dogs in this and I hope they were paid well in top quality kibble...but I doubt the director had that kind of money to spare...obviously he had to know it would not make him any cash as a completed film either. Low budget stuff can be fun....but this one was more of a mess than anything.

The Karate Dog (2004)

* (out of 4)

A man (Pat Morita) is murdered and the only eyewitness is his dog Cho Cho (voice of Chevy Chase). Soon a homicide detective (Simon Rex) is working with the dog to find the man responsible and it turns out to be Hamilton Cage (Jon Voight). THE KARATE DOG is highly recommended to those wanting to see a former Oscar-winner get into a karate match with a CGI dog. This was the next to last film that director Bob Clark would do and sadly it's another stinker. It's somewhat hard to be too critical of the film as the filmmakers were clearly not wanting to make a "good" film but instead just make something that would appeal to children. I think some kids might enjoy the campy nature of the film. After all, it's not everyday that you get to see a movie where a dog is doing all sorts of karate moves on people. In fact, the first sequence where we see the dog in action actually had me laughing extremely hard simply because of how silly it actually was. From this point on things get rather boring as we get all sorts of bad comedy, lame one-liners and some pretty poor performances. Rex just isn't appealing in the lead and he can never really keep the viewer interested. Morita is hardly in the movie and Jaime Pressly turns in a pretty weak performance. Voight, well, what can you say about him? I'm not sure how he got involved in these films but he's certainly way too talented. Chase is pretty forgettable in the voice role but you really can't blame him since he has no good lines. THE KARATE DOG isn't a film to take serious but it's clear that not many making it took it serious either.

Where to begin with THE KARATE DOG, a terrible movie from beginning to end. What could of been a funny movie ends up being a snoozer. Or, is that a woofer? Anyway, everyone is wasted in this movie. Now, I know Simon Rex is no, well, he's not much of anything but he has been in better movies than this crap fest. Jaime Pressly, his love interest, must of graduated from C.A.C., CRAP ACTRESS COLLEGE, cause if she does have any acting talent of any kind she damn sure doesn't display it here. Watching her act is like pooping razor blades, pretty damn painful. No, I've never pooped razor blades but you know it would be painful. Hell, it would probably kill you. And what's up with Jon Voight? His performance as the bad guy is so over-the-top it is pathetic. I will admit, Cho-Cho is quite unique but even the Karate Dog can't hold this movie together. I did laugh in this movie. It wasn't at anything that was said or done though. It was at the damn CGI, so crappy it made my eyes sore. They say not to lay down with sleeping dogs cause you'll wake up with fleas and I'll never lay down to watch this movie again. Damn, something's biting me!!!

The actors doing the voices for the dogs--especially Chevy Chase--seem to be the most talented here. Also Nicollette Sheridan as a white cat who provides valuable help getting things done. And Lori Petty is quite good as Fowler's version of Siri.

The dogs, and the cat, are also talented musicians. Or appear to be.

The animals can't be that talented, but CGI helps. It's realistic only in the sense that if dogs could move like this, they would look this way.

The movie's title is misleading in that karate is rarely used, but it is used. Cho Cho and Cage also breakdance. You KNOW that's not Jon Voight doing most of it.

And what about Jon Voight? Isn't he a respected actor? What is he doing here? He's not that good, although you could blame the drugs. Still, it is possible for an actor to show talent as someone going senile, even comically. I'm just not sure that's what's happening here.

Jaime Pressly hadn't won any of her Emmys yet, but she does show promise here. Ashley is sweet and intelligent, and of course beautiful.

Fowler is interested in Ashley romantically. This leads to a hilarious Cyrano de Bergerac scene in a restaurant.

It's a kid's fantasy, though a little on the violent side for young kids. But I can't see this appealing to that many adults.

Still, it made me relatively happy.