King Kung Fu

First of all, let me be completely transparent and admit that I used to watch the actor who played the John Wayne "inspired" character, Tom Leahy, when I was a kid in the '70s on the local TV station where he played "Major Astro"....one of those afternoon shows where the host plays cartoons for the kids after school. That is how I ran across this movie, looking up stuff on "Major Astro", so I may be a bit bias.

This is a campy spoof of kung-fu movies and King Kong movies. I almost imagine the idea was born in a small bar in Wichita over a few too-many rounds of Coors. The combination of the titles of "King Kong" and "Kung Fu" into "King Kung Fu" was probably first and the rest was spawned by that.

I enjoyed this flick, from the opening scenes where the gorilla snatches the banana from his sensi's hand (obviously inspired by the opening credits to the TV show "Kung Fu"...you know...."snatch the pebble from my hand, Grasshopper", only the gorilla's name is "Jungle Jumper") all the way to the end. It is low-budget and doesn't take itself too seriously (or seriously at all). When I recommend this movie to others, I tell them it's somewhat on the same seriousness as "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". If you like that one, you'll probably enjoy this one.

I revisited my comments here for the first time in years, and was horrified to see that I'd misidentified it as the bad local film they used to show at the Drama Department picnic. Absolutely wrong--that was ANOTHER Wichita POS made for local TV called something like Creature From Beyond Time or similar. The Creature was Tom Leahy, the only remotely amusing actor in King Kung Fu.

I apologize to anyone who was harmed, offended, or left the profession because of my thoughtless remarks.

Otherwise, the rest stands. Bob Walterscheid said it best in his comments herein:

'If you laugh at the opening titles when it says "Filmed in SimianScope" then you'll laugh all the way thru the movie.'

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Original comments:

In my decades-long hunt for the World's Worst Movie, I'm finding that there's distinct categories of Worst. There's sincere-but-lame Worst (Night of Horror), totally-inept Worst (Rat Pfink), crass-exploitation Worst (The Acid Eaters), and so on. There just isn't one standard of Worst that'll put Manos, Blood Feast, and Showgirls on the same rating scale.

King Kung Fu is the World's Worst Movie in the category, "Wichita, Kansas, In-Joke Films Made by Local Commercial Production Companies and Never Released Theatrically." All I can figure is that Bob Walterscheid, the person responsible, saw what fellow Kansas commercial producer Herk Harvey had accomplished with Carnival of Souls up in Lawrence a few years earlier, and decided to try and make his own feature-length film, and in color, yet.

To paraphrase Monster a Go Go, "It was mutilated in a horrible way no one had ever seen before."

The only public showing of this - "film" - I can document was as a running joke at the annual Drama Department picnic at Wichita State University, where you could hoot and point out everyone you recognized. Otherwise, even if you're as dedicated as I am in the hunt for the World's Worst, or, alternatively, even if you're a blood relative of one of the participants, trust me - you DON'T WANT TO KNOW. LET IT GO. PUT THE TAPE DOWN AND BACK SLOWLY AWAY. KING KUNG FU WILL SUCK THE AIR FROM YOUR LUNGS. IF THEY SHOWED THIS MOVIE ON THE BEACH AT PADRE ISLAND AT THE HEIGHT OF SPRING BREAK EVERYONE WATCHING WOULD IMMEDIATELY TURN INTO WARREN CHRISTOPHER.

I'm not kidding.

I am a big fan of slapstick comedy's. And after seeing Cinemassacres review on spike.com, I couldn't resist. The only thing I don't like is the filler. Just cut to the dang gorilla already! And at the end when they are on the building, I love the crappy stop motion effects. And the one liners are great! This is probably one of the best movie ever made. There is no other movie like this, sadly enough. It kinda reminds me of that movie that was playing on the TV in the movie "Troll 2". I think that that movie was called "Grunt", but anyway, King kung fu is A+ entertainment, that I could watch for hours. I recommend it all the way.

My review was written in June 1990 after watching the movie on King Gemini video cassette.

This Wichitamade oddity is old-fashioned spoof recommended to fans of cornpone humor. G-rated opus was completed in 1987 and is awaiting distribution.

Filmmaker Lance Hayes shows a genuine affection for old movies, his main homage here being to the 1933 classic "King Kong". Strained storyline has China sending to America a gorilla trained in the martial arts as part of a cultural exchange program. He escapes from captivity, takes a liking to pretty blonde Maxine Gray (as "Rae Fey") and ascends the town's tallest building, a Holiday Inn.

This puerile entertainment is easy to watch though out of step with today's sensational approach. Targets of satire range from the David Carradine "Kung Fu" tv series (the ape is called Jungle Jumper instead of Weed Hopper), tv newscasts and John Wayne movies. Tom Leahy does an okay Duke impression, but looks more like Leo V. Gordon than the targeted superstar.

Bumbling comedy team of Tim McGill and Billy Schwartz gets some laughs, though their costuming and styling makes film look like an early '70s production, Gray manages to provide some alluring pulchritude without threatening pic's G tag.

Finale features extremely poor stop-motion animation to simulate the gorilla's fall from the roof onto a helicopter. John Balee wearing the apesuit is unimpressive.

It blows my mind how people can generally slate movies like this...

If you rent or buy a movie with the title "King Kung Fu" that should be a good implication that this movie shouldn't be taken seriously.

I mean, you're going to watch a film about a Gorilla who knows Kung Fu, you should know by now that it's hardly gonna be Oscar nominated material.

Films like these should be praised not knocked. It's a no nonsense approach to the consumer, it lets you know exactly what the films about straight from the title.

This is one of those films that.. say you're lying in bed, late at night, watching TV, channel flicking and you came across this movie, you'd sit though it and maybe fall for its charms of being absolutely daft.

Believe me, I've seen a lot worse than "King Kung Fu" and would pick this movie ahead of some of the over budgeted movies we see today and have in recent years.

If it wasn't for films like "King Kung Fu" our memory's of B-movie nostalgia would not exist.

So...

Long Live Nostalgia!