Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

There are only two ways to master the world. One is through Kung Fu. There are only two ways of becoming a Kung Fu master: by doing the work, or by dedicated watching of certain movies.

This is no relaxing work in general, my little crickets, and this movie may need some guidance from someone trained in the inner art. Take my word for it that hidden beneath some repetitious, dumb, childish, cardboard humor this movie contains the final secrets for those waiting to get through the eleventh portal.

Naturally, you cannot watch this in its English translation, rather you need to see it in the original language, actually several languages. But be careful; one character is there to throw you off and is obfuscating in glossolalia.

Thanks go to Quenten Tarantino. His uncredited efforts to bring this to the masses could result in a massive shift toward enlightenment.

Also, the tongue-works rocked!

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I first saw Kung-Pow on DVD with friends who had seen it in the theater and loved it. But they said that people had been walking out of the theater, lots of people. Despite this, I still watched. Everyone around me knew the jokes, and knew when to laugh. I quickly picked up on Oedekerk's sense of humor in this movie, and I ended up loving the movie. If it hadn't been for my friends, I could easily see myself hating this movie too.

There are so many things that seem like mistakes, but are done *on purpose* by Oedekirk. If it looks like a mistake, it's probably a joke. After all, it is a spoof type movie.

There's a good chance that when you saw the trailers and TV spots for this movie the first word that came to your mind was "stupid". Yes, this a stupid movie. It's one of the stupidest movies I have ever seen to be honest, but it is also one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Up until I saw this movie earlier today, I hadn't seen one good movie in 2002 so I can say that this is the best move of 2002..so far. No jokes fall flat [except the gay henchman was sort of annoying at times], the action scenes are well done, and it's always a treat to see really bad movies get spoofed. ****

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

Goofy, no, it's beyond Goofy. There needs to be a word for how ridiculous this movie is all throughout. The martial arts film is a edit of archive footage that they got the rights too, dubbed everyone of the voices to complete hilarity.

Written, Directed and Stared by Steve Oedekerk. You probably don't recognize his name so I'll list some of his credentials you might know of. Bruce/Evan Almighty, Nutty Professor I and II, Patch Adams, and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.

I don't laugh easy, and I particularly don't laugh at stupid humor. For instance I don't for the life of me understand the draw of Pewdiepie. Normally I laugh at comedians like Kevin Hart and Lewis C.K. but this movie made me laugh. If it can do that to me then it'll probably bust some guts for others.

There are some cultural references in the movie that you'd have to lived through the late 90s and early 2000s to understand. There's a matrix reference, one of the thousands out there with the bullet time bending of the main characters back to avoid the bullets. In this case it's a martial arts cow shooting milk at him. Nuff said.

"WEE-OOH WEE-OOH WEE-OOH!" - Ling One of the best catch phrases in comedy. I'm probably going to appear as some sort of sociopath (more than normal) saying that at random moments because it's stuck in my head. Good luck getting that ear worm out.

Verdict: Cult Classic. Definite watch. It's free on HBO, at the moment, if you got it.

Only kidding :) Kung Pow is in a league of its own in terms of calibre. It's a slapstick 'chop socky' martial arts comedy full of silliness and ridiculous dialogue. Its vehicle is that it uses old footage of kung fu films such as Enter the Dragan and overlays its modern content onto them. Plus add intentionally bad dubbing and you have a movie which never for a second tries to be subtle, ingenious, or intelligent.

Kung Pow is absolutely, 100% absurdity and it uses this to its fullest extent.

The plot, if that's what you'd call it, is a mocking of just about every martial arts classic which has a 'wrong fella decides to wreak revenge on the nasty sorts who ruined his life' style story.

Steve Oedekerk is 'The Chosen One' whose mission it is to get revenge on the bad folk in as amusing a way as he possibly can. Master Pain is his nemesis and the bad man directly responsible for the unspeakable acts against his family.

The rest of the movie is purposefully disjointed and has no continuity half the time, but a masterclass in editing is not the point of this exercise. This is simply ridiculous fun, and assuming you switch off your brain completely and wreck any remaining braincells, you will be quite entertained.

As for how funny it is, well, that's quite subjective. Many of the gags are clearly forced and milked (No pun intended (You'll understand that one if you see it)) for all they're worth. However, many *do* work and provide belly laughs. Sure, you'll not have tears rolling down your cheeks but if you're willing to stoop to the dumb level the movie demands of you, you *will* be at least amused.

One thing the movie makes particularly good use of is special effects, with some more than decent CG animation complimenting a number of scenes. Aside from this, the technical merits of the movie are pretty decent, in that the interpolation of old footage and new footage is actually rather seamless and you'll not spot it a lot of the time, except where you're supposed to.

As The Chosen One, Oedekerk seems to have a great time. It's a daft movie, so he indulges in stupidity as a matter of cause, and it works reasonably well. It's always easier to enjoy a film if it appears the actors are enjoying making it.

Overall, leave your brain at the door and do not expect high brow laughs or Jackie Chan style action and you'll probably get something out of this.