Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is not your average martial arts flick. For one thing, it stars a white guy- with a face on his tongue. Plus there's a dastardly villain called Betty, a climactic fight with a cow, and a mysterious one-breasted woman who shows up in one scene and is never seen again. And no, I am not on crack as I write this, just Mountain Dew and gratuitous amounts of AC/DC.
Anyways, as you've probably guessed, Kung-Pow is intended as a send up of all those campy, poorly dubbed kung-fu movies from the Far East. Those of you who are Woody Allen fans or have particularly long memories may remember a film called What's Up, Tiger Lilly, in which Allen took two low budget Japanese spy movies, moved some of the scenes around, and completely re-dubbed it to create an entirely new, entirely nonsensical plot. Here, writer/director/producer/leading man Steve Oedekerk takes things a step further, digitally replacing the original film's star with himself, and adding completely new scenes, like the aforementioned one with the cow.
Like What's Up, Tiger Lilly, Kung Pow! Is utterly ridiculous, and makes little if any sense, which is the whole point. Exhibit A is the dialogue. As stated before, all original lines have been replaced by new, hilariously nonsensical ones. Seriously, half the lines in this movie have nothing to do with anything. Ling, the Chosen One's love interest seems to be voiced by the same actress who does Miss Piggy. And in a nod to the usual quality of dubbing in Asian films, many characters sound just like fifth-graders reading from a Chinese-to-English dictionary. There's even a part where the guy's mouth keeps moving forever, and all he says is "no." And this is far from the only aspect of traditional martial arts movies that gets lampooned. The training sequences, the requisite close up of each fighter's face accompanied by dramatic music, the dramatic last words of the hero's dying sensei, and many more clichés are stretched well beyond their logical limits. Just for good measure, they even threw in parodies of the Lion King and the Matrix.
And just in case the ludicrous re-dubbing and slaying of clichés weren't enough, Oedekerk goes for further laughs by suspending all attempts at believability and adding whatever random ideas popped into his head. One suspects that much of the story for this movie was fleshed out by guys sitting around a table taking bong hits, which if true makes this one of the best things ever created as a result of drugs. Besides the fight with the cow, there's also a fight between the bad guy and a baby, and several fights set to hip-hop. And there's that tongue-face, who has lines of his own and proves key to defeating the Council of Evil. Add an intermission straight out of Monty Python and a trailer for a fictional sequel, and you get one of the most oddball productions in many years.
From this review it may sound like the filmmaker is desperately trying to inject humor any way he can, which may be why most critics panned Kung Pow! upon its release. But I personally could not stop laughing. This movie is simply to oddball and too original not to like. Even its flaws, like the sub-par CGI, only add to the campy feel. It may not engage your intellect, broaden your horizons, or make much sense, but if you have any experience with its source material, Kung Pow! Enter the Fist will have you laughing too hard to care.
Anyways, as you've probably guessed, Kung-Pow is intended as a send up of all those campy, poorly dubbed kung-fu movies from the Far East. Those of you who are Woody Allen fans or have particularly long memories may remember a film called What's Up, Tiger Lilly, in which Allen took two low budget Japanese spy movies, moved some of the scenes around, and completely re-dubbed it to create an entirely new, entirely nonsensical plot. Here, writer/director/producer/leading man Steve Oedekerk takes things a step further, digitally replacing the original film's star with himself, and adding completely new scenes, like the aforementioned one with the cow.
Like What's Up, Tiger Lilly, Kung Pow! Is utterly ridiculous, and makes little if any sense, which is the whole point. Exhibit A is the dialogue. As stated before, all original lines have been replaced by new, hilariously nonsensical ones. Seriously, half the lines in this movie have nothing to do with anything. Ling, the Chosen One's love interest seems to be voiced by the same actress who does Miss Piggy. And in a nod to the usual quality of dubbing in Asian films, many characters sound just like fifth-graders reading from a Chinese-to-English dictionary. There's even a part where the guy's mouth keeps moving forever, and all he says is "no." And this is far from the only aspect of traditional martial arts movies that gets lampooned. The training sequences, the requisite close up of each fighter's face accompanied by dramatic music, the dramatic last words of the hero's dying sensei, and many more clichés are stretched well beyond their logical limits. Just for good measure, they even threw in parodies of the Lion King and the Matrix.
And just in case the ludicrous re-dubbing and slaying of clichés weren't enough, Oedekerk goes for further laughs by suspending all attempts at believability and adding whatever random ideas popped into his head. One suspects that much of the story for this movie was fleshed out by guys sitting around a table taking bong hits, which if true makes this one of the best things ever created as a result of drugs. Besides the fight with the cow, there's also a fight between the bad guy and a baby, and several fights set to hip-hop. And there's that tongue-face, who has lines of his own and proves key to defeating the Council of Evil. Add an intermission straight out of Monty Python and a trailer for a fictional sequel, and you get one of the most oddball productions in many years.
From this review it may sound like the filmmaker is desperately trying to inject humor any way he can, which may be why most critics panned Kung Pow! upon its release. But I personally could not stop laughing. This movie is simply to oddball and too original not to like. Even its flaws, like the sub-par CGI, only add to the campy feel. It may not engage your intellect, broaden your horizons, or make much sense, but if you have any experience with its source material, Kung Pow! Enter the Fist will have you laughing too hard to care.