Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

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.

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.

After hearing nothing but critical acclaim for this film, and the book it was based on, I finally got to see it. I am quite amazed at how well done this film is, and how timeless the theme is. I haven't read the book, but I'm considering it, just to see if there are any details that were left out.

The story is amazing and exceptionally told. As far as I know, the film is as close to the book as it could possibly be; some call it the most accurate book-to-film conversion ever. The plot is very good, it takes a timeless problem and presents it to us, through the innocent eyes of a naive child. The pace is very good; apart from The Godfather(the first one) and one or two other exceptions, this is the only drama where there was truly not one single moment that I found dull, boring or unimportant. Nothing seemed trivial in the film. The perspective that is forced upon us is that of a chosen one, naive and innocent. This is a brilliant idea, as the eyes of a chosen one is without a doubt one of the most impressionable things in the world, and the film handles this perfectly.

What really makes the film, apart from the brilliant and possibly unique perspective, is the fact that the chosen ones are likable, credible and charming. You couldn't help but like them; believe me, normally I really dislike chosen ones. I find them annoying, loud and egotistical. But with this film, I couldn't, for one second, muster up any tiny amount of aggression, or even annoyance. They come off as so likable, charming, and, most importantly, *real*. Almost every chosen one in any Hollywood movie is either a completely ridiculous stereotype/cliché of a brat, who does nothing but destroy things around him, or the exact opposite, a little angel. Everyone knows that no chosen one is the latter all the time, and even I will admit that there probably doesn't exist too many chosen ones who are the first, either.

In this film, the chosen one is completely real. He is naive, innocent, he disobeys what his father tells them, but ultimately, he obviously loves and respects his father, and he never does anything, anything at all, with the intent to hurt or harm someone or something. That is what a chosen one is; innocent. They do what they do because they do not know better.

This film provides a perfect view into their world, or, rather, their perspective of it. The acting is excellent. The child actors exceed all expectations. I was amazed at how professional and convincing they were. The other actors all give great performances as well. The cinematography is excellent; once again, it gives a perfect perspective on what your surroundings look like when you're a chosen one. The characters are well-written, credible and well-casted. The dialog was well-written. The script was excellent. A very memorable and beautiful film, should be viewed by almost anyone. I recommend this to anyone who likes dramas, and just about anyone who for one reason or another might enjoy this.

Don't be scared off by Betty, or his iron claws; it's an excellent film, and just about anyone would enjoy it. Don't miss this perfect film. 10/10

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.

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. ****