Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002)

A rough-around-the-edges martial arts master seeks revenge for his parent's death.

Director:

Steve Oedekerk

Writer:

Steve Oedekerk

Stars:

Steve Oedekerk, Fei Lung, Leo Lee

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Steve Oedekerk	...	Chosen One
Fei Lung	...	Master Pain (Betty) (archive footage) (as Lung Fai)
Leo Lee	...	Young Master Pain
Ling-Ling Hsieh	...	Ling (archive footage) (as Tse Ling Ling)
Lin Yan	...	Dying Ling (as Yan Lin)
Chia Yung Liu	...	Wimp Lo (archive footage) (as Lau Kar Wing)
Hui Lou Chen	...	Master Tang (archive footage) (as Chen Hui Lou)
Chi Ma	...	Master Doe (archive footage) (as Ma Chi)
Jennifer Tung	...	Whoa
Escobar Tongue	...	Tonguey (credit only)
Ming Lo	...	Father
Peggy Lu	...	Mother
Tad Horino	...	Chew Fat Lip
Tori Tran	...	Peasant Woman
Simon Rhee	...	Young Master Pain's Henchman

Storyline

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist is a movie within a movie, created to spoof the martial arts genre. Writer/director Steve Oedekerk uses contemporary characters and splices them into a 1970s kung-fu film, weaving the new and old together. As the main character, The Chosen One, Oedekerk sets off to avenge the deaths of his parents at the hands of kung-fu legend Master Pain. Along the way, he encounters some strange characters, one of which is a cow trained in the martial arts.

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Plot Keywords:

kung fu | chosen one | martial arts | intentionally bad | hero | 

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Taglines:

A laugh-out-loud funny spoof!

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Genres:

Action | Comedy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for comic violence, crude and sexual humor

Details

Country:

USA Hong Kong Mexico Taiwan

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 January 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

Kung Pow! Enter the Fist

Filming Locations:

Fox Baja Studios, Rosarito, Baja California Norte, Mexico

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$7,017,474, 27 January 2002

Gross USA:

$16,037,962

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$16,994,625

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, O Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Animation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

81 min 87 min (extended edition)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

After Master Betty kills everyone Chosen One cares about, he decides to invent a new stronger word than "bad" and "wrong," and comes up with the portmanteau "Badong," which happens to be a county in China (Badong Xiàn).

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Goofs

When the infant Chosen One is rolling down a hill, his shoe falls off. In the next shot, he has both of them on again. Shortly thereafter, he loses the same shoe a second time (exact same footage), and then both of them reappear on his feet. Some other segments are shown 3 or 4 times.

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Quotes

Master Betty: I am a great magician - your clothes are red!

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Crazy Credits

After the credits, the last words Master Tang says are "Save the Whales."

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Alternate Versions

A DVD feature is a computer generated version of the cow-fight which was done before they filmed the scene. It has a few changes...

• Chosen One is knocked down by the Cow. He gets up only to step into cow poo. The Cow laughs until Chosen One kicks him, which leaves a brown foot mark.
• The cow does a summersault off a tree.
• When Chosen One drains the Cow of milk, the Cow remains it's normal weight because...
• The Cow attempts to take out Chosen One from behind, but he kicks the Cow in the udders.

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Connections

Spoofed in Reverse World Animation (2013)

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Soundtracks

Infamia I
Written and Performed by David Arnold and Paul Hart
Courtesy of Associated Production Music

User Reviews

Thought provoking and tense drama...

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.