Product Description

Writer/director Steve Oedekerk (The Nutty Professor and Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls) creates an off-the-wall comedy and a new martial arts genre that substantially alters dubbed action footage from a 1970's martial arts picture with a brand new twist in the story line and altered dialogue. The story follows The Chosen One (Oedekerk) as he seeks to avenge the death of his parents at the hands of the evil and seemingly indestructible kung fu legend, Master Pain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5836 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2002-07-23
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 81 minutes

Amazon.com
Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is best enjoyed with low expectations, if only because it might surprise you with genuine belly laughs. Writer-director Steve Oedekerk uses digital trickery to make himself a costar in the 1976 Hong Kong action flick Tiger & Crane Fist, just as Woody Allen turned a Japanese spy thriller into the comedy spoof What's Up, Tiger Lily? The results are both technically impressive and stupendously stupid. Oedekerk is blandly appealing as "the Chosen One," who sets out to avenge the evil Master "Betty" Pain for killing his family when he was still a kung fu-fighting infant. This stock setup is a cheap excuse for Oedekerk's 80-minute buffet of chop-socky spoofery, with gags lifted from The Matrix, Oedekerk's "Thumbation" comedies, and the rich legacy of Hong Kong action. Featuring "gopher-chucks," a kung fu cow, aliens from France, and enough bad dialogue to choke a crouching tiger, Kung Pow! is mildly spicy, but mostly it's full of nuts. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

One of the funniest
Kung Pow is one of the most hilarious movies I have ever seen. I've seen it more than 15 times, and I still laugh out loud every time I see it. This movie uses footage from an old 1970's Kung Fu movie and splices it together with some new footage made specially for this movie. This mishmash is then dubbed with cheesy sounding voices. It's a completely nonsensical and silly movie. You won't be able to resist laughing. Perhaps the most famous scene in this movie is when the hero happens to find a cow and this cow jumps up and challenges him to a fight. There is even milk shooting out like the bullets in The Matrix. If you have a craving for a goofy movie, this is my top recommendation. If you don't like goofy movies, then avoid it.

Spoofs a Genre Readily Spoofable
Sometimes a movie's best charm is in perfectly hitting upon a certain relaxed pace that lets a viewer just flow with its light screwball comedy. This movie did that for me. Sometimes specific episodes seemed like they'd be tedious or boring in some movies, but this movie set its mood so precisely that they were welcome here. A movie like CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, with its dead-serious tone demanding a creedence that was certainly stretched by scenes seeming to defy gravity and other things, invites having minor fun poked at it by a spoof like this. As such this movie is timely, and that perhaps increases its charm. Should someone call this film stupid, that would be hard to refute, but if stupid, it's delightfully stupid. Maybe its success is due to being perfectly attuned in what it demands from its audience. I've seen movies that were stupid but begged to be taken seriously, and watching them can range from embarrasing to insufferable. But KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST begs only to be taken for precisely the farcical diversion that it is.

Why rate this intelligently, when it's brilliantly stupid?
It's insane, and I'm not talking about the movie... yet. I've seen reviews where the person is straining their vocabulary to make their negative review of this movie sound credible and intelligent. Truthfully, reviews have to be intelligent if they are going to be negative, (the critic's reputation depends on it) but this movie doesn't deserve such spellchecking. It is stupid and wonderful and that's all that matters. Why? That's a question you almost don't need to ask. Either you like this movie or you don't, (but even if you don't you may eventually change your mind).

For the record, writer director Steve Oedekerk has taken an obscure Hong Kong movie from the 70s, digitally transferred it, and incorporated new footage of his own and redubbed the voices for some well needed comedic insanity. The result is something you don't need the IQ of say... a movie critic (*ahem*) to appreciate. Sometimes in life, things don't make sense nor do they need to. I imagine that movie critics would pee themselves if it were the case that every movie have a perfect plot and the same kind of "intellectual" comedy... but what's life without variety? The very fact that this movie, (that some even have the nerve to call the worst ever) has found a nice "cult" fanbase and is rated so highly in fan reviews is proof that movie critics sometimes collectively drop the ball on certain reviews to make themselves appear quite respectable... they should be thanking their lucky stars that they have a job at all.

The plot itself is very typical, (as far as the kung-fu master seeking revenge bit goes) although it isn't necessary to enjoy the movie. A special child is born to a small family in ancient China, and according to prophecy a child such as this (with a special "birthmark") is destined to stop the holy council from it's diabolical plan, (which we may not know until the second movie). Thusly, a gang of murderers lead by Master Pain goes to the family's home to murder them and wipe out the child... The Chosen One. Master Pain kills the family, however he finds out very quickly that killing Chosen, even as a baby, is not so easy. Chosen is very skilled in kung-fu, even in infancy (and here begins the insanity) and he fights Master Pain's attacks off quite skillfully. In a rage Master Pain barracades the child in the family's house and burns it to the ground.

Chosen jumps out and barely escapes the flames, only to crawl away and roll down a very long and (very rocky) hill. He is found near the middle by a peasant woman, who picks him up... and drops him once again to roll down the rest of the hill. That very act should set up how ridiculous this movie is going to be. If you aren't prepared for these kinds of surprizes to continue, then this movie isn't for you. Chosen One then is found and raised by rodents (cheap joke but certainly nowhere near the best in the movie). Throughout his life he is hunted, and so constantly fighting for his life his fighting skills are quite amazing as he walks along... searching for Master Pain, to kill him and avenge his family.

In the vien of Airplane, Naked Gun and Hot Shots, this movie is complete lunacy... even more-so than those mentioned if you can imagine that. Some have compared it to Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily?" because it combines old movie footage with new footage, but that's where the similarity ends. Steve Oedekerk wanted complete freedom from the constraints of comedy rules for this movie, and that's exactly what we get. However unlike the similar genre of improvisational comedy, this movie is edited to include the most funny moments and dialogue (mostly). Some notions in life are thought about too much when the solution is obvious, so for this movie you may have to regress a little bit to realise how funny it can be (whatever substances you may or may not use to do so is out of my control). And there are all different kinds of laughs to be appreciated here. Most of them are things I'd forgotten was funny during my childhood, but that's not to say that they are completely immature.

Maybe some reviewers felt the need to bash Steve Oedekerk because he not only starred in the movie, but he also wrote it, directed it, produced it, and did most of the voice overs. And while it may seem arrogant, nothing could be further from the truth. This was an experiment... just like the anime Furi Kuri, or the first Star Wars movie, or video games like the original Super Mario Bros., and as such I'm sure that the director may have concluded that the results could have completely backfired. However the results are in fact more impressive than most of Steve's other works like the "Thumbs" series or Jimmy Neutron, or even Ace Ventura. He could have easily gone the way of complete gross-out jokes that many former SNL cast member's seem so commited to, (vile though they may be) ...he could have throw a lot of sex and flashy images at the audience, he could have even vindictively directly parodied certain films which "deserve" it. But he kept things in balance, and he directs with a kind of innocence (that oddly went against Ace Ventura's character traits for the sequel he directed).

The original movie from which half of this film is taken, (called Tiger and Crane Fists) was directed by Jimmy Wang Yu, and Oedekerk directed his film in exactly the same way. Even when fighting a computer generated cow, the footage matches the old footage extremely well, (although the DVD version cleans the newer footage up a bit too well). There is some very good composit work done to make Steve O fit into the old footage, many are love connection scenes with a character from the original film named Ling. The curly cues on her face and cute demeanor would make anyone swoon. Other original film characters make similarly interesting appearances, such as Master Tang of the crane style Kung Fu school. He becomes likable because of Steve's silly voice over and his hilarious dialogue. And the humor in the antics of the individual characters is where the movie shines, even though the new footage has it's moments, the re-edited old footage feels like long lost comedic genius that was lost in time. Steve must be thanked for fleshing this idea out.

So what's so funny? There are some jokes about bodily fluids, but they are somewhat clever yet unique. Still they are few and far between, so you needn't worry. Most of the jokes are about the ridiculous English dubbing and strange scenerios made in Hong Kong movies of the 70s, literal impossiblities of time and space, and how often times heros and villians over-emphasize their strengths. And they are easily grasped once you appreciate the actual voice work, (if sometimes needing a "getting used to") which was done entirely by Steve Oedekerk with one exception. Some reviewers have gone on record to say that the jokes repeat themselves making the movie too long of a skit, I never felt such a feeling when watching the movie and as of yet have no idea of what they're referring to.

-So 5 stars? Yes.
-Why? Because the movie does exactly what it's supposed to, it's extremely funny if you aren't too high brow of a movie expert, plus the DVD is packed with extras.
-Would you recommend this to anyone? Yes, and everyone. Everyone should see this movie at least once, but not take it so seriously.
-Is the DVD worth buying? Yes, because you gain a lot of insight into the reasons for the making of this movie, how the movie was made, and the extras are plentiful (even more-so than some supposedly "big" movies). You can even watch the movie with the original Mandarin Chinese and Gibberish English dialogue done before Odedekerk's voice overs.
-Who is Tonguey? You'll just have to find out.
-Will there be a sequel? Supposedly we'll be seeing Kung Pow 2: Tongue of Fury in 2006, hopefully... cross your fingers with eyeballs on the ends of them.