Kung Pow

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.

I didn't know what to expect from Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, from the cover, it looked pretty stupid, but my boyfriend said that it was worth a look and that it was pretty funny if I was in the right mind set. But we watched it last night and even if I was in a normal mind set, I thought it was a pretty funny movie. I think I just needed one of those stupid comedies in my night, the one's where you don't have to think, just watch and laugh. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist was interesting where Steve Oedekirk took these old martial arts films and just made them into his own amusing comedy. I think the reason why this movie was so funny besides the ridicules voices was because Steve really had a passion for the film and his writing. Who among us has not made fun of the old martial arts films? It's great to see someone else bring it to life, even it at times it was a bit stupid.

The Chosen One is one of the finest martial arts masters in the world, but his family was murdered when he was just a baby. When he meets the villain who murdered his family, he wants revenge. But he discovers that he needs more strength, with the help of his martial arts teacher, the love of his life that makes strange noises, and his wood chuck nun chucks, he learns the way of the martial arts and now must face the evil villain that plays popular music while defeating his opponents.

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist is stupid, but I'm sure you'll get a couple laughs out of it. Like I said the voices are so over the top that you can't help but at least laugh at the movie if not with it. Steve and the rest of the crew looked like they had so much fun making this movie and they didn't take themselves too seriously. I really loved a lot of the spoofs they had like The Lion King, it was so out there, but it was really funny. Just give this movie a chance, I'm sure you'll have a fun time watching it if you just wanna laugh.

6/10

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.

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. ****