Kung Pow - Enter the Fist [2002] [DVD]

WHAT'S GOOD:
Every genre has it's spoof. Detective films have 'The Naked Gun', sci-fi has 'Spaceballs', action flicks have 'Hotshots' and now b-movie martial arts pics have 'Kung-Pow'. It's funny moments are too many to repeat here but some choice ones are the scene with the gopher-chuks, Betty kicking ass to the sound of MC Hammer and Wimp Lo's assertion that "I'm bleeding, so that means I win" and it's all done with the really bad dubbing that makes Hong Kong movies great. You'll find yourself falling in love with Tonguey and I defy anyone not to splutter out their drink when they here the cry "That's a lot of nuts!" Plus, the DVD has the strangest and funniest extra ever; a panicked thumb (I won't even try to explain). Finally, any DVD that's title screen tells you that you're very attractive has got to be worth buying.

WHAT'S BAD:
This movie isn't big and it isn't clever, it's only worthwhile to people who are prepared to put aside their intellect for a while and just wet themselves laughing. Also, the narrator can be a bit annoying, but I don't care.

"Thank you Ling, you've helped me reach the next level.

The hilarious one-liners, although incredibly stupid, made me laugh so hard i was snorting into my red wine at several stages. Such things as 'What do you get when you cross an owl and a bungee cord?' "My ass" and "you may call me betty" had me quite literally howling. The M.O.T sign on the french alien spaceship killed me and the fact that there is a scene where one of the great masters kills a dog with his own flatulence had me gasping for breath.

The most stupid part of this film is just that. it IS stupid. There is no complicated storyline, no sensible characters, and no sopisticated and refined humour. Just non-stop idiocy and tongue-in-cheek (if you'll pardon the pun) hilarity. Even if the film does appear to be very 'Dude Where's My Car' with its humour, you are most definitely able to appreciate it, if you go in with the thought that it's all good, albeit mindless, fun. Being a fan of intellectual humour, irony and sarcasm, I'm not usually one to laugh at these baser, mostly toilet humour jokes, but I found myself almost falling off the sofa in helpless gales of laughter.

Ling more or less immortalised the movie for me with her strange and random sound effects, but possibly the funniest character would have to be the chosen one's rival with the squeaky shoes. He honestly killed me! 'we trained him wrong on purpose, for a joke'. The bad dubbing adds to the comic effect, and I have no reason for laughing as hard as i did at the delayed dog bark! I think the film would lose a lot of its humour if the dubbing hadn't been in place, but as it is, it's intellectually lacking and downright bloody hilarious!

At first I took this movie to just be another pathetic spoof film and half-watched it, expecting to regret the moment I put the DVD into the player, but I shut up and paid attention within the first 10 minutes once I heard some of the lines and felt myself giggling uncontrollably at it all. I was quite shocked at my reaction to the film, but at the same time delighted in it's simple comedy. To put it bluntly, I absolutely adored laughing at a kung-fu cow, an evil pain master called betty and a squeaky-shoed retard who was trained wrong for a joke. I guess on this one I'll have to swallow my pride and admit that yes, that movie was fantastic!