Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002)

Cult Classic Martial Arts Parody

Kung Pow- Enter the Fist
This is a parody movie. Wait...do not run away just yet. Unlike the mass of crappy parody movies that are produced these days, this movie is actually very funny. If you are into the Japanese Martial Arts genre, you need to pick this one up. This movie is a parody of that specific genre. Luckily, you do not actually have to known anything about the movies it is spoofing to find this movie laugh-out-loud funny. Even if you hate martial arts movies, you will enjoy this one.

The movie starts in a small village. Master Pain and his group of thugs enter a home looking for a baby. The baby could affect their evil plans in the future if he is not stopped now. After the baby takes down most of the gang, Master Pain burns down the home in hopes to kill the child. Unfortunately, the baby narrowly barely escapes the flames. His family has been killed, so he is raised by the local wildlife.

The baby would become known as "The Chosen One." Chosen One will be forced to fight off Master Pain's henchmen for the rest of his life. However, after growing into an adult, he encounters Pain in a nearby village. Chosen One now seeks revenge on Pain, who will change his name to Betty. "Isn't Betty a woman's name" is the question running through your and Chosen One's mind. Betty is still a force to be reckoned with despite his feminine name.

This is not a intelligent comedy. Kung Pow expects you to lose about 20 IQ before viewing it. There is nothing wrong with a stupid (in a funny way) comedy every now and then. Some of the jokes are insanely humorous; other jokes are lukewarm stupid comedy. All of it mixes fairly well together. You will see references to The Lion King and The Matrix at certain points of the movie that will make you laugh. The other idiotic characters will have you laughing for a long time.

The only problem with this film is that the video quality is low sometimes. Kung Pow takes pieces from other Japanese movies that originally played in the 70s. I enjoy this idea, but some might get annoyed by it. The ending credits show how they achieved this in more detail.

I wish a sequel were made for this movie. There is plenty of reference to the making of a sequel in this film, but no sequel has been made to my knowledge. This movie has become a Cult Classic and the sequel would probably ruin this movie anyway. I want you to pick up this movie right now if you enjoy a fun spoof every now and then. September 14, 2008

Holy cow! I mean... That hardly even seems possible!

This has to be one of the strangest, funniest spoofs of martial arts I've ever seen. I watched Kung Fu Hustle, but really didn't find it especially funny. Kung Pow, on the other hand, had us laughing just about from beginning to end.

The long and short of it, for people who don't know the schtick, is that the movie's creator basically found an old 1970's kung fu movie and either used green screen or reshot parts of the movie to put himself into the action. He also revoiced much of the dialogue to completely remake the movie into his own twisted vision of a kung fu spoof. The end result is occasional hilarity, occasional groans, a few slow moments but an overall great spoof.

If you love kung fu movies, you'll probably appreciate this spoof of the 70's revenge genre. If you haven't watched any good martial arts movies, why are you watching this? Go rent Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, Hero, Iron Monkey or The Forbidden Kingdom. September 5, 2008

It has been a favorite for all my kids

I have seen this movie about 25 times and its still funny every time.
My kids love it and were crushed that number 2 never came out.
It's great for boys, they find it hysterical. May 9, 2008

The Ultimate Kung-Fu Spoof.......WEEEOOOWEEEOOO!!!

This may be funny for the regular fan of comedies but for kung fu fans, this hits a totally new level of funny. Personally, I don't think I would've enjoyed this movie nearly as much if I hadn't been watching kung-fu for so long. But not just kung-fu, bad kung-fu. I only own the good stuff but I've seen enough bad ones to get alot of the jokes going on in this movie. Basically, this movie almost killed me. I laughed so hard for so long, I almost couldn't breath. I hadn't seen anything so funny in a long time and it's been almost as long since.

Suprisingly though, I didn't see this in the movie theater. I remember the previews for it and thought it was just going to be stupid. I was dead wrong. I ended up renting it shortly after it came out on video and still didn't expect much. Not long into it, I was in tears. My girlfriend thought I had lost my mind as she had never seen me lose it like that. I agree as it's rare that anything can crack me up like this movie did. Coincidentally, the next movie on my list that has such an effect on me is 'Ace Ventura:When Nature Calls', which is also directed by Steve Oedekerk who stars in and directs 'Kung Pow'. Although Jim Carrey was fantastic in the last 'Ace', I think the teaming of the 2 made it comedy magic.

The funniest things about this film are that Oedekerk really knows and gets kung-fu films. He knows exactly what's funny about them. The things that all kung-fu movie watchers chuckle at when watching a particularly bad one. Even the better ones have some, what?, moments in them that can only be explained as bad writing or bad translation. Here, Oedekerk focuses on those and makes them the focus of almost all the characters dialog and personalities. I guess as most any spoof goes, you have to know the original material for it to hit on that deeper level and 'Kung Pow' is an absolute bullseye shot at kung-fu.

For me, one of the better aspects about Oedekerks' films is that they're basically clean. He doesn't indulge in cussing to make dialog funnier or gratuitous nudity for cheap thrills like today's comedies. No, he just sticks close to the source of silliness and doesn't get side tracked. Kung Pow never tries to be serious or anything other than an 81 min. joke. Because of that, this movie totally succeeds.

The audio and video aren't really worth mentioning here as it's not the type of movie that you'll care as long as it works and it does. The picture is clean, colorful and bright and the audio is clear and discernable on all levels. You'll be having so much fun, you'll forget to check anyways. Personally, I don't think I could watch it just to check the sources. Other than that, the graphics and edits are cheesy but perfect here for what it's doing. Even though it looks fake, the cow is hilarious!!! The dubbing over the old film footage is also crazy funny. It reminds me of an old show called 'Putting on the Hits', where actors would improv voice overs for old films. It used to crack me up and it works here too as the majority of the movie is an old kung-fu movie dubbed with new dialog.

I'm not sure how well this movie will do for people who don't watch kung-fu but I can positively guarantee that it'll have the fans in stitches. So for the casual fan of comedies, give it a rent. For the kung-fu fan, buy it now and watch it immediately. If you don't laugh, check your pulse cause your probably dead. January 24, 2008

Just Plain Great

Really Really funny ! Some scenes could go a little faster - but is a primo movie. January 16, 2008

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