Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002)

Director: Steve Oedekerk
Starring: Steve Oedekerk, Fei Lung, Ling Ling Tse & Chia Yung Liu

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20th Century Fox's marketing for Kung Pow prior to and during its release into theaters misled those who viewed it. Watching the commercials and trailers, it seemed that the film would be nothing more than Steve Oedekerk fighting animals and using animals to fight. The promotional materials just didn't look funny. They just looked...bad.

After having watched the film in part a few years ago and in full this afternoon, it's safe to say that took the idea that Woody Allen had in What's up, Tiger Lily? (1966)--that is, taking a foreign film and dubbing it nonsensically to create comedic effect--and adding genre spoof on top of it. In fact, Kung Pow is a mixture of the ideas in ...Tiger Lily? and Carl Reiner/Steve Martin film Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) where Martin is inserted into a number of films noir to create a unique plot and spoof the genre.

Oedekerk's film is funnier than both of these other films perhaps because the early Hong Kong kung fu films are inherently bizarre to a Western audience or perhaps because Oedekerk is just bat shit insane. Babies rolling down hills? Gerbil-chucks? A face on a tongue? Nothing in the film makes sense--especially not the plot--but that's the point. The name of the game is absurdity here, and Oedekerk has the wherewithal to keep a straight face throughout, even when battling a CG cow.

Kung Pow gives too much of a good thing, however, and with the plot wearing thin toward the film's end the jokes just don't produce the same shock they do earlier in the film. You'll be looking for the climax of the film about fifteen minutes before it happens, and you'll be disappointed when it does.

All in all, the film's outrageous soundtrack and over-the-top genre spoof are worth sitting through a slow introduction, and it's a good idea to step out before the film hits the final fight scene. I don't want to ruin anything about it, but the good guy wins. Definitely recommended for those with absurdist senses of humor and gatherings with alcohol.

February 7
apartment computer, afternoon

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