Today’s quick review: Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. The Chosen One (Steve Oedekerk) has spent his life wandering the countryside, honing his martial arts skills. He seems to be the subject of a vague prophecy, and he is pursued by a nameless organization for unknown reasons. Finally his journeying comes to an end when he encounters the evil Betty, the invincible martial artist who killed The Chosen One’s family years ago. With the help of a clueless girlfriend, a peculiar mentor, a cryptic ninja, and an incompetent rival, The Chosen One must put a stop to Betty’s schemes and get revenge for the murder of his family.
Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist is a ridiculous and unique martial arts comedy. The plot is utter nonsense, full of meaningless foreshadowing and dangling plot threads. The martial arts are more silly than compelling, a flurry of hit-or-miss gags replacing normal fight choreography. The acting is hard to talk about with a straight face due to the characters’ preposterous voices and bizarre dialogue. Half the film’s footage is taken from an older martial arts film, digitally edited to include the new actors’ faces. Every line in the film is dubbed, down to the dog’s barking, serving the triple purpose of providing consistency with the dubbed older footage, parodying the often-poor dubs of the martial arts genre, and offering the opportunity for a number of gags involving bad lip-syncing. Many of the voices are provided by Steve Oedekerk, the film’s director, writer, and star, a fact that explains the characters’ unusual voices.
Toss in a couple of gratuitous CGI shots, overly literal narration, and a couple of bad plot twists, and you have one of the strangest comedies around. The humor is low-brow and often misses its mark completely, but the sheer volume of ridiculousness will eventually cause the viewer to crack up. Those who only like intelligent comedies, who want their movies to make sense, or who find any of these creative decisions disturbing should stay far away. Those with a silly, almost childish sense of humor, who don’t mind a bit of randomness, and who are willing to be entertained should definitely give Kung Pow: Enter the Fist a watch. Kung Pow is a hilarious, endlessly quotable mess of a movie that is well worth seeing.
6.2 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 5.0 for production quality and a 7.5 for hilarity.