Kung Pow! Enter the Fist

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Kung Pow! Enter the Fist
Kung Pow! Enter The Fist Poster
Directed by	Steve Oedekerk
Produced by	Steve Oedekerk Tom Koranda Paul Marshall
Written by	Steve Oedekerk
Starring	Steve Oedekerk Lung Fei Leo Lee
Music by	Robert Folk
Cinematography	John Connor
Editing by	Paul Marshal
Release date(s)	January 25, 2002
Running time	81 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$10,000,000 USD
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is a 2002 comedy film that parodies Hong Kong action cinema. Written, directed and starring Steve Oedekerk, it uses and manipulates footage from the 1977 Hong Kong martial arts movie Tiger and Crane Fist (a.k.a. Savage Killers), along with new footage shot by Oedekerk, to create an original, unrelated plot much like Woody Allen's movie What's Up, Tiger Lily?, which employs a similar technique of overdubbing an obscure Asian movie to comedic effect.

In many scenes Jimmy Wang Yu, the lead actor in Tiger and Crane Fist was replaced by Oedekerk via post-production chroma key techniques. Oedekerk also redubbed all of the original cast's voices himself, inventing a different silly voice for every character. The new footage shot for Kung Pow! was also overdubbed by Oedekerk.

1 Plot
2 Highlights
3 Cast
4 Sequels
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Steve Oedekerk stars as "The Chosen One." He is marked by the sign of the Chosen One; he has a small face on his tongue, with eyes, a mouth and its own small tongue, which utters high-pitched yips from time to time. The Chosen One calls his tongue "Tonguey."

When he is just a baby, the mysterious Evil Council sends Master Pain, a martial arts master who fights with two iron claws, to kill the Chosen One and his family. The family quickly succumbs to one of Master Pain's deadly claws; however, he is unable kill the infant Chosen One, who defends himself with powerful martial arts abilities.

Master Pain burns the house down, but Chosen One escapes out the window. He rolls into a canyon nearby, where he is raised by "various rodents". As he grows, living under constant attack, so do his skills, and the Chosen One devotes his life to finding Master Pain and avenging his family.

He finally reaches the dojo of Master Tang, who has heard prophecies about a Chosen One (and is the narrator of our story). He offers Chosen One refuge, much to the chagrin of the squeaky-shoed Wimp Lo, who says "I don't like him very much; let's kill him!" Nobody listens to him, however, because he is an idiot and they "purposely trained him wrong, as a joke". Meanwhile, another student, a pretty girl named Ling who has one long curlicue on each cheek, steals a shy glance at Chosen One, then flashes him.

Chosen One begins his training. One day, Wimp Lo challenges him to a fight but fares poorly ("I'm bleeding! Making me the victor!") During the one-sided fight, Ling begs the two to stop, as "a child could beat him [Wimp Lo]". A man runs up and tells Chosen One (in a southern drawl) that Master Pain's in town, searching for him.

Pain beats up a few helpless citizens, then stops at a cafe to show off his great skill; he stands unflinching while several men batter him with staffs. Later, he mentions that he is changing his name to Betty. Chosen One points out that Betty is a girl's name, angering Betty, who, however, fails to recognize him. At this time, Chosen One notices two mysterious pyramid-shaped caps attached to Betty's chest. The mayor smooths the situation over and leads Betty away, saying it's time for his nap.

Chosen One tries to duplicate Evil Betty's ability to take a beating, but is quickly knocked out. He wakes hours later and is visited by Whoa, a mysterious woman with impressive fighting skills and one large central breast. She says he cannot yet defeat Master Pain, but after testing him in combat and finding herself evenly matched with him, tells him to trust in the power of the Tongue and warns him to stay away from the meadow. She then flies away, hitting a branch with a shriek as she goes.

The next day, ignoring Whoa's advice, Chosen One goes looking for Betty and crosses the meadow, where Betty's protector, a Holstein cow named Moo Niu, charges him. They fight and Chosen One defeats it by milking it into submission. He then finds Betty, who finally recognizes him, saying "I thought you looked familiar; I didn't recognise you without crap in your pants!" Ling's father arrives and tries to help Chosen One, but to no avail. Betty easily defeats them both.

Ling's father later dies from his wounds and from Master Tang's unhelpful ministrations, and Chosen One comforts the bereaved Ling. He then prays for help. A large spirit Lion wearing martial arts gear, Mu-shu-fasa, appears in the sky in response to his plea, then gets his name wrong. He tells Chosen One he must not give up, offering a cryptic clue about "the stars above", then leaves.

Betty finds out that Chosen One survived the fight and goes on a rampage, killing Wimp Lo and a couple of ventriloquists, temporarily trapping Chosen One in a tiny net, and wounding Master Tang, Ling, and Chosen One's dog. Chosen One realizes that Betty might be defeated if his protective pyramid caps are removed. Chosen One trains by tearing caps from wooden dummies, and, with some rather bizarre assistance from Ling, perfects his cap-snatching technique.

Chosen One confronts Betty for the final time. As they fight, the Evil Council arrive in huge spaceships and are revealed to be French extraterrestrials. They use a beam to energize Betty, who launches a devastating attack. Things look hopeless for Chosen One until he remembers the advice he's received from Whoa and Mu Shu, and in a moment of revelation, opens his mouth. His tongue shoots forth at astonishing speed, wraps around the largest of the ships, and sends it spinning out of control. The other ships flee ignominiously, leaving Betty alone and vulnerable. Chosen One then makes a leap for both of Betty's protective caps on his body. He grabs hold of both, but Betty attempts to kill him by palm striking him in the heart. The Chosen One is knocked backwards by the force, but he rips the caps off in the process, and Betty dies a most painful death. The Chosen One, having planned this out from the start, takes out a flattened (but comically still alive) squirrel out of his coat that he had positioned where Betty struck him, so it acted as a shield to absorb Betty's blow. The Chosen One gives the flattened squirrel his reward of peanuts, and a relieved Ling (Ling Ling Tse) comes up and embraces her hero.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Highlights

One of the oft-cited moments of the film is when the protagonist fights Master Pain's cow, Moo Niu, which is computer rendered for the movie. This is the only bullet-time effect in the film and a parody of The Matrix. The 3D animation quality is, perhaps intentionally, quite poor and unrealistic in contrast to the rest of the film; however, the budget of this film was very low in comparison with blockbuster films.
Like many comedic movies, the credits are accompanied with bloopers (some original, some faked), along with demonstrations of how Steve Oedekerk was digitally inserted into the original movie.
Many obvious name brands are distributed throughout the film, both in usual product placement form or clearly shown (especially Taco Bell). For example, during a sequence when Master Pain is showing his strength, a "Hooters" sign is hanging above one of the doorways; later, Master Tang sings "Taco Bell, Taco Bell, product placement for Taco Bell!" as he walks past a tableful of men eating from Taco Bell bags.
The film breaks down the fourth wall (involves the audience) in the middle of the movie by showing the main characters inviting the viewers to get some snacks. They talk about their favorite movie snacks for a moment, and then return to the film.
In the newly-created footage (and whenever the Chosen One speaks), Oedekerk and the other actors followed (or improvised) a separate script consisting of nonsense, non sequiturs and pure gibberish. Oedekerk then redubbed the scenes himself, as with the rest of the film. For example: when the Chosen One tells Evil Betty "You killed my family, and I don't like that kind of thing" Oedekerk is really saying "You broke my canopy, and I use it as a form of shade." This was to help create the illusion of bad dubbing--another joke at the expense of Hong Kong action cinema.
Along with many references to other movies there are many anachronisms. The film likely takes place in 17th century China, but one of Betty's minions calls him on a cell phone.
Ling's dubbed dialog consists largely of a whiny Miss Piggy-Like sound, "Wee-ooo-wee-ooo-wee!" Oedekerk says he did this at first because he couldn't think of enough things for her to say, then kept it up because the crew found it hilarious.
Mu-shu-fasa's appearance is a clear parody of The Lion King, as he refers to the Chosen One as "Simba" and talks about the "Great Circle of Stuff". There is also a joke based on the fact that James Earl Jones dubbed Mufasa in said movie, as the lion spirit; in this case, he fades away repeating "This is CNN". The same joke also appears in an episode of The Simpsons, "Round Springfield". The name is also very likely a portmanteau of Mufasa with Mushu the dragon from Mulan, another Disney animated movie.
A number of continuity errors occur, due to the way footage from Tiger and Crane Fist was edited together. Many of them have suitably ludicrous explanations - for instance, one of Betty's henchmen undergoes several costume changes within the same scene; this is explained away by establishing that Betty is a sorcerer with the power to alter people's clothing.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Original actors

Jimmy Wang Yu - "The Chosen One" (mostly replaced by Oedekerk)
Hui Lou Chen - "Master Tang"
Tad Horino - "Chew Fat Lip"
Chia Yung Liu - "Wimp Lo"
Fei Lung - "Master Pain (Betty)"
Ling Ling Tse - "Ling"
Jennifer Tung - "Whoa"

[edit] Voiced over characters

All character voices by Steve Oedekerk with the exception of "Whoa" who was voiced by her portrayer, Jennifer Tung.

[edit] DVD special features

Deleted scenes
Directors commentary
Alternate audio tracks, including the "What they are really saying" track, which includes the original Chinese and the speech Oedekerk uses to parody the bad dubbing in old kung-fu movies
3 Fox 11 commercial promos
Making of featurette
Theatrical trailer
Tonguey featurette
A Panicked Thumb (A small scene (approx. 4 seconds) taken from Thumb Wars in which a 'thumb' runs out and yells "We've been hit!"

[edit] Sequels

At the end of the movie, a mock trailer was put in to 'tease' viewers. However, the 'trailer' is mostly made up of parts from deleted scenes.

Steve Oedekerk has said that two sequels are planned, and they are currently expected to be done with help from 20th Century Fox. Current rumor states though, that the sequels were trashed due to lack of funding.[1]

The Internet Movie Database currently states that a sequel, Kung Pow 2: Tongue of Fury, will be released in 2008, and that Oedekerk has been looking through hundreds of films to dub over.