Greetings and salutations fellow movie goers from across the globe. Today’s Flashback Review is a martial arts parody film written & directed by Steve Oedekerk. (Jimmy Neutron, The Nutty Professor, Bruce Almighty) Before “Kung-Fu Hustle” & DreamWorks’ “Kung-Fu Panda” series existed, “Kung Pow: Enter The Fist” was a precursor to the former two.
Kung Pow: Enter The Fist was released in 2002.(same year Finn Wolfhard was born) It was critically panned by critics and it was a modest success at the box office. Overtime, the film garnered a cult following. I have to confess, this movie is one of my guilty pleasures.
In 2015, Steve Oedekerk announced that a sequel is in the works. As of right now, Steve is trying to find archive footage of old films to see which one specifically fits.
The following review does not contain any crucial SPOILERS. If you’ve never seen this movie, feel free to read my non-spoiler article.
Positive & Negative Elements
Positive: Steve Oedekerk did a fantastic job for his performance as The Chosen One. He also wrote, produced and directed the film.
During post-production, Steve dubbed many characters’ dialogue (minus one) by making them ridiculously idiotic, fleshing out colorful personalities. This predates Team Four Star’s “Dragon Ball Z Abridged” YouTube series.
Action Sequences were decent such as Chosen One’s battles with a lackey named, “Moon-Yu,” a swarm of enemies fighting him and his Climatic Battle with The Villain.
Humor contains slapstick, memorable dialogue, mocking tropes associated with Martial Arts Films starring Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li among a few notable icons. A poorly dubbed dog barking, was intended to mock American dubbed versions of certain foreign movies.
Cinematography didn’t contain any Shaky Cam or technical errors throughout.
The film’s title is a reference to Bruce Lee’s “Enter The Dragon.”
Before the movie begins, a disclaimer pops up on how Steve incorporated footage from a martial arts movie called, “Tiger & Crane Fists.”
At first, The Opening Scene has a serious tone, until one minute later, The Tone instantly becomes silly. Indicating what we’re about to watch, is gonna make you laugh out loud you want won’t be able to breath.
The Chosen One’s mentor, Master Tang narrates the story.
My favorite character has got to be Master Pain, who decides to change his name. Even one character addressed how dumb it is.
A fight scene pokes fun at “The Matrix” using the infamous dodging bullets sequence. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man film borrowed The Wachowski Brothers/Sisters’ groundbreaking “Bullet Time” technique to showcase Spider-Man’s “Spider-Sense.”
Chosen One coined a word combining bad & wrong as one word. If you already seen the movie, you probably know what it is.
A fart scene made me laugh. I gotta love fart jokes when they’re done correctly.
One scene makes fun of a Disney film. I’ll give you a hint, the first “Kingdom Hearts” game allows you to summon an animal to help you combat bad guys. That one animal has four legs.
One character has a stupid catchphrase which encouraged Nintendo to create the “Wii-U.”
During The End Credits, Behind-The-Scenes footage & Outtakes shows us audience members how the special effects incorporated Steve interacting with characters. You can tell Steve & The Crew are having a good time filming. Wait a minute, Jackie Chan is known for using bloopers in most of his work. Well played Steve, well played.
A Post-Credits Scene is shown, which is played for laughs.
Negative: Visual Effects look conspicuously fake resembling a PlayStation 2 game or in this case, a Nintendo GameCube game. Let’s face it, the film was produced on a $10 million budget.
At the 0:20:48 mark, an editing error shows a character’s head poorly superimposed as he looks like Marty McFly (from Back To The Future) about to fade away. Editing 101, make sure you properly tweak each scene during post-production.
Product Placement featuring brands like Taco Bell & Hooters. I’ll let this con slide, because it’s played for laughs, something Adam Sandler needs to take jabs at, instead of shoving each brand down our throat.
The Final Verdict: B, FOR BREATHTAKING!
Say what you will folks, Kung Pow: Enter The Fist is one of my guilty pleasures. The positive things I’ve listed are the reasons why I’ve found this movie still holds up. If you’re interested in watching Kung Pow: Enter The Fist, I highly recommend it. I hope Steve Oedekerk will finally give us a sequel. All we can do is cross our fingers.
Nickthemoviecritic.com 