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Review: Kung Pow
This one should have worked. Oedekerk, writer and director of this mediocrity, is also the star. He uses digital film-editing techniques to insert himself into the older film as the new hero, a creative idea that in better hands could really have been funny.
The Chosen One saw his family killed by the evil Master Pain/Betty and was raised by rodents. He finds his way to Master Tang, then falls in love with Tang's daughter Ling, who speaks in a perpetual whine. The stop-action overdubs and hesitations are funny at first, but then are just headache-inducing. There are a few inspired moments -- I personally loved the karate brawl with the dairy cow -- but the movie derails as he comes closer and closer to his confrontation with Master Pain.
Don't be fooled by the trailers. Every funny scene is in them. There are few movies I can't sit through, but this one was a struggle. It really isn't worth much more discussion, and my best advice would be to skip it altogether.
I saw this movie and... yuck!
I guess I should've known... The previews said "From the director of Ace Ventura 2". I don't know if you've ever seen Ace Ventura 2 or not, but let's just say it sucked.
Go see "A Beautiful Mind" if you haven't already, it is much, much better.
the trailers were tantalizing
No, the trailers were terrible. How anyone could want to see a movie based on those trailers is beyond me. Yet another spoof on The Matrix, this time with a cow? A guy being distracted by a woman with big breasts? And these are the highlights? This was just another me-too addition to the new genre of 'genre parodies' to come out in the last few years, and obviously not an inspired newcomer.
...any movie I would want to see less, given the trailer. On the upside, I am guessing that if I did go see the movie, I wouldn't be disappointed; at least I KNOW it sucks, where these days often the trailer deceives me so......
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"Let's boycott the MPAA... until there's some idiotic looking spoof movie I really want to see."
"Not worth stealing. Two cds better used to rip John Tesh MP3s and archiving them for eternity"
---Internet piracy council
Papa Legba come and open the gate
My Opinion of the movie: It was probably the worst movie I have ever sat through in a movie theater (never wasted money on Battlefield Earth) but despite how horrible it was I laughed my ass off the entire movie. Now, when a second group of friends invited me to go see it with them, I told them there weren't enough tea in China...
Unfortunately, the former comes along very rarely, and the latter comes around very often. Needless to say, I didn't hold much hope.
woxy.com - Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll
So Kung Pow is bad, who'd have guessed?
Was anyone actually considering seeing this movie? I didn't think it looked funny from the previews at all.
spacefem.com
Need to see what I mean? Your review list lately reads like a direct-to-DVD-bargain-box roll call.
Good movies that have come out in that time span:
What's up, Katz? Afraid of actually cutting your teeth on something substantial?
I went to see Kung Pow expecting a low budget spoof of cheezy Kung Fu movies, and that's exactly what I got. This movie obviously wasn't aimed at up-tight no-nothings like Katz, it was meant for Kung Fu fan boys.
Katz's review reminds me of all the bad press Godzilla 2000 got when it came out. People whined about it's crappy plot and terrible special effects... That's the whole point!
Of course a bad review from Katz can do nothing but help the movie out in the box office. Anything that idiot hates must be good.
I personally loved the karate brawl with the dairy cow
You would, Katz, you would...
this guys too hard a critic. I mean, he'd probably give Booty Call 2 a bad review.
Now though, I realize that there's no subversive intellect. It's just that smart people and dumb people both find the same slapstick humor funny. It doesn't make me smarter than somebody else if I see furter into a dumb joke than they do, because it's still a dumb joke. Just think about it for a second and I'm sure that you will agree.
Keeping
Amongst all all the other faults Katz has (*coughCommie64splayingmoviesinKabulcough*), his movie reviews tend to be nothing if he can't bring out one of his dead horses (Columbine, geek prejudice, globalism) to beat. And even then, it has no actual bearing on the movie review.
And why is this even being reviewed here? Jesus, if Katz can't make at least a tenuous connection with some of his tropes, how does this fit "News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters"?
And, granted that this was likely a horribly bad movie from everything I've seen on it and heard from others, Katz is still supposedly getting paid for this "work," so he can at least put some effort into it. I mean, hell, Mr. Cranky devoted more words to his review.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
I don't think katz actually saw the movie, I think he got a friend's grumpy grandfather to see it and tell him what it was.
This movie can be compared to one thing, and one thing only:
An entire movie made off of the bruce lee spoof in kentucky fried movie.
If you like naked gun/etc, you'll like this. If you don't, then what the fuck are you seeing a movie called "Kung Pow" for?
Two people walked out in the middle of the movie.
The other 60 of us in the theatre were falling on the floor we were laughing so much!
This movie is about one thing, and one thing only:
PHOTOSHOPPING.
You know all those pictures of person X put into background Y? This is an entire movie of it.
They took an old, REALLY BAD, 1970's kung fu film, and with a TON a greenscreen and computer wizardry, as well as some really bad dubbing, made their own movie out of it.
Only the main character is "real." All of the other people/scenes/etc were from the cheezy old kung fu film. In the credits they show you some of the wizardry (before and after shots) and it's REALLY amazing.
There is tons of changed faces, added people, time change bizzarement.
You know when you and your friends are drunk, 2am, watching a kung fu movie and you start adding your own lines, and acting out parts? That's this movie.
If you're into the photoshopping scene, you've GOT to check out this movie. Maybe wait for dvd if you're not into silly-stupid-drunken-funny humour, but check it out.
I am eagerly awaiting the DVD... I hope they show more of the before/after/in progress stuff. It's amazing to see a scene of the original, then watch it again to see a completely new scene made out of it, with new people/etc added in.
HERE'S MY SCALE OF 1-10 ratings:
SOPHISTICATED WIT: 0
JUST REALLY FUCKING FUNNY: 10
PLOT: N/A
TECHINCAL WIZARDRY: 10
ACTING: N/A
WACKYNESS: 10
MY overall score: 9
Like I said, if you like:
-kentucky fried movie (bruce lee segment)
-naked gun
-crazy mad editing
you'll love this movie.
If you're not into at least 2 of the 3 above, you'll hate it.
Well look at it this way everyone:
...
We only have wait until next year to start seeing Maxtix 2 ripoffs in every other movie. And then by this time in 2004 they wont be cool anymore either
man
No manual entry for
Fist - Hit the Kung Pow.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Perhaps when people that normally find slapstick humor boring catch themselves laughing at these movies, they just have to invent the "subversive intellectual quality" as an excuse.
I admire that. If a critic thinks a movie sucks he or she ought to say that. I hate the critics who just go the moderate route to appease the movie makers and avoid confrontation with others who might not have agreed with their review. That's why i think the filthy critic is so great. He has his opinions, and he can back them up with insight and knowledge. He doesn't sugar coat his review with: "Superb moviemaking for the 20th century!" -- or other press bytes that tell you nothing except that the critic who wrote them was a whore.
Point to that waste of bandwidth is, I paid for movies that were truly worth it or that I had to see, and I just found something else to do with the rest of my time (as another thread points out, sacrificing one movie pretty much pays for one month of a MMO game). Don't boycott, just be judicious in what you see, and be willing to defend yourself when others try to convince you. Were my friend so strong, I wouldn't have convinced him to see Scary Movie. I still don't think he's fully forgiven me for that night...
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
I agree. Slapstick comedy, when it's alone, no matter how well executed... has no hidden intellectual quality. A guy falling down on his ass, no matter how funny it may be to some is still just a guy falling down on his ass. The difference is when the idiocy of the plot is used to convey some message that is worth talking about. When that message is "Most Kung Foo movies are really bad!" then there's nothing deeper. That should have been obvious from the trailers and from the press around the movie.
I'd say The Simpsons is a whole different monster, though. The Simpsons is satire wrapped in (mostly) funny, over the top comedy. It's not worth teaching a philosophy class over, but for people who can understand the messages behind the shows they are there.
If you need to interpret my post, then you don't get it.
Sure, this movie is not a contender for a Comedy Oscar, but I thought it delivered on what it advertised....
I mean, if you watched the adds, you should have known it wasn't going to be a high dollar flick.
I thought it was one of the best silly films made in a long time. The silly film genre is one of the most overlooked in the history of Hollywood. When have they ever had a "Best Silly Film" award? When has the silly film ever gotten listed as a valid subcategory of Comedy? Granted that most people do not appreciate the wonderful humor in a silly film, but not being one of those people is no reason to criticize.
Shame on you Jon, you should have simply said "the movie is not for me" and gone on with your life.
This is a movie for those of us that are fans of things like MontyPython, The Hitchhikers Guide (the videos), Some of Mel Brooks more offbeat stuff, etc.
If you fit in that group, go see it, If you want to see a spoiler for my favorite gag, scroll down. When you see the spoiler, you'll understand why some people simply can't handle this movie.
Brad
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We've all poked fun at the old dubbed japanese movies, where the sound is out of sync with the mouth movements, and this movies pokes fun at that. My favorite gag is a part where the dog barks, but the bark is obviously dubbed and is out of sync.
Not everyone would find that funny, and far too many people would let themselves be put off by its obvious and simple nature. Their loss.
Well, some of you warned me, and you were right.
So... you're saying that before you went to do this impartial review of the movie, you went and listened to how everyone else said it was really bad? Don't you think that might have clouded*cough* your judgement? I mean, people see what they expect to see, and if you were expecting crap, perhaps that's all you saw.
Personally, I haven't seen the movie. But what's the point of having the review at all if the first line of it simply says: I was very prejudiced against this movie before I even saw it, now here's my unbiased review. (Although, most of us recognise that Katz is rarely, if ever, approaching unbiased... but that's a small point).
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
I was expecting to see an utterly stupid spoof of 70's kung-fu movies and that's exactly what I got. It was so stupid it was hilarious. That was the whole point. I laughed my ass off. Was it a great example of cinema? No. Was there any redeeming features of the film? No. Is any of that relevant? No. It was a stupid, funny, enjoyable movie that made no pretense at being meaningful, serious, or containing a "message." It's sheer stupidity was a delight, and it is nice to see something come out of Hollywood that doesn't try to be anything other than silly. Sometimes I don't want to go to a movie to be informed or enlightened. I don't want a wry commentary on this American life. I just want to turn my brain off and be entertained, and this movie delivers. Go see it with a bunch of friends. Your soda will be coming out your nose.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
Next there'll be complaints about realism and plot in Godzilla movies...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Apprently Donald Rumsfeld wants the name of the movie changed to "Kung illegal combatants".
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
We're all supposedly intelligent people here. It is OBVIOUS from the ads that the film is sheer crap (and in fact the studio should be held accountable for the 30 seconds of my life lost to that ad). Why is Katz reviewing such SHEER AND UTTER CRAP? I guess he thinks he looks intelligent by methodically picking apart a bad film. Instead of pointing out the painfully obvious in the hopes of looking insightful, try coming up with some REAL insight on a REAL film.
I saw the Orange County review and wondered why it was posted - this one is a step further in solidifying my theory.
My $0.02 (Canadian)
Steve
Dude, if I haden't wasted all my mod points sending Linux-WINErs to oblivion yesterday, you'd be getting 'em!
You're using her as bait, Master!
I enjoy a stupid funny movie now and again, and I'm guessing Katz does too (he's gone to see this and Orange County in the last while). While I'm not much of a Katz fan, he gives enough information for me to know that this wasn't another "Dumb and Dumber" kind of movie - and that's all we needed to know.
Better than an article on the evils of McDonalds.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Hey, I totally agree with you, I'm not reading /. to be force fed with MORE industrially-produced blockbusters.
/., so why suck 'dem balls and provide them with the free coverage they don't really need?
What's puzzling is that most mainstream medias do cover (favorably!) blockbusters because they are funded by the MPAA through advertising.
It's odd, I didn't see any MPAA ads on
Hmm, and yeah, go see Amelie.
It doesn't seem as though many movie critics are acknowledging this as a "true" film. Whereas the majority of recent theatrical releases have already been reviewed at least 40 to 70 times, the Movie Review Query Engine lists only 14 reviews for Kung Pow.
Roger Ebert hasn't released a review for the movie, either. Oh, and all 14 of the reviews are negative. It appears that everything remotely amusing was included in the trailer.
Katz is, for once, correct. Skip the movie; read James Berardinelli's review instead. It's probably more humorous than the actual film.
Do you like German cars?
I thought the concept had a lot of potential, but from the trailers, it looked way over the top cheezy and stupid. I was kinda tempted to see it, hoping the people who made the trailer were just dumb, but after katz's revew... I dunno.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Actualy, I don't think katz is getting paid for posting stuff on here.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
My point was that people that weren't going to see Lord of the Rings aren't going to want to see it because of a review on Slashdot. Some other movies that people haven't seen a million ads for or heard about as much, those are movies where reviews play more influence in the decision to see them. I'd rather see reviews of movies like that then the 400th review of Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars: Episode 2.
I really don't know what Jon Katz was expecting as he walked into the theatre. Personally, I thought this was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. Some of the gags are just painfully stupid and make you wonder how the ended up in the final cut, but almost all of it was just funny. By taking scenes from older Kung Fu movies and redubbing them with completely different words, the net effect is that of a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 on crack. For instance in one scene, two people walking along clearly not talking, are dubbed to be singing a song "We are ventriloquists". This sort of humor isn't for everyone, but nearly everyone who walked out of the movie when it was over seemed to have enjoyed it as much as I did.
I haven't seen the previews, but I just assumed it was gay pr0n...
sic transit gloria mundi
This brings up an interesting issue for me: as a fan of HK cinema, things like Kung Pow only do huge harm to a film industry that, while it does churn out a lot of dross (but can anyone tell me that Hollywood *doesn't*?), also creates some true works of genius (and I'm *not* talking about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon here). HK films get a bad rap from things like Kung Pow, leading to the stereotype that all HK films have ultra-cheap effects, and are chockfull of stylised fight scenes. Remember that the chop socky films he's supposedly satirising were made in the *60s*, for gods' sakes. That's 40 years ago. Does anyone believe that HK films are *still* like that? And does anyone believe that the world's third largest film industry (Bollywood is second) makes *only* kung fu films, and cheap ones at that?
Whereas in fact, the HK film industry is moving in a lot of directions simultaneously: HK is home to the aforementioned Chiau Sing Chi, master of comedy (director and writer as well as actor, I might add), and Johnnie To, director of slick romantic comedies, dark futuristic fantasy, and rivetting drama/thriller. If you like odd horror-comedy, there's plenty make in HK. Ghost stories, exploitation flicks, human drama, comedies by the bucketload, triad and crime, quirky surprising indie films, anything you want.
Then, of course, there's Wong Kar Wai, arthouse director extraordinaire. Anyone daring to suggest that his films are simply cheap chop socky action would be on the receiving end of some not very nice words from Director Wong.
Honestly, who needs another unfunny satire that's at least 40 years out of date? Watch the real thing, and maybe get a surprise...
I'm sorry, you must be mistaken - I wasn't aware that even as much as a small minority actually engaged in such a futile effort as an MPAA boycott. I happen to like a number of artists and movie producers that would be hurt by such an action, and also realize the pointlessness of such a boycott (even if every single slashdot reader actually did boycott and got thirty friends to boycott as well, there would be NO NOTICABLE IMPACT on sales).
Instead, why not engage in productive activities? Dontate to the EFF. Write congressmen about laws you hate. Make sure you explain to everyone you can what the MPAA and cronies are trying to put past everyone. They can be stopped but not by a boycott.
BTW, nice troll.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sometime back in '96 (if memory serves), Steve Odekerk had a one-shot show on NBC, some kind of cyber-stand-up kind of a thing. (I'm a little sketchy on the details.) The name of the show was "steveodekerk.com." Being a mischevious young 2600-writing dork, I looked it up, and found that the domain wasn't registered. Naturally, I registered it. (This was in the heady days of no-cash-down-required domain name registrations.)
:)
A week passed. Nothing happened. Then something minor, but interesting, happened: they changed the name of the show. Now it was "steve.odekerk.com." They'd registered odekerk.com, lacking their own domain name.
That was one of the greatest achievements of my 18-year-old life: getting NBC to change the name of a show. I'm not saying that was a worthwhile endeavor, nor that it was a good or useful thing to do in retrospect, but it sure thrilled me at the time.
-Waldo Jaquith
Does Katz watch every single movie that comes out?! No wonder he doesn't have time to write good editorials. (-:
Rules of Movie Previews:
If it looks dumb, it's sickeningly stupid.
If it sounds great, it'll put you to sleep.
If it looks hilarious, it's definitely not.
If it looks exciting, it has no plot.
If you can't quite figure out the preview, it might be a good movie.
Sure, the movie was no LOTR. It was childish, pretty dumb, and had a number of cliches.
However, the cliches were obviously intentional, there were a few jokes that really were quite funny and original, and there even was a (very rare) bit of brilliance there.
They did one hell of a job melding two old martial arts movies together with a fair bit of greenscreen and CGI to make it a reasonably cohesive whole. The thing is, if you are going to go see this, don't expect a standard movie with typical cut scenes, soundtracks and characterisations. Take it as it is and you'll probably enjoy it.
However, take it seriously and expect to come out of it with some sort of sense of purpose and you'll be disappointed. Go see it with Katz' typical pap of a review in mind and you'll be annoyed at the movie and at Katz.
TheGeek