Kung Pow! packs no punch

The first thing that cued me in to what I should expect were the previews. As I suffered through a series of movie previews which were full of slapstick humor that had been taken too far over the edge, I knew with a sinking feeling that I was in for 82 more minutes of torment.

Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist is an old Hong Kong Kung Fu movie that was remade and recreated into a whole new movie with a petty and uninteresting plot. Directed, written, produced, dubbed, and starred in by Steve Oedekerk, director of such hit movies as The Nutty Professor: The Klumps II and Ace Ventura, Kung Pow! is just proof that such films need at least a competent actor in order to succeed.

Originally titled Hu He Huang Xing, or Tiger and Crane Fist, Kung Pow! is the story of a Chosen One (Oedekerk) who begins his martial arts training in the womb. When the villain of the story, Master Pain( voice: Oedekerk), later known as Betty, attempts to kill the Chosen One as an infant, the Chosen One escapes and is raised by rodents, living only to avenge the death of his family at the hands of Master Pain.

The Chosen One and the creature living as his tongue, aptly named Tonguey, travel and join a school of martial arts training where the Chosen One finally meets with Master Paine again and sets out to destroy Master Pain and the Evil Council. Along the way, he meets with a crew of strange characters such as the one-breasted Whoa (Jennifer Tung) and a cow with incredible martial arts skills. The movie ends with Tonguey saving the day from the Evil Council.

There is much left to be desired in Kung Pow! From the beginning, the already weak plot is made even more confusing by the terrible dubbing, which was almost completely done by Oedekerk. Many crude sexual references throughout the entire movie only make the movie even more sordid and base. The already poor quality of the original film is made much worse after the cut and paste job by Oedekerk to fit the film into the storyline. Even allusions to such films as Disney's The Lion King and The Matrix seem lame after being processed through Kung Pow!

If you have six dollars to spare and you don't mind wasting a couple of hours of your time, go watch a movie. Just, don't go see Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist.