From the very first moments of this film you know what it is: a spoof of the martial arts genre. Also hilarious.
Master Pain, the extremely obvious villain of the film, is on the hunt for the one person who can defeat him – the chosen one. Alas, he finds him in his cradle. Killing the Chosen One’s family, Master Pain comes for the child.
Who has a surprising amount of martial arts skill for a child less than one year old.
The fight is (mostly) a draw, and so the child becomes a man.
The film gets more ridiculous from there.
The director, Steve Oedekerk, has taken a 1970s Kung Fu film, dubbed in new words, and spliced it with modern actors to create an entirely new experience.
Throughout, the film is scattered with little things to just tweak the senses. In the ancient Chinese village, one of the establishments is briefly Hooters – before the sign disappears so quickly you aren’t sure you even saw it. There is a small floating pyramid in the distance in another scene, and some extremely obvious product placement.
I’m pretty sure that if I watched it again I would see more examples that I missed the first time around.
Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, killing is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of killing: gnodab.
The Chosen One (Kung Pow!)
I thought my favourite scene was going to be the fight with the cow. It features a milk moustache, matrix-style slow-mo action, and more.
But then Mu-Shu-Fasa appeared. I won’t spoil that one for you, you’ll just have to watch the film.
The credits are also entertaining. Watch all the way to the end.
Suffice it to say that I highly recommend watching this film. But perhaps not in the company of anyone who takes martial arts films too seriously.
Bristol Shorinji Kempo 