Independent Films, Film Profiles

Kung Pow! Enter the Fist

Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is a comedy film that parodies Hong Kong action cinema. Written, directed by and starring Steve Oedekerk, it uses and manipulates footage from the 1976 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.The movie begins during the night, when Chosen One is only an infant. His family worries about an unspecified problem he has, and consider taking him to see the abbott. As his family cradles and adores him, a man with 2 "pyramid spikes" on his chest and an iron-and-chain weapon shows up. His henchman call him Master Pain as he proceeds to murder The Chosen One's entire family before approaching his cradle. The baby and him then engage in a complex martial arts sequence in which the infantile Chosen One manages to escape as Master Pain proceeds to burn his house down.The Chosen One eventually grows to adulthood and, after wandering the wilderness for many years with his faithful dog by his side, he encounters a series of gangs sent to kill him, who he ultimately defeats. Afterwards, he finds his way to a small unnamed town. He seeks special training from Master Tang, an ill and off-beat sifu. One of the students at the dojo, Wimp Lo, believed that he himself was supposed to grow to be The Chosen One. He is jealous of the Chosen One and wants to kill him. Master Tang explains that Wimp Lo was purposefully trained poorly as a prank.Master Tang is skeptical of The Chosen One until he reveals his identifying mark: his tongue has a talking face on it named Tonguey. This causes Master Tang to recall prophesies of The Chosen One's arrival and suddenly sinks deeper into his illness. The Chosen One meets Ling, Master Tang's nurse, who engages in shy glances at The Chosen One but also flashes her bra at him for a moment.The Chosen One begins training at the dojo, displaying incredible feats of strength and willpower such as exploding one-foot blocks of wood with his finger, and performing push-ups by first using one hand, then one finger, then blowing onto the ground. Wimp Lo (who believes that losing is winning) arrives and challenges him to a fight that The Chosen One inevitably dominates before Ling and a herald break up the fight to inform them that Master Pain is in town.The Chosen One heads to the town square where Master Pain displays his skill and stamina by remaining perfectly sturdy as his henchmen proceed to beat him with thick poles. Eventually the sticks break, he throws the men off of him in one stroke, requests a towel, and adjourns with all of the spectators to a meeting room. It is here that Master Pain inexplicably changes his name to Betty and does what he can to appeal to the men of the town and therefore get them on his side to hunt down the Chosen One.The Chosen One decides to see if he too has the ability to withstand a massive beating and recruits a few reluctant volunteers in order to attempt the daring feat. He is soon beaten unconscious and awakes just in time to witness a one-breasted woman fly out from the night clouds and introduce herself to him as Whoa. They begin to participate in tongue to tongue combat until Whoa sees Tonguey and realizes he truly is the Chosen One. She warns the Chosen One that it is not yet his time to defeat Betty and to avoid the meadow, where Betty's protector is located. As she then flies of into the sky, he suddenly recognizes her broach as a toy his mother amused him with as an infant.Master Tang then journeys to the main square to fight Betty. Betty instructs his personal disc jockey to play "U Can't Touch This" as he meddles with Master Tang. Tang then proves to be too sick to fight and heads home. Later, The Chosen One sets out to fight Betty but not before first battling Betty's protector, Moon Yoo, a cow well trained in the martial arts. Moon Yoo gains the upper hand of the fight by performing various wrestling moves. He also shoots milk from his udder (which he has despite also having horns and appearing to be male) at the Chosen One in a blunt mimic of the bullet time effect from The Matrix. The Chosen One defeats Moon Yoo by milking him until he shrivels up and falls to the ground.The Chosen One advances on to the top of a waterfall to fight Betty but is intercepted by the sudden appearance of Ling's Father, who Betty rapidly dispatches with the Iron Claw. Unfortunately the Chosen One is not ready and gets beaten up and washed over the waterfall with Ling's Father. The Chosen One takes him to heal at Master Tang's dojo. It is revealed that Ling's father is the one who prophesied The Chosen One's arrival to Master Tang. Ling's Father later dies from the wounds that never closed up properly (due to Master Tang's constant poking and prodding of the wound).That night, The Chosen One wanders out to a broad field and implores guidance from a samurai lion spirit, named Mushuu Fasa, who appears in the clouds. The scene is obviously a parody of a scene from The Lion King. Mushuu proceeds to dispense advice to The Chosen One( constantly calling him Simba and the Cho-Simba One); saying that the answers to his questions lie in the stars above, and he even admits that it's too cryptic to understand right now. He also advises The Chosen One to take note of the difference between two symbols: a red windmill-shaped pattern on the left and a blue oval pattern on the right. Mushuu then retracts back into the sky.Infuriated, Betty returns to the town and, the next morning, engages in a killing spree starting with Master Tang and later two ventriloquists who vow loyalty to The Chosen One. Ling also gets caught by Betty's minions and brought to him. After a brief argument between the two, she escapes and runs out of the town, all the while being chased by Betty's men. The Chosen One is returning from the hills and runs to save her, but is caught by a tiny net set up by the mayor, who is in alliance with Betty. The Chosen One passes out and there is a brief intermission. When he wakes up, he is still in the same place and manages to wriggle free.As he looks around the grassy area, he finds that Wimp Lo has been mortally wounded, along with Master Tang, Ling and his dog. He circles the area, moving from friend to friend and listens to their last words. Then suddenly they all realize that they are bloody but not dead yet, aside from Wimp Lo, who is starting to have flies gather around his corpse.The Chosen One finds a second wind, realizing he is the only one who can stop Betty. He focuses his training to defeat Betty by practicing on wooden statues of him, complete even to the hairstyle and the 2 protective pyramid caps, which he has deduced are what gives Betty his unnatural strength. By removing the pyramid caps, he should be able to defeat Betty. However he can not muster the strength to remove the caps and severely damages his hands in the process. Ling provides an odd remedy by pouring lemon juice, then salt, and then mercury from a thermometer onto his hands and asks him to rub it in her hair. Then she lights his hands on fire and the next morning, The Chosen One summons the power to rip the caps out of the practice dummies.He meets Betty at the temple and they fight to the tune of "Black Betty". Their fighting parodies the flying elements of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Then suddenly a group of flying pyramid-shaped spacecrafts show up and are identified by Betty as the Evil Council; French aliens. They supply Betty with the power to paralyze whatever he touches. He uses it to disable The Chosen Ones arms and knocks him out.On the ground, The Chosen One sees visions of Mushuu Fasa and Whoa, who tell him to "open your mouth." When he does, Tonguey flies upward and attacks the Alien pyramid spacecraft, destroying one and sending the rest fleeing. During this event, Tonguey also says "You are a disgrace to French aliens!", implying not all French aliens are evil. Suddenly unparalyzed, and enraged by seeing Betty dangle his old baby booties over his head, Chosen flies into the air and snatches the triangles from Betty's chest, with Betty fighting back with a hard blow to the chest. Betty dies, blood squirting from his chest where the triangles were, having been dealt a mortal wound by having the triangles ripped off. The Chosen One then removes a squirrel, who he refers to as Micah Bowen, that he had placed in his shirt in order to soften the force of the blow. Upholding his end of the bargain, The Chosen One pours the nuts onto the back of Micah who crawls of into the horizon.Ling runs and greets The Chosen One and they head home together. There is then a "preview" of the "next episode" of the story, in which Ling learns how to fly, The Chosen One's nipples are electrocuted, Godzilla's foot stomps down, the Evil Council circles around the Eiffel Tower, The Chosen One presses his nipple as a button, and Moon Yoo returns with an entire barnyard of sidekicks.