After recently watching Kung Pow: Enter the Fist I got curious about the movie which was used to make one of my favorite comedies: Savage Killers (also known as Tiger and Crane Fist). If you don’t know Kung Pow: It’s a comedy which uses footage of this movie to create a whole new story in which director/actor Steven Oedekerk has added himself. I was wondering about the original story, how specific scenes were used and whether I would be able to take any of the characters in the original seriously.
As you probably can imagine this film doesn’t have any French speaking aliens who give Master Betty the assignment to find The Chosen One. Here that character is a fighter who is working for the Japanese and has to make sure that all fighting schools obey. If they aren’t he makes sure that they will no longer exist. In one of these schools there are two fighting styles: Tiger and crane. Once the two styles were one, which was undefeatable. Because of some disagreements it was never tried to fuse the two styles anymore, but now that the school is facing a big threat, they will have to try to do so.
The fact that I have seen Kung Pow many times was the sole reason I kept watching, because else I would have turned it off: the acting is horribly bad and the fights never manage to excite. What was interesting to see how Oedekerk succeeded in taking the images and turn it into a whole other film. In the scenes you know (which are a lot) you appreciate what Oedekerk has done to add himself and various other details. It is really the only reason this movie is interesting to watch, but otherwise it is completely forgettable.
So seeing this film isn’t really worth it? OK then, I’ll just stick with Kung Pow. I’m still waiting for the sequel.
Not really unless you are interested in checking out what Oedekerk did.