Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

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Topic: Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

Ron Lacheur
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 650
From: British Columbia, Canada
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-08-2002 12:34 PM

Betsie,

The movie is a spoof on those old, Cheesy Hong Kong Kung-Fu movies. The movie I don't think is supposed to make sense in the way of a regular comedy because the producers will assume the audience has seen at least one Kung-Fu movie before seeing this one to get the jokes.

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Will Morrow
Film Handler

Posts: 91
From: Mt. Pleasant, MI, USA
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 02-24-2002 12:50 PM

Wathced this movie twice, and laughed all the way through it twice. I will own this on DVD. It's an interesting idea, to take an old movie, and redub a soundtrack over it. It was very much like MST3K, only with a kung fu theme rather than scifi.

I can't wait till I have the DVD, so I can enjoy this flick with my buddies, while having a few beers. Should add a whole new dimension.

Funnier than Super Troopers in my opinion.

*I am a great magician...YOUR CLOTHES ARE BLACK* HEHEHEHE

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-24-2002 01:39 PM

MUCH funnier for me than Super Troopers. I will be buying the DVD.

"YOUR CLOTHES ARE RED!"

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Josh Jones
Redhat

Posts: 1207
From: Plano, TX
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 03-10-2002 10:42 PM

I do believe those are called "negative splices". its is especisally hard to hide those if you are misframed in scope.

Josh

------------------
"Film is made of silver, video is made of rust"
'nuf said

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John Wilson
Film God

Posts: 5438
From: Sydney, Australia.
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 03-11-2002 06:36 AM

EEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEE OOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Lots of fun and blissfully short. What more could you ask for?

John

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"It's not the years honey, it's the mileage". - Indiana Jones.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 07-27-2002 04:34 PM

I bought the DVD of this, watched it twice last night, with and without Steve Oedekerk's commentary. He talks about some of the background of the original movie "Tiger & Crane Fists". Once he decided that was the movie he wanted to parody, they had to track down the negative for it and it turned out to be in pretty bad condition. A lot of restoration work was done on it, both before and after they scanned it digitally, but some blotches and other artifacts still remain. Even so, the matching of new and old footage is very seamless most of the time. The insertion of new characters into old footage is amazingly well done. There are even a couple of scenes with Oedekerk's head grafted onto the original actor's body, with the camera moving, and it's almost undetectable that the scene has been altered.

Extra features of the DVD include before and after shots of the original scenes from Tiger & Crane Fists, and the same scenes altered for Kung Pow. Plus the usual trailers, stills, and a short "making of" featurette.

The audio commentary points out other interesting things like sets that were constructed to match sets in the original movie. They tried to track down the main actors etc. from the original movie, but only managed to locate the director. The scene where the mayor's coat is black, then red, then black again ("I am a great magician!") is explained. They took footage from 2 short scenes of those characters and re-cut it to make 1 longer scene, but the mayor's coat was a different color in the original 2 scenes. Rather than fix it digitally, they thought it would be funnier to leave it mis-matched. Lots of stuff like that in the commentary. And Oedekerk is quite respectful toward the original actors and director -- he clearly loves those old Hong Kong kung-fu flics.

The scope aspect ratio is correctly presented and the image is 16:9 enhanced. Audio quality is quite good.

Funny movie, technically interesting too.

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John Daily
Film Handler

Posts: 45
From: Upstate, NY, USA
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 07-30-2002 08:16 AM

David, doesn't the DVD also contain the original audio track to "Tiger & Crane Fists"? I thought I read this once. If so, it's a great touch. I need to rent this, as it didn't play in my theater.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 07-30-2002 10:45 AM

There's an alternate audio track where the characters from the original movie speak their original dialog in Mandarin, and the "new" characters speak nonsensical lines. The dialog in the new footage was scripted as gibberish because they knew they would be dubbing all the lines in later, most of it ad-libbed. It's pretty funny to listen to.

Another factoid: The scene ripped off from Lion King was done after the rest of the movie was finished. Steve Oedekerk really wanted to add that scene but there was no money left to do it with a film crew, so he shot his part of the scene in his own back yard with a mini-dv camcorder. They used a hair dryer to make it seem like his hair was blowing in the wind. You can clearly hear the hair dryer motor running while he delivers his lines.

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John Daily
Film Handler

Posts: 45
From: Upstate, NY, USA
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 08-01-2002 12:55 PM

Thanks. I rented this the other day, and was stunned. This should be required viewing for all studios releasing DVDs. The animated menus were funny but not annoying, the commentary was humorous and informative, giving gossip as well as more technical information. There is a ton of extra scenes and alternate takes, as well as just completely insane options (such as the "Long-Lost Books On Tape" audio track. Skip ahead to the 42:00 mark and check this out for a laugh.).
A lot of love and respect for film went into this disc.

By contrast, the Resident Evil disc I rented along with it was a huge dissappointment. The audio track was completely useless (every time the director became excited and wanted to explain something he'd just seen, a cast member would say something like 'oh, no one's interested in that. Let's talk about the time we got drunk.'. Also, deleted scenes and an alternate ending are mentioned several times, but none of it appears on the disc.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation. I haven't laughed out loud at a film in years.

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