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

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Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 01-25-2002, 02:38 AM:

What a horrible movie! I usually like the stupid humor, and even I thought this movie was bad. I must say, however, that it had it's funny moments. Certain scenes come to mind that were really hilarious. But as a whole, this movie was boring. At least other genre parodies like Scary Movie and Not Another Teen Movie had a plot. Kung Pow really doesn't, which is why I found it borring.

For those of you who have seen it, is it supposed to be dark at certain scenes and have random specs on screen?

For those of you who built it, did you find identifying where to cut the head and tail leaders as difficult as I did? There are two reel changes (I think 1-2 and 3-4) that fade to black at the end of one reel and fade up from black on the next reel. I wasn't sure if I was leaving any frames of the feature on the leader or if I was leaving any frames of the leader on the feature! Very annoying. When I watched it, those reel changes looked fine, but I just wanted to get other opinions.

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This one time, at Projection Camp, I stuck a xenon bulb....

Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 01-25-2002, 07:48 AM:

I was able to find the cuts quite easily.
At the end of the black that supposed to show on screen, there is no actual frame line, but there is a big white mark running down the non-soundtrack side (i think it was the non-soundtrack side).
Also, for future reference, you can use a frame counter and start at the last changeover cue and count over 24 frames to find the right place.
I also labled the heads and tails with "ends black" or "starts black" in addition to the corresponding head or tail number for that reel.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 01-25-2002, 09:08 AM:

I figured that the white mark was the end of the reel, but I wasn't sure. I had also meant to ask how many frames until the end once you see the last changeover cue because I didn't know. Thanks.

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This one time, at Projection Camp, I stuck a xenon bulb....

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-25-2002, 05:36 PM:

Cinemark 17, Springfield OR, 1:25PM, Theatre #7, DTS. Was slightly mis-framed for about the 1st 15 mins (splice flashes at the top of the frame -- is that what they're called?), then fine after that.

OK, so maybe I am an idiot, but I laughed out loud through most of the movie. They've taken footage from an old Hong Kong kung-fu movie, blended it with some new footage including a lot of CGI, and also placed the Steve Oedekerk (sp?) character "Chosen One" into scenes from the old movie, replacing original characters (like Tom Hanks in Forest Gump). All new wacked-out dialog and sound effects. I dunno, I thought it was pretty funny stuff. If you enjoy totally stupid movies sometimes, this might be for you. There were a bunch of college-age kids in the audience and they seemed to think it was pretty funny by their reaction.

The end credits include real and phony outtakes, and there's another funny scene after the end credits, with dialog continuing until well into the final fade to black (right before the rating card comes up).

Some of the footage from the old movie is very rough-looking, lab defects maybe, and some kind of weird lens flaring around bright objects. I think that's part of the "random specs" Ken mentioned.

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- dave
Stay away from the meadow

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-25-2002, 06:10 PM:

David said: "Some of the footage from the 2 old movies is very rough-looking, lab defects maybe, and some kind of weird lens flaring around bright objects. I think that's part of the "random specs" Ken mentioned."

No telling where the printing originals came from, or how much they have been mishandled. Sometimes lesser known pictures have hundreds of prints made from the original negatives, resulting in quite a bit of wear-and-tear. Major motion pictures use duplicate negatives to make most of the prints, protecting the originals from excessive wear.
The camera lenses may not have been "state-of-the-art", or deliberate flare may have been added.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 01-27-2002, 02:49 AM:

John, I didn't realize until after I saw the movie that it contains footage from a 1970's martial arts film. That probablly explains the random specs.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 01-28-2002, 03:32 PM:

Some of the lens flare might be from the fact that this movie was shot on DV and transfered to film by DVFilm Austin, TX.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After posting this i got the following e-mail:

"Some of the lens flare might be from the fact that this movie was shot on
DV and transfered to film by DVFilm Austin, TX."

Would like to take credit for the whole movie :-O but we only did one
scene (the scene where he talks to the animated lion).

Perhaps you could post a correction - It could take me days to get
registered for this group!

Take care

Posted by Roy Claflin (Member # 1113) on 01-28-2002, 07:40 PM:

I thoroughly enjoyed 'Kung Pow'. It's kind of a clever idea - re-using old Hong-kong cinema. It was kinda stupid, but it was a funny kind of stupid. Especially the 'Taco Bell' product placement thing - hilarious!

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 01-29-2002, 10:24 AM:

I read that the producers consider this film a success as it only cost $9 million to make, and it made $7 over the weekend, so it is almost assured of making a profit.

And that's the bottom line...

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-29-2002, 01:31 PM:

John Lasher had someone at DVFILM write him:

"Perhaps you could post a correction - It could take me days to get
registered for this group!"

Please write back and encourage them to join the Film-Tech discussions!

Posted by Eli Blasingame (Member # 1052) on 02-02-2002, 12:08 AM:

I feel like im taking money in a wrong way , that movie ,well, you all know. it sucks

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 02-02-2002, 02:31 PM:

I really enjoyed this one. Then again, I also use to watch all of the old cheesy Kung Fu movies that would come on every Saturday morning on T.V. I thought it was hilarious. Especially how well they did making fun of old Kung Fu movies.

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--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Neil Hunter (Member # 1005) on 02-04-2002, 10:53 AM:

I have to say that I enjoyed this too. It is really really really stupid, but that is it's charm. I found myself laughing almost all the way through this one. And that line about Radio Shack was hilarious.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-04-2002, 11:58 AM:

There's a fine line between just stupid and stupid-funny. This one was stupid-funny.

Posted by Betsie Beadling (Member # 591) on 02-08-2002, 07:37 AM:

I did not understand what All the Wack Nonsense in Kung Pow Movie
Some Guy Rubbing his Grampas Wound.
then a Funaral Scene, Girl and Guy She Took Her Clothes Off :O

She was talking to him weeeeweeeewee "Im Horny" is what she Said

That Kung Pow Movie Makes no Sense to Me.

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 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.

Posted by Will Morrow (Member # 792) on 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

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-24-2002, 01:39 PM:

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

"YOUR CLOTHES ARE RED!"

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 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

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

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 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.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 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.

Posted by John Daily (Member # 1362) on 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.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 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.

Posted by John Daily (Member # 1362) on 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.