Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

July 20, 2005

I’ve had that song “Black Betty” stuck in my head for weeks now.

A post shared by Lara (@knobbygirl) on Feb 10, 2018 at 11:57am PST

Non sequitur – I know. But “Black Betty” plays a significant part in this film. I don’t think I’ll be able to hear “Black Betty” again without thinking of Master Betty – kind of like how every time I hear “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” I think of popcorn. Speaking of Master Betty, isn’t that an awesome name for a villain?

Although I’m not really a fan of Oedekerk’s most well know works – the “Thumb” movies, I’m not really a fan of his other movies either. Bruce Almighty was alright, but the rest were just not my type of humor. Kung Pow, on the other hand, is my type of humor. Anyone who knows me, knows the tenuous at best relationship I have with Kung Fu movies. It’s not like I was tied down and forced to watch them…but pretty darn close. Keeping that in mind, any film mocking the seriousness of chop socky cinema is going to appeal to me. On top of that, any film with…Wait a second – I take all that back! IMDb tells me that he wrote Patch Adams. PATCH ADAMS?!?!?! I don’t care if John Waters says that “Patch Adams is the Pink Flamingos of the G-rated set” – I refuse to believe that anything good can come of Robin Williams cheering up kids with cancer.

Kung Pow is also eminently quotable. “I rock. And roll. All day long. Sweet Suzy.” “Look Ling, those curly q’s on your face make me so hot I can’t think straight.” “And beware his song about big butts, he beats you up while he plays it!” When my sister’s boyfriend told my husband that his “nipples looked like milk duds,” I thought that he was retarded and possibly a little gay. I was wrong, of course…about one of those things.

I actually attempted to go see Kung Pow in the theater. By the time I had gotten around to it, it was already in the dollar theater – actually the very last day in the dollar theater and the very last show of the night. When I arrived at the theater, it was being evacuated….because it was on fire. There would be no Kung Pow-ing for me on that night. I eventually bought it used. I noticed that I had stuck the receipt inside the case when I originally bought the DVD (with Super Troopers)…in October 2002. Yeah, I’m anal – fuck off. This hilarious DVD had been sitting around my house – unwatched – for nearly three years. I wonder what else is sitting on my DVD rack gathering dust?