Kung Pow! Enter the Fist

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
I NEED GOPHER CHUCKS!
"Betty has gone too far. Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing. Like... badwrong. Or... badong. Yes. Killing is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of killing: Gnodab."
—The Chosen One

An evil man kills an entire family to get at a baby that is destined to become the Chosen One. The baby escapes, grows up in the wild, fights off attackers by ripping their clothes into shred-bikinis, joins a school of martial artists who loudly admit that they wear push-up bras, eventually meets the evil man -- who, in the intervening years, has changed his name to Betty -- and later fights a cow. He is also the Chosen One because his tongue has a face on it; its name is Tonguey.

Oh, and there are French aliens.

No, really.

A refreshing comedy that's stupid -- but amusingly so -- Kung Pow! Enter The Fist is a 2002 film written and directed by lead actor Steve Oedekerk. The film uses footage from an obscure kung-fu movie called Tiger and Crane Fist, along with newly-shot and bluescreened footage (mainly to insert Oedekerk into the film), to create a rather anarchic parody of kung-fu movies in general. Virtually every line is insane -- and very quotable; it was difficult choosing which one to put up at the top -- and everyone's voice (save Whoa) is dubbed over by Oedekerk himself.

A sequel, Kung Pow 2: Tongue of Fury, was due to follow; it's been in Development Hell for years, though. Word of God states that Oedekerk is (still) trying to find the right Hong Kong movie(s) to lift scenes from.

Tropes used in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist include:

"Face-To-Foot style, how'd ya like it?!"

  • Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Played for laughs with Wimp Lo. Master Tang trained him wrong as a joke, but he's so warped from the training he thinks any strike against him is him winning. For example. When The Chosen One kicks him in the face, during their first and only fight, Wimp Lo calls it his "Face to Foot Style." Leading to this dialogue.

Wimp Lo: Face to foot style. How do you like it?
The Chosen One: I'm sure on some planet your style is impressive, but your weak link is: this is Earth.
Wimp Lo: Oh yeah? Then try my nuts to your fist style!
Ling: Please, stop. Wimp Lo sucks as a fighter, a child could beat him.
-later-
Wimp Lo: I'm bleeding, making me the victor.

  • Balls of Steel: This is one of Master Pain's / Betty's powers.
    • Wimp Lo apparently thinks he has this, considering his secondary style is Nuts-to-Your-Fist.
    • And the Chosen One learns the hard way that, no, he does not have this power. At all. He might not even have balls after the test run.
  • Bits of Me Keep Passing Out: The Chosen One is subjected to The Paralyzer, and then flails his arms around wildly trying to defeat Betty.
  • Blade Run: Done by the baby Chosen One during the prologue.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: An intermission occurs midway through, where the characters tell the audience to go buy snacks. Whoa is, suprisingly, about the only character in the movie itself aware of the fourth wall, breaking it repeatedly.

Whoa: We will meet many more times...in the sequel!

  • Brick Break: During his training montage, the Chosen One goes to punch a board, stops inches from it, then extends his index finger. The board explodes, sending the two men behind it flying.
  • Bullet Time: Used during the cow fighting scene to parody The Matrix.
  • Butt Monkey: "I must apologize for Wimp Lo. He is an idiot. We purposely trained him wrong, as a joke."
  • Calling Your Attacks: Wimp Lo's attacks.

Wimp Lo: My nuts to your fist style!

"OPEN... YOUR... MOUTH!!!!"

Master Tang: Eeny meeny miney moe, I wonder where my glove will go...

  • Groin Attack: One of Master Pain's Betty's special abilities allows him to resist shots to the groin. The Chosen One tries to see if he possesses this ability only to play the trope straight...
    • In the credits, we see an outtake of this scene.

Steve Oedekerk: "Oooooh! OK, I'm gonna need a cup."

    • According to the DVD commentary, this scene from Tiger and Crane Fist is what led to it being picked.
    • Taken up to eleven in a deleted scene from the final fight, where the Chosen One unleashes a barrage of kicks, punches, and headbutts upon Betty's naughty bits, to absolutely no effect.
    • One of the deleted scenes features an attack with a groin as the Chosen One escapes from a torturer by beating him and his guards up with his... well... y'know.
  • Harmful to Minors
  • Heroic BSOD: Chosen One's inability to find a way to remove the metal spikes protecting Betty's weak points causes him to throw a major hissy fit.

Chosen One: DON'T LOOK AT MEEE!

Betty: Yessss, the tiny net is a death sentence. IT'S A NET AND IT'S TINY!

Chosen One: Wait...if you're all alive, then surely Wimp Lo...Wimp!

  • Chosen One runs over to Wimp's off-screen body, while flies buzz around*

Chosen One ...oh.

  • Kung Foley
  • Left the Background Music On: Played straight and lampshaded. Bonus points for actually being relevant to the plot.
  • Lemony Narrator: "Ouchie!"
    • "At that moment, the Chosen One learned a valuable lesson about iron claws...THEY HURT LIKE CRAP, MAN!"
      • Master Tang gets in on it with a line of audible thought:

"OK, so here were my options - A.) Quickly duck sideways, dodge the claw, then take him out with a spinning back kick, or B.) Take the claw in the face, then roll on the ground and die. (proceeds to take claw to the face) Hmm, should've gone with A."

  • Lip Lock: Almost always ignored for humour, except when it is occasionally followed... for humour. Example:

Betty: People say that I do things that are not...(pause) correct-to-do.

    • Attention is drawn to this quite often. Example: Oedekerk's character looks to be shouting something with a lot of emotion and the camera zooms in on his face, but you hear him say, in a less-than-excited voice, "I implore you to reconsider."
      • The words Oedekerk is really yelling: "I'M SOMEBODY'S MOMMY!!"
    • Parodied with Ling, whose line always end before her lips stop moving, so she ends most lines with "wee-ohh, wee-ohh" noises.
      • Also with the ventriloquists, who never open their mouths.
  • Lull Destruction: Parodied, when a relatively wordless fight scene between the main villain and two random guys in the original movie is turned into a more talkative fight between Betty and a pair of ventriloquists.
  • Made of Plasticine: Lampshaded by the narrator.
  • Master of the Mixed Message: Ling is very indecisive about how much she loves the Chosen One. Even though she repeatedly flashes her breasts to him, she doesn't want him to think she's a slut.
  • Moses in the Bulrushes: Subverted. The first woman who finds the Chosen One as a baby lying on the side of the mountain he's rolled half-way down stops, picks him up, and coos "So cute..." before bidding him farewell as she lobs him to roll down the other half of the mountain. (Where he is eventually found, and raised... by "various rodents".)
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Inverted when Master Pain changes his name to Betty.
  • Nested Mouths: The sign of the Chosen One is that he has a cartoon face on his tongue.
  • Nobody Here But Us Birds: "Nng, I'm just a birdie too...."
  • No Indoor Voice: THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!

THAT'LL BE FOUR BUCKS BABY, YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?!
HE JUST LEFT... WITH NUTS!

Mayor: Master, what exactly is the Evil Council's plan?
Betty: It is evil. Mnah hah, It is so evil! It is a bad, bad plan that will hurt many... people...that are good. I think it's great, because it's so bad.
Mayor: I see. I think.

  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • The "That's a lotta nuts!" salesman.
    • Woah, the woman with one breast who comes to test the Chosen One's prowness.
  • Overly Long Gag: A scene near the beginning is around two minutes of Whip-Zooms accompanied by dramatic musical stings.

Ling: "Chosen One!"
C.O.: "I'm coming!"
(this goes on for 5 minutes)

  • The Paralyzer: Betty's signature attack is the Trope Namer.
  • Plot Hole: During the final battle, there's no explanation as to how Master Betty loses his iron claws or what The Chosen One is holding at the start of the battle. (In the original film, Jimmy Wang Yu's character uses fireworks fuse to burn the cable that connects the claws. That part got left out of this film entirely.)
  • Portmanteau: "Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, killing is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of killing: gnodab."
  • Product Placement: "Oh, Taco Bell, Taco Bell, Product Placement for Taco Bell!"
    • "Tell me... if you see... a Radio Shack."
    • "Ba na na na na, Neo! Ba na na na na na na, Sporin!"
    • If you look closely when during the scene in which Betty goes to fight one of the two old men (someone clarify his name) and during the zoom out you can see people moving tables and on the left side you can clearly see a Hooters.
    • When The Chosen One goes to buy nuts, there is a shelf of Pringles behind him.
  • Raised By Various Rodents
  • Real Trailer, Fake Movie: Sadly, Kung Pow II: Tongue Of Fury will probably never happen.
    • A lot of the shots used for it are taken from deleted scenes.
  • Reality Ensues: Probably the funniest example in the world. The Chosen One witnesses Betty demonstrate The Iron Shirt Technique, by letting fellow citizens whack at him with staffs to no effect. Including but repeated shots on his groin. The Chosen One, then hires some locals to do the same to him....which goes about as well as you'd expect. Slightly subverted in that the beatings didn't kill him, but he is The Chosen One. The lesson here being that just because you're the Chosen One, doesn't mean you automatically have the same powers and advantages as your destined foe.
  • The Rival: Wimp Lo
  • Rule of Cool: The Chosen One is able to do fifteen backflips in mid-air before landing and is able to do push-ups without touching the ground (he holds himself airborne by blowing the ground).
  • Schizo-Tech: Played for Laughs.

Master Pain: "Mmmmm... lighter."

  • Sequel Snark: It spends a good deal of time at the end of the movie showing a full trailer for the sequel, made up mostly of scenes deleted from the first movie. Naturally, no such movie exists (though an unrelated sequel is currently in Development Hell).
  • Shirtless Scene
  • Shout-Out: To The Lion King in the form of Mushufasa, who calls the Chosen One "Simba" before finally settling on "Chosimba One".

Mushufasa: (fading back into the clouds) "This... is CNN."

    • Mushufasa is also a portmanteau of Mufasa and one of Mulan characters - dragon Mushu
  • Sissy Villain: Played straight and inverted. Wimp Lo has a very high voice and is indeed wimpy, but Betty has a low voice and is pretty manly despite the name, and the Chosen One has his own points of sissyness.
    • Early on, he is assaulted by a large masculine man who says "Your days are over, Mister" in a high-pitched lisp. The Chosen one shreds his clothes into a bikini, which causes him to wrap his arms around himself as if to protect his modesty and run off crying.
  • Smoke Out: Averted when the smoke is too small and conditions are too windy to hide the ninja.
  • Suicidal Overconfidence:

Wimp Lo, you must be careful. Your confidence is disproportional to your abilities.

  • The Stinger: No one actually recovered Master Tang after his "death" scene, and the crew just laugh as a hawk arrives to eat him. Also, save the whales.
  • Stock Footage
  • Tethercat Principle: A hawk is eating Master Tang. Fade to black.

"Hey, just because you fade to black doesn't mean he stopped. He's still eating me! I promise!"

  • Theme Music Power-Up: Betty has a guy with a boom box playing "Can't Touch This" and "Baby Got Back". Also when the Chosen One changes the music to "Black Betty"

"Beware... his song... about big butts. He... beats you up while he plays it!"

  • Throw It In: Oedekerk was originally going to have an entire cast of actors providing voices, instead of just him. Then he did a couple test scenes as Evil Betty and Master Tang and it was so fun and funny that he kept going.
  • Translation: "Yes": "______________________________________________________ I dunno."
  • Trivially Obvious: "Behold the two symbols. One of them...over here. The other one...over here." That's all we ever learn about them.
  • Verbal Tic: Developed to fill time when the characters are still talking on the film but have run out of dialogue. Eventually leads to this exchange:

Betty: Nnnnnng...
Ling: Wee-ooh! Wee-ooh!
Betty: Nnnnnng...
Ling: Wee-ooh! Wee-ooh!
Betty: Nnnnnng...
Ling: WEE! [Kicks random mook] OOH! [Beats another one]

"We will meet again, Chosen One. Many more times. In the sequel."

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