Enter the Fat Dragon

[Drunk Monk]

So I watched Enter the Fat Dragon last night.  I found a scratchy dubbed version (with mismatched subs) on the web.  I recant my earlier comment that it is one of my all time favs.  Truth be told, I probably only saw it once before and I forgot a lot of it.  Sammo's impersonation of Lee is still amazing, but it's horribly dated and stilted.  It's basically Return of the Dragon but instead of Bruce going to Italy, it's Sammo going to HK.  His uncle has a restaurant, well, more of a food stall in the back of a ghetto alley, and they get terrorized by gangsters.  Sammo must fend them off, the twist being he's an uber Bruce fanboy and always tries to mimic him.  But he fights well, and even nails many of Lee's subtle gestures.  It's still worth the watch but my memory rose-tinted it far more than it should have.  Sometimes I think I should never go back for these things because it might spoil my fond memories, even if they are false memories.  

I only got an hour in before slumber took me.  It was late.  I'll probably finish it next week, just for the finale fight.

Ok reposted that above to reiterate.  So yeah, not nearly as good as I remember, but still interesting.  Yuen Biao appears in an opening credit scene fight.  Chiu Chi Ling has a small fight scene where he gets the crap beaten out of himself, quickly, like usual.  That always makes me happy. The mighty Lee Hoi-Sang is a Hakgwai - a 'black ghost'.  Yeah, in black face with a fro, red bell bottoms, gold chains and a purple satin shirt.  Horribly racist by today's standards but pretty commonplace representation of black peeps in Kung Fu flicks of this era.

Sammo sustains his Lee impersonation until the final fight with another Chinese Kung Fu fighter, and then he goes classic style.  The final fight is that dude, the Hakgwai and an evil Gwailo boxer in a warehouse full of Marlboro boxes, and rather mysteriously, kung fu staffs and fighting metal rings.  It's weak comedy Kung Fu but typical of the period.

I enjoyed it for what it was, and I'm glad to have seen it with Donnie's upcoming redux, which looks completely different. FWIW, Sammo is not at his fattest here, quite the opposite he's as trim as he ever was, and his Kung Fu is, as always, superb.  

No sword fights.  Not particularly DOOM recommended anymore.  But at least it won't be 4+ hours.

Which reminds me...

I'm not promising anything, but I'm going to try to finish Until the End of the World before you finish Enter the Fat Dragon.

Not that you really care.  But I do.  I need to set meaningful deadlines for myself, you know.

Woohoo!  I win.  I win again!!!  I love winning.

[Drunk Monk]

Saw Donnie's 2020 redux with cf just now.  It's very Wong Jing.  

A goofy HK rom-com with Donnie in a fat suit.  Kinda fat shaming, albeit a decent fat suit, augmented by some cgi at points.  It's engaging for that park-your-brain-outside frantic Wong Jing style of filmmaking.  Wong was extremely prolific with goofy Kung Fu flicks during the 80s & 90s, written over 200 films, directed over 100. Some are truly groundbreaking, some are classics, some are just quirky parody - Magnificent Butcher and Dreadnaught are Kung Fu gospel.  Then there's the God of Gamblers franchise, Lucky Stars franchise, New Legend of Shaolin, Naked Weapon, Sex & Zen, Raped by an Angel, so many films.  Recently he succeeded with Chasing the Dragon. In many ways, I find him a precursor to Stephen Chow's Mou Lei Tau style of humor.  This is in that vein a bit, with a poke at Chow's Mermaid even.  It's fast paced, absurd, and had the 2nd coked out fight I've seen in a month.  Is that trending?  The fights are tight.  Donnie delivers some great action - not long sequences but complex - and the rooftop wirework is quite frenetic, especially how it is shot.  I was quite entertained by the fight choreo and yes, there's even a bit of a sword fight.  It's not really connected to Sammo's version at all, except that Donnie is a Bruce Lee fan who is fat, but instead of doing another Bruce impersonation, he's more of the adorable schlub.  It's a smart choice to follow up Ip Man 4, because it shows a lot of contrast and Donnie's range as an actor.  But in the end, it's about the fights, and Donnie still has the moves.  Satisfying. DOOM recommended.

[cranefly]

I could've used some coke (or speed?) for those subtitles.  Even with all the action, there was so much rapid-fire dialog throughout.  There came a point early on when I made the decision to focus on the visuals and merely visit the subtitles on occasion.

Donnie Yen starts the movie in his regular guise.  I suspect this was done to placate those who go to the movie to see Donnie Yen.  A reasonable choice.  But his transition to fat (maybe a half-hour in?  Hard to estimate because it's such a frantic movie) is a bit hokey.  A job demotion and love-life problems put him at a desk next to a much-visited concession machine, and "six months later" we have the fat dragon.  BTW, Donnie looks younger than I expected in the opening.  I guess I was misled by his graying Ip Man roles of late.  The fat suit made him look even younger, and a bit goofy -- the chipmunk cheeks were a bit off.  Still, it added to his naive charm.  And yes, with and without the fat suit Donnie remains remarkably fast, spry, and powerful.  

There were times when the plot was threatened with a dramatic moment, but director Wong Jing was always adept at preventing it with some silly bit of humor.  It's like the characters would start to gell, to become real people relating in some real way, but then they'd have to deliver some bit of slapstick or verbal humor that would tear them down again.

Still, the movie is entertaining.  And there's ample high-caliber fights with lots of creativity and complexity, as DM mentioned.  Donnie Yen remains in firm control of his craft in this action vehicle ... though a dwarf did steal some scenes near the midway mark. 

Yeah, DOOM recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Donnie is one year older than me, but I'll catch up with him next week.  I got the feeling that he got a digital facelift akin to what Jackie did with Knight of Shadows.  There was something about those chipmunk cheeks that kept looking cgi-esque to me.  

There was a ton of dialog and a lot of subs, which made me wonder if there were a lot of those dialog puns that Canto is so famous for - there was only one other group in the audience, a Canto family I think, but I didn't hear them at all except for their kid occassionally.  Usually with Canto flix, there will be random laughing at the dialog punning that I totally miss.  I've seen plenty of films where that happens.  I even remember watching some odd Kung Fu movie with Sifu when he just busted up laughing at some dialog pun.  When I asked what was so funny, he started to explain but then gave up quickly - keep in mind that we did so much translating together - heck that whole Northern Shaolin book WLE made was based on our translations but was I credited?  There's a history to that.  It's based on a traditional form of stage comedy translated as 'crosstalk'.  Keep in mind Canto can pun across another arc - tones - so it's a minefield of witzelsucht.

Speaking of cheeks, there are butt cheeks.  Male butt cheeks.  I know how those embarrass Greg and titilate PPFY, so I figured I'd better warn y'all.  And there are fart jokes.  Chinese love fart jokes.  I cannot explain that part of my heritage.

[thatguy]

I just caught this on Hoopla. I enjoyed the opening fight in the van, also the stunt work (cycle crashes) looked impressive (and painful). The fish market fight was fun. I thought the lead looked a bit like Martin Sheen…maybe it was the hair…





—tg

[Drunk Monk]

Maybe you need to see the original now?

Or not...