Kung Phooey! (2003)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

"Kung Phooey!" is a great comedy spoof, and you will find it particularly enjoyable if you liked movies such as "The Naked Gun" and "Airplane", and of course, also if you like Kung Fu movies.The story in "Kung Phooey!" was entertaining and had lots of nice touches to it, as there was references all over the place. And just like "Airplane" and "The Naked Gun" they were making fun of just about everything and even themselves.The jokes are funny and just as stupid as in other spoof movies of the same type, and that is just what makes the movie so much fun. Nothing is holy here, they make fun of all and everything.As for the action, yes there is action in the movie, it is a Kung Fu spoof after all, then I will say that it was actually quite good. Sure there was poking fun of this as well, but there was some good enough martial arts in the movie as well.The people they had cast for the roles were doing good jobs, and the names of the characters was just hilarious. I loved that touch.I was thoroughly entertained by "Kung Phooey!", but of course I do enjoy Kung Fu and comedies. If you like neither of these, I wouldn't recommend you watching "Kung Phooey!" because you will find it pointless.Let the quest for the ancient peach begin!

This film goes consistently along with Scarie Movie 2 and 3, Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer, Weird Science, Ferris Bullers Day Off, Kung Pow, Harold and Kumar, Half Baked, Big Trouble in Little China and I can go on and on. The movie presents comedy on a lot of different levels and is highly entertaining in my opinion if you like cheesy indie comedies. The film incorporates satire of traditional Chinese film and cultural stigmas in kung fu style showing the great sense of humor these comedians and writers have.Thie movie is great for kids and family too, it had me laughing and repeating lines from the movie for weeks.

Kung Phooey is for anyone who has deliberately forced themselves to watch every eastern and western martial arts chop-socky schlock flick known to man, although only a few of these genre fans will truly appreciate where KP is coming from (and ultimately going to). As bad as this film is to any sensible movie critic, the first few minutes alone will have you spurting out your favourite beverage through your nose - the intro recreates the "Kung Fu sanddune walkabout" Zucker-style with many of those bizarrely unrelated visual tidbits to keep you guessing every few seconds. The rest of this film however takes itself about as seriously as a secondary school stage play and is probably just about as interesting, at least on the surface. The seemingly $2.50 budget does not give one much expectation for world-class fight choreography or acting for that matter, but if you are willing to forgo these "small graces" then there are many mildly amusing filmic, cultural and (the all-important) stereotypical send ups to be savoured here. Basically, Kung Phooey is the martial arts spoof home-movie that you and your mates have always wanted to make but were truly afraid to see through to fruition.As far as sustaining this one-joke-wonder into a 90 minute foray it inevitably falls short of the mark, well below that of the joke-per-minute classics like Flying High (er, Airplane). Instead, the filmmakers decided that if they couldn't be overtly hilarious, then they should at least try and be clever about the self-contained universe that all martial arts films seem to live in. The humour is thence derived from the characters often using real-world logic to dismantle their own movie-world actions and motivations that occur around them (and vice versa if that's possible). If you can, grab the DVD to watch the making-of featurette which shows all the heavenly glory of Z-budget film-making as well as the fun you can have when you really put your mind to it (you can't make a dream come true unless you have a dream). The deleted scenes also go further into a couple of other characters who should have had equal screen time with the Muscles from Brussels when he finally gets his comeuppance in the most painful way imaginable. And of course, don't forget the outtakes! If you have watched (but not necessarily enjoyed) Kung Pow: Enter The Fist for its unique take on this undervalued film genre, who knows if you will get into Kung Phooey or not ... maybe having a bottle of the cheapest booze on hand will help. But one thing is almost certain with this movie ... it will not have a sequel!

To be honest there has not been a good spoof film since Hot Shots/Naked Guns were made. Kung-Pow was so-so if you watched it with a cargo. The Scary Movies have been so average. Kung Phoey is just plain terrible.Good points first, sorry good poinT first. The script is actually quite good, not sure on the plot but the dialogue is quite funny.However (bad poinT), in most film reviews (magazines), far too often actors get of lightly if the film is really bad. Most of the blame falls on a rubbish script or poor direction. Not so in Kung Phoey's case, the problem lies in the acting is downright amateur. Worse than that, the neighbours could do a better job. Every single cast member has the comic timing of a nuclear explosion at Xmas, they are so bad. The film, hence, becomes so bad it's not funny, just badddddd!In the hands of adequate comic actors this could have been a small hit but in the hands o amateurs is downright poop!