YMMV / Kung Pow! Enter the Fist

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Some martial arts schools actually "trained" students they considered unworthy incorrectly on purpose, just like Wimp Lo.
  • Certain forms of Chinese martial arts do go to considerable lengths to toughen up the practitioner's skin, though not usually to the point of breaking a thermometer in their student's hands.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Wimp Lo seriously deluded enough to think he's a competent fighter or does he know on some level that he's been trained incorrectly and his insecurity manifests as arrogance and smugness?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • "W-W-WHAAAAALE!"
  • The infamous cow fight scene. In fairness, Chosen himself was baffled about the cow knowing martial arts.
  • Instead of her normal "Weeoooh", there are two random moments where Ling lets out a quack.
  • The intermission, which feels like the similar gag from Monty Python and the Holy Grail turned up to eleven.
  • That weird creature that is on screen for two seconds before running off in the background just before the cow scene - probably a jab at the various Star Wars special editions that had come out not long before.
  • During the scene where Betty demonstrates his strength by having himself subjected to repeated Groin Attacks, The Chosen One is seen suddenly holding the skeleton of a fish, which then disappears a few shots later. Even Steve Oedekerk admits on the commentary that he just randomly grabbed the skeleton before filming started, and still has absolutely no idea why.
  • Done deliberately with the scene where Betty reveals that he has great magical powers, which apparently extend only to being able to change the color of people's clothing (because they were splicing together clips from two different scenes, in which one character was wearing different outfits), and are never seen or mentioned again after that scene.
• Critical Dissonance: The film was received poorly by critics, who thought it would have been best if it was just a short sketch instead of an entire film, but is a beloved Cult Classic for its charmingly lowbrow comedy and deliberate So Bad, It's Good nature.
• Cult Classic: Audiences even twenty years later still quote the film fondly, to the point of being a staple in 2000s-era cult films and 4chan culture, as mentioned below.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Wimp Lo is beloved by fans for his hilarious Boisterous Weakling personality and highly quotable lines. The hammy Store Owner is also liked, despite his small number of appearances.
• Fountain of Memes: It is an incredibly quotable movie, with Betty, Wimp Lo and Master Tang providing most of the memorable quotes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Master Tang's Animal Song is also considered this when Ylvis brought up their notable hit.
  • Everything about Moon Yu and her animal companions in the sequel "teaser", given that Oedekerk produced Barnyard four years later.
  • Wimp Lo and the fact that he was purposefully trained wrong "as a joke". Jade Empire has something nearly identical happen as part of The Reveal (your character's Old Master deliberately trained you wrong so you would have a flaw in your technique he could use to kill you after You Have Outlived Your Usefulness) but plays it completely seriously.
  • The film's replacing Jimmy Wang Yu's face with that of Steve Oedekerk could be seen as making it one of the earliest examples of a deepfake — and as the behind-the-scenes feature show, such a thing was much more complex with 2002-era technology.
  • Literally everything about the obviously Lion King inspired "Mushu-fasa" scene has become this ever since the acquisition of the film's original distributor, 20th Century Fox, by Disney in the late 2010's. Making this film a Disney movie on technicality!
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I implore you to reconsider" became a minor one. In the movie, Oedekerk's character says the line in a calm voice, even though he can be seen yelling onscreen. For a time, it was common to caption an image of a character yelling with the phrase.
  • Streaming the movie whenever it's referenced on /v/. ^note  The Unspoken rule of 4chan's video game board, and to a lesser extant, the entire website, is whenever one makes a reference to the movie, you must stream it unless you want people to think you're an asshole. When people do stream it, it usually gets hundreds of people watching.
  • But Master Tang, what does the fox say? ^note Master Tang sang an animal calling song before his ill-fated fight against Betty. This movie took place over ten years before Ylvis' song "What Does The Fox Say?" exploded in popularity. This is the question that is asked because he didn't make a fox call before his fight with Betty.
  • THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!
  • Badong.
  • "I must apologize for Wimp Lo, he is an idiot. We have purposely trained him wrong, as a joke."
• Older Than They Think: The general concept (that is, a Gag Dub of a Hong Kong movie) was done in one of Woody Allen's earliest films, What's Up, Tiger Lily?. Kung Pow was a much more ambitious undertaking, however, due to the extensive use of special effects, and there are many brand-new scenes throughout.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The Store Owner. He's got three lines in the entire film, and he's still one of the most memorable and beloved characters in it.
  • Whoa, the woman with one breast who comes to test the Chosen One's prowess.
  • Moon Yu, a.k.a. The Cow.
  • The two ventriloquists.
• Parody Displacement: Tiger & Crane Fists was a rather obscure kung-fu film, being mostly remembered nowadays as the movie with the original footage used here. When the movie was uploaded to Youtube, the comment section was filled with references to Kung Pow! Enter The Fist.
• Retroactive Recognition: One of the thugs who the Chosen One takes out with his gopher chucks is played by John Koyama, who these days is a well-known stuntman, in addition to playing the small-but-significant role of Emilio in the first two episodes of Breaking Bad.
• Signature Scene: While the movie itself has become a Cult Classic and a Fountain of Memes for some, at the time of its release and to the laymoviegoer the cow fight scene, being featured heavily in the marketing and with its janky CGI and being such a The Matrix parody is the single scene the movie is most known for.
• So Bad, It's Good: If you have the right mindset for it, at least. The film is gloriously, shamelessly stupid, and part of the appeal of the film is seeing just how stupid things can get.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Moon Yu, the CGI cow, looks very off when contrasted with the live-action footage.
  • There are some shots that most viewers would overlook on a first viewing where Steve Oedekerk's face isn't superimposed over the original actor's face.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: For the most part, the way Steve Oedekerk is superimposed over footage from old kung fu movies is pretty seamless. It can be hard to tell where old footage ends and new footage begins.

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