Comic martial artistry begins and ends with Jackie Chan. Accept no substitutes. The reason is obvious – nobody incorporates random props into street fighting quite like Jackie; he can make a shopping cart into an escape hatch and a haddock into a throwing star. That said, if you can’t have Jackie, one of the best exports China has these days is Donnie Yen.
Better known as Ip Man, Donnie Yen is pretty damn spry for an old man, and pretty damn young for an old man, too … especially one in a fat suit. For the record, Hong Kong martial artist and actor Donnie Yen turns 57 this year, plays a man around age 30, and moves like a twentysomething while being 57 and wearing a fat suit. In fact, one of my main criticisms of Enter the Fat Dragon (aside from the ridiculously dated title) is that the film never accounts for Fallon Zhu’s added girth. Yes, the man looks like he’s overweight, but he never really acts like he’s overweight.
Supercop Fallon Zhu (Yen) has pissed off the wrong people. When I say “wrong people,” I don’t mean the yakuza with whom he will eventually do battle, I mean his police chief and his fiancée, Chloe (Niki Chow). While running a wedding errand, the svelte and superfit Zhu intervenes in a bank robbery/high-speed getaway. We can tell what kind of film this is when the getaway van fisticuffs are interrupted by rival speeding newsteams trying to get a live interview – it’s funny, but removes all potential reality from the scene. Zhu thwarts the bad guys, but in the process almost crushes his boss and completely alienates his fiancée.
Demoted to sub-basement records room duty, Zhu loses his taste for life and gains a taste for every.single.thing in the room’s vending machine. Six months later, Zhu is fairly unrecognizable yet is forced to make a public appearance either to escort a prisoner back to Japan or to see his shadow and speculate on how much winter we can look forward to. I think it’s the former. Japanese bad guys mean yakuza; can fat Zhu choose correctly between the threat and a box of Twinkies? We shall see.
Enter the Fat Dragon does have some great martial arts fights. Not quite Chan, but Chan-esque stuff. We get climbing lamppost and leap-frogging awnings among several genuinely impressive parkour moments. And there’s a tongue-in-cheek realization that the guy doing the nimble athletics is supposed to weigh 250 lbs. Hence, the tone is often wrong for the film. It’s difficult to see an obese man pulling a spider-man up a wall and not forget that this scene is supposed to be full of tension, not comedy. And, of course, the premise itself might have proved a winner in 1978 when the original was made, but now it seems like the film wants to shame obesity yet laud its obese hero as if it’s an actual fat guy and not Donnie Yen in a fat suit. And not in any single fight sequence will Donnie Yen remind you of a genuine obese person. We get mad at white people playing Asian roles (most recently Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell and Emma Stone in Aloha), how is this any different?
♪I found a melee or two
Oh oh oh oh
It propelled me into the fight
Like a scrap from the past
Involving Jackie
Oh oh oh oh
Use random props I might
Cuz it’s just a Chan thang
Whoa, back on the Chan gang♫
Not Rated, 96 Minutes
Director: Kenji Tanigaki
Writer: Kin-Hung Chan, Koon-Nam Lui, Jing Wong
Genre: Jackie Chan sans Chan
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Kung fools
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Genuine obese people, I’m guessing
♪ Parody Inspired by “Back on the Chain Gang”
