Wednesday 18 June 2014

Exploitation Movie Review and The End Of Summer Blog Proudly Present...





A joint effort between The End of Summer and Exploitation Movie Review, “Two Guys, One Quip” is a new venture to honor the cheesiest, oddest, and most unheralded crop of films we can stand. Some films can be tackled solo and some cannot. Some films are so excruciatingly unusual that multiple parties are needed to catch every single solitary weirdity. "Two Guys, One Quip" is a free-for-all, back-and-forth, "I'm-just-gonna-say-whatever" approach to double-teaming an easy target in the unsexiest way possible. Below you will find nothing close to actual, legitimate film discussion, but instead sarcastic commentary and douche-bag superiority flying fast and furious. Profanity will be immense, constant, and unyielding. No on-screen target is safe. No incompetence will pass by unmocked. And no punches will be at all pulled. Some films deserve it. This is one of them.

The End of Summer (TEOS): To quote myself:


In 1957, a legend was born; he was a pint-sized legend that rocked a white suit, triumphed against adversity, and wooed the ladies. His hair was as black as squid ink, his smile glinted like the afternoon sun, and his nipples were the size of silver-dollar pancakes.


He came, he saw, he littled. And in 1992, he died of bad crab.


But in between those two history-changing years, he became an action-star sensation in his native homeland of the Philippines, and his presence in the film community carved a never-fading presence and laid root to his still-celebrated career.


That man…is Weng Weng.


Background is impossible to find on other films in Weng Weng’s career, and when they have titles like Chopsuey Met Big Time Papa, that makes me pretty sad. The Impossible Kid (of Kung Fu), directed by Eddie Nicart, who has seemingly directed every Weng Weng feature, is one of at least four films in which Weng Weng takes the reins of leading man, wearing the tiniest of doll clothes and dealing the tiniest of furious kicks.  Here, he reprises (initiates?) the role of Agent 00, a James Bond-ish character who works for an anti-criminal organization called “Control.” 

The film opens with Weng Weng taking a leisurely stroll down Mini Avenue when a team of snipers tries to take him out. He ducks down for complete safety behind a fire hydrant while he waits for his back up from Control to arrive. Once he does, the one-and-a-half men chase the snipers into an apartment building.

Exploitation Movie Review (EMR): Well...this escalated with a degree of alacrity I wasn't entirely prepared for.

TEOS: On the roof, Back Up Guy lowers Weng Weng on a rope down to the next couple of windows where Sniper Guy is holed up. You might be thinking “Wow, that Back Up Guy is pretty strong!” but you’d be wrong, since Weng Weng weighs roughly the same as an average-sized watermelon. Naturally, while dangling like a worm on a hook above Mini Ave (Ghostbusters 2 reference for the win), Weng Weng looks through a window and sees shower tits. The shower tits see Weng Weng. (The shower tits see a two-foot high man, on a rope, floating outside her bathroom window.) Shower Tits’ reaction is to close the shower curtain and get back to being underwhelming looking.

EMR: I'm concerned that the guy in the apartment beneath Shower Tits is making out with a dead body. It could be a sex doll with realistic skin, like a T-800 Terminator that's fallen on hard times and needs the money to pay its way through college. It's probably just an actress...what were we talking about, again?

TEOS: About this movie, The Infinitesimal Kid.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBJJIszANgeG5TdxEidneeE2yDMG5F1VdTc2K07Aasl9YLnPpy0MOuXM4liyHUBvM6U9T13js7W1SVe-G7sWbaxSpTENFC6tRX8LjwJ3elKaL7i0jZGe4dP3cwnYzdDb12lcoA8u52l0SB/s1600/Dead+Body.JPG
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. And it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you have ejaculated.


TEOS: When Weng Weng speaks, he speaks with immense authority. And that’s likely to do with the guy who they got to dub Weng Weng’s voice for the North American release. I’m kinda wondering why they chose said baritone voice instead of one that might be found coming out the mouth of a cartoon puppy, but, it worked for Woody and Buzz, so…

EMR: During the title sequence, we're given an insight into how much of a bad ass Weng Weng is because the lady who's singing his title song tells you so. Production value wise, this movie has taken an important step ahead of its competitors by having at least two different pieces of music on its OST.

Weng Weng is taking the time to zip around town on his motorbike when he receives a radio message from base explaining that there's a truck and some bad guys and a hostage so he moves to intercept. Weng Weng saves the hostage dude from a truck full of assholes and receives such an underwhelming display of gratitude, this guy might as well be British.

TEOS: Back at Control, Weng Weng is pawed and man handled by the secretary, who repeatedly kiss-rapes him, but Weng Weng chooses to exhibit indifference over titillation about this whole situation. Luckily his boss intervenes, whisking him away to his office that looks suspiciously like someone’s IKEA-ed out garage. There the boss explains that networks of terrorists who kidnap wealthy industrialists for ransom are attempting to establish connections with a terrorist ring in the Philippines.

EMR: During this debriefing, you should be able to pick up on the fact that Weng Weng's boss has a hard time with plurals. Illegal organisations are called 'Terrorist' and wealthy business conglomerates are called 'Industrialist'. This guy's disabled mouth is pretty funny.

TEOS: It’s right around you’ll begin to notice that, unless Weng Weng is kicking dudes in the balls or brandishing tiny guns, he looks completely bored to be anywhere near this movie. Doesn’t he know he’s headlining his own film where he gets to kiss average looking broads…on the face? Maybe someone should tell him.

EMR: I'll let you deal with this one, dude. I still don't believe he's a real person and this is some freaky CGI shit which Manilla didn't tell us about until 30 years later.

TEOS: At some kind of anti-criminal meeting, its attendees mistake Weng Weng for a small boy, so they literally pick him up and throw him from person to person toward the exit, and oh yeah, it’s as amazing as it sounds. Especially when Weng2 beats the ever-loving hell out of the last dude for coming even close to disrespecting him.


Best. GIF. Ever

EMR: To be perfectly fair to the head of the anti-criminal meeting, you can't blame him for not believing that this J.F Sebastian automaton-looking motherfucker with worse hair than Donald Trump is Interpol's best agent. If he didn't stand there like Richard Ramirez silently contemplating if he should both rape AND kill this bitch, he may have been taken a bit more seriously.


But you know what? He's fucking Weng Weng and his ghost is about to come and kick me in the balls for that shit I've just said.

TEOS: And he’ll come to you wearing the tiniest bedsheet.

Once Double-Weng convinces everyone he really is from Interpol, they sit down and watch a video made by Head Terrorist Guy, who is wearing a Klansmen hood for some reason. He demands a bunch of shit, or else he’ll do a bunch of shit. Then the TV explodes, so you know he means business.

EMR: Yeah, my favourite moment of this video tape is when Head Terrorist Guy explains that when people call him and his organisation terrorists, they're wrong. He then goes onto explain that if his demands are not met, he'll kidnap and kill all these motherfuckers. That, my hooded friend, is a terrorist.

TEOS: Weng Weng leaves the meeting and is soon chased by some dudes on motorbikes, but he jumps in some dude’s dirt cart and the dude plays along, wheeling him away. Truly, Weng has earned the title dangerous man of mystery.

EMR: Back at Control HQ, there's too much fucking plot going on. I commend this movie for making the concession to plot development, but when your main attraction is a living marionette that kicks people in the balls, adding a storyline is as pointless as nutritional information on the side of a garbage can.

Weng Weng's boss tells him to pinpoint who's really in charge of this terrorist plot, but it seems obvious that it's Ku Klux Klan Man. I think he means that Weng Weng needs to find out who's beneath the mask. I don't know. I kind of don't care. It's been at least five minutes since Weng Weng hoofed someone in the dick and my patience is wearing a bit thin.

Basic outline; some wealthy industrialist(s) has bitched out and decided to pay up to Klan Man so he doesn't wake up one morning to a breakfast of his own balls.

TEOS: You’re grasping more of this plot than I am. I admit, I’ve been spending this entire time staring at Weng’s tiny body to see if I can locate his battery pack.

While the musical score comes dangerously close to ripping off the theme from The Pink Panther, Weng Weng hides in a trashcan, since he’s on a stakeout, I guess. Sure enough, some bad guy comes and drops a duffel bag into the very trashcan in which Weng is hiding. After digging through it, Weng finds that it’s filled with cash-money, niggas! Then these OTHER dudes come out of nowhere, grab the can, and toss it into a rubbish truck. Whether this is part of the criminal plan or unhappy coincidence, we don’t know. I sure don’t.


The truck in question is being driven by a ruthless gang of hipsters
EMR: Why Weng Weng is so popular with the ladies, I don't know. So far, within the first 30 minutes, I've seen him crawling around on the floor, hiding in a dust cart and jumping into a trashcan. If I'd have been this popular with women despite smelling like burnt asshole, I would have lost my virginity a long time before my 22nd birthday.

TEOS: Haha, I think that guy totally just said “bouillabaisse.”

EMR: You know what? FUCK fish dishes, man. I work all day and you expect me to come home and work through my dinner, too?! The fuck is this shit?! No, seriously, what were we talking about again?

TEOS: Some asshole movie starring Chloe Grace-Moretz’s body double.

The bad guy demands to see the money. Well, they unzip the money sack, and it’s actually Weng Weng, and he is so money.

Weng Weng dominates all of them because he is the goddamn man, and for his thanks he gets a kiss on the lips from that secretary who’s obsessed with him.

EMR: There's nothing savory about their relationship, man. It's making me feel uncomfortable. I think it's a combination of factors. On the one hand, you have Weng Weng, who, and I think you'll forgive me, looks like a child who got lost at a wedding, and on the other hand, you have a 20-something year old receptionist with crippling emotional problems who's probably more interested in making him dress up in a cute little sailor suit than she is in banging him.

Anyway, Weng Weng's boss with the broken face-hole delivers him from this frumpy psychopath into his office where he's having a meeting with the wealthy industrialist who wanted to pay up and save his own life.

If you ask me, this guy's being a churlish asshole because he blames Weng Weng for fucking up the pay off. There's lots of pointing and uncomfortable silences in the room when Weng Weng's getting his grilling. These dudes have less of an idea what's going on than I do, which is remarkable seeing as though they have a script. Maybe.

TEOS: If Weng Weng were less of a man, he would flee from the room filled with all the tall men who were yelling at him, grasping his school books bound together in one of those rubber band things that children still used back when they were still endearing and not total Apple product-carrying jerk-offs. But, since he’s Weng Weng, he takes it all in stride and tells them all to fuck off (in his mind).

EMR: After he's been given an almighty roasting, Weng Weng senses that there could be a cross-dressing hit-man in the vicinity and fuck me, he's right.

TEOS: Maybe he smelled all the cock.

EMR: Ha! Gross. 

Look out! Rue Paul has the most ineffectual grenade ever created and he's going to throw the fucking thing at the industrialist(s).

'What happened?!' asks one of the Interpol agents after Weng Weng has dispatched the assassin with several throat stomps and a Mexican firework.

Literally no one replies to this question. It's better that way.

“Is that a man’s cock under your dress or are you just happy to see another man?”


TEOS: At a terrorist meeting, Head Terrorist Guy puts a hit out on Weng Weng amongst all his underlings. Some chick says she knows where he practices his karate, so she goes there, undercover, in hopes of taking out the bite-sized superspy.

The official Weng Weng song plays as the chick gets a birds-eye view of his fists of fury. She’s only wooed for a second before she sics pretty much every person at the place on him, since they all work for her.

EMR: You know during the meeting when he puts the hit out on Weng Weng? Yeah, I couldn't understand a fucking word that guy was saying. I tried adjusting the volume and everything. Still, the audio mix here isn't as bad as the one they did on The Dark Knight Rises.

TEOS: All you need to know is, it’s four dudes against one half-dude. Guess who wins?

EMR: I'm guessing it's not Tom Hardy's accent in The Dark Knight Rises. Seriously, that movie fucking sucks. Why do you all go on about it all the time?

TEOS: If you make one more allusion to my liking that overlong piece of nonsense, I am going to wear a crab over my mouth, prank call your mum, and in my best Tom Hardy voice, tell her you’ve been arrested for public defecation and lazy storytelling. Then a nuke will go off right next to me but I’ll live because off-screen cut-aways.

EMR: Brilliant! Millions of dollars and critical recognition to you for some reason! (Nolan Jab.)

The thing that immediately struck me while watching this fight scene is that if you're going to employ an actor like Weng Weng and you're going to have him do some karate or whatever, you're pretty much going to have to train the guy to do everything you commit to film, because you're not going to find a stunt-man who's even close to Weng Weng's height. At a push, I guess you could stop-motion some GI Joes and use forced perspective, but it's probably quicker to train the guy to do sick moves.

TEOS: That’s actually something I never thought about. Was Weng Weng this random Meenie Filipini who just knew all this stuff already and then became an actor, or did he become an actor and then learn this stuff? And is “this stuff” anywhere near legitimate? I can’t tell, because I spent all my time looking at his tiny body and trying to locate his plug outlet.
Also, if you ever wanted to see a wax-haired midget kick a broad right in the face, don’t blink.

EMR: This scene also explains why I never learnt a martial art. The simple answer; no matter how good I could potentially become, my limbs wouldn't make cool swooshing noises when I moved.

Oh, and another thing that hit me while watching this fight scene is that I swear the guy working out on the bench isn't involved with the four guys and the chick who just attacked Weng Weng. Strikes me that what he's seeing is an autonomous Jim Henson puppet beating up on some broad and he's stepped in to help out. Weng Weng beats the shit out of him pretty hard and then the chick produces a gun out of nowhere and shoots him in the fucking back! I feel pretty bad for him.

So, anyway, Weng x 2 takes Karate Lady back to Interpol HQ or whatever it is, then, I think, heads home to his apartment building, but he's being tailed by some dudes which, naturally, he instantly clocks for assholes so he makes an escape into some chick’s room.

Wait a fucking second...has he just broken into some chick's room? I thought this was his room? Actually, at first, I thought it was a cinema because he went up to the desk and it looked like the clerk gave him a ticket. But what the fuck is he doing in some broad's room? I'm, like, 35 minutes into this movie and I've been watching it for 2 hours because I have to keep stopping to check if I have strychnine poisoning.

TEOS: Huh? Oh, I don’t know. I was too busy laying down those sick Dark Knight Rises slams.

EMR: The guys on the tail of Weng Weng point a gun at this bell-boy, but, honestly, they really didn't need to. Apparently, all they needed to do to gain access to this chick's room was ask the fucking desk clerk and he'd have been more than happy to assist them in their potential sexual assault.

So, Weng Weng jumps out of the window, utilising some linen as a rudimentary parachute.


This film is fucking stupid.

TEOS: YESSSS!!! The high jump off the top of the skyscraper and right into the arms of a man in the hotel’s swimming pool. A-W-E-SOME.

EMR: Right, the guy in the swimming pool. Him. He wins. No one else who could possibly turn up in this film would be any creepier and yes, I'm counting the ever possible cameo of Pennywise The Dancing Clown. There's ALWAYS that possibility.

TEOS: Are you saying you disapprove of a large bear of a man, shirtless, cradling Weng Weng like a child, and saying repeatedly that he is a pretty boy, all the while Weng Weng looks like he could not be prouder?

Fuck you.
“I know I said I was in the mood for a little Filipino tonight, but this is ridiculous!”
(Rimshot.)
EMR: Hey, woah, c'mon now. I didn't mean to insult your sensibilities. I know we're supposed to be living in a new age of acceptance and everything, but dude...this here...this shit ain't right…
TEOS: “Ain’t right” is what Two Guys, One Quip is all about, playa.

EMR: Who's this guy getting off on them giving this chick an injection? What is this? What's happening? What the fuck have you made me watch, man?

TEOS: Are you missing her face of ecstasy and fists of clenching? She’s totally into it. Or, would you prefer to watch a three hour Batman film where he breaks his back, but then fixes it with the aid of a rope and a sad old man?

EMR: Haha! Come on, man. NO ONE wants to see that. If they ever made that into a Batman picture, I'm pretty certain I'd piss baking soda foam.

TEOS: Fuck, I think something “important” happened in the post-needling-girl scene and I missed it. I hope it’s not “detrimental” to the “plot.” I suppose I could rewind, but…

EMR: It's cool, I've kinda been paying attention. This chick is having a fit. I really don't think this is how you react when you're injected with sodiumpen...oh wait, she's dead. Some guy is saying that someone must have switched the vials. Hang on, are you trying to tell me this was some sort of fucking clerical error? Man, they should change the name of this place from Interpol to Inter...joke...shop.

TEOS: Weng Weng breaks into the rather posh mansion compound where all the bad guys just hang out near the pool while “The Wing Wanther” plays again. Head Bad Guy alludes to feeding Weng Weng to his pet cobra. See, because he’s the same size of a mouse. And this is before Weng Weng is even spotted in the compound. But, they waste no time in throwing a cobra directly at him, and Weng Weng tussles with it using his Barbie Doll hands

EMR: Again, realising he hasn't punched anyone in the dick for at least 37 seconds, Weng Weng punches one of Main Bad Guy's men in the junk before leaving. It's pretty much my favourite moment of this movie so far.

TEOS: Wait, Weng Weng just called Main Bad Guy a terrorist, who looked and reacted as if he were REALLY offended at being labeled as such. Is this one of those situations where Weng Weng knows the guy is dirty, but everyone else is dumb-fuck? Should I know this by now? Before I can wonder just what on Planet Earth is happening, it cuts to Weng Weng in a track suit, and you know what, I simply could not be more aroused.

EMR: Hey, look! Some guys sitting around a table and talking! I know over-sized collars were all the rage back when this film was made, but when 8 people are gathered in a small room and literally EVERY ONE of those 8 people are wearing one, it's either the most fashion conscious gang this side of West Side Story or someone's putting together a boy band. Either way; totally gay.
'Maria! I've just met a man called 'Maria'!'

EMR: Main Bad Guy laughs because his diabolical scheme seems to be coming to fruition. His henchmen laugh. He stops and his henchmen stop. Main Bad Guy takes a sip of his coffee and starts laughing again. I think I just heard my synapses telling me to get the fuck out of the house.

TEOS: This is awful.

EMR: I'm treating this movie as your way of telling me that you don't want to be friends anymore.

TEOS: If that were true, I would make us watch The Dark Knight Rises.
Holy shit.
We should totally watch The Dark Knight Rises.
Chew on that while I get back to our current piece of shit.

Weng Weng takes off on a hilariously small motorcycle and the bad guys pursue close behind in their car. Honestly, they could just run him over and end the movie at the 52-minute mark, seeing as how I’m pretty sure Weng’s bike is actually one of those wind-up toys, but, no such luck - we’ve got a half hour left of “man who can hide in small places” jokes.

EMR: And anyone still reading this review has got another 10 minutes of wondering why the fuck we're writing about this movie.

Weng Weng makes his escape by jumping a ravine on his motorcycle, but it's such a bad visual effect, it looks like Indiana Jones taking The Path Of God test in The Last Crusade

TEOS: I could sense you mentally yearning for unsexy technicolor dancing, so, here you go. Pretty sexy, right?
EMR: Totally. Why are we now at a go-go club? Has this film just been stitched toge...you know what, fuck it. Whatever.

I think the newsreader on the TV in the go-go club is the only member of the cast making a concerted effort to use singular and plural nouns when describing the industrialist(s).

There are some bad guys in the go-go club and one of them starts smacking a waiter around. What kind of a go-go club has men serving drinks?! Oh, man fuck the rest of this scene.

TEOS: In a scene most telling of Weng Weng’s talents, he finds himself surrounded on a desolate street by a bunch of thugs, so he throws down a smoke bomb and fucks the fuck off, causing all the thugs to accidentally shoot each other. He follows one of the bad dudes to a...whore house? Massage parlor? All I know is, all the girls for hire say he’s adorable, and the manager apologizes for nearly throwing him out, saying “I didn’t know you were an adult.”

I ask you: Did anyone?

EMR: I *think* this is supposed to be a hospital, man. Oh, no, hang on...yeah, there's a sign outside that says 'Paradise,' so yep, it's totally a massage parlor. All the chicks inside look like nurses, though. Maybe it's a theme night or something. I don't know. East Asia's fucking weird.
(Children’s discount joke.)

EMR: Another thing: when Weng Weng walks into a room or a building and someone starts talking to him or asks him a question, why doesn't he just respond? Why does he stand there looking like he just walked off the set of 'Labyrinth' and can't function without being within 50 feet of Bowie's balls?

TEOS: Dear god, still a half hour of this. This WHOLE movie is just men in suits sitting in rooms behind long tables and talking about boring crime shit. A logline this gonzo should be guaranteed gold, but it’s tantamount to early-’90s PBS. Also, note to men everywhere: don’t wear decorative scarves. 

Ever.

EMR: I've come to the conclusion that the head terrorist guy's method of disguising his voice is literally just cupping his hand over his mouth. At least he doesn't sound like Sean Connery with a sand crab stuck to his face. (Bane Jab.)

TEOS: (Puts that sand crab over mouth.) “WHERN WERNG WERNG HAS KIRCKED YOU IN THE BARRLS, YOUR HAERVE MER PERMISSION TO CRY.”
FINALLY Weng Weng is kicking ass again. I don’t know under what circumstances, but he just took out a whole rooftop of men with a pole. Then he ran around and kicked some other dudes’ asses, ran BACK to the roof and kicked THOSE guy’s asses again, and then, yes, used the pole to vault himself over the side of the building and then do a tight-rope walk to the next building over. It’s THIS kind of freak-show stuff that made me allow the video to buffer in the first place! (Although, who am I kidding, I’ve got a DVD of this bullshit on my shelf anyway.)

EMR: So, I'm trying to make this a less painful experience by pretending that I'm watching the rooftop explosion in ‘Die Hard.’ That movie's tits. Why didn't we review that?
TEOS: Because then I’d be reminded that Die Hard eventually led to A Good Day to Die Hard, and it would make me far angrier than this movie currently is.

Speaking of, before Weng Weng can say “I’m on a boat!” he should actually instead say, “I’m in a fucking bird cage on a boat!” because that’s exactly where he is. I’m not sure how he got there, but, there he is. I guess one of the girls did it? God, I’m awful at this.

EMR: I won't lie; I've tried to be professional at this point because I'm feeling a little bit like Theon Greyjoy and this movie is Ramsay Snow trying to cut my dick off (spoilers), but no, I don't know what's happening either, but that's what makes our relationship special, man; if you don't care then I don't care.

It's ok for two guys to talk about feelings if there's a picture of Robocop within view.

TEOS: Main Bad Guy, who is also wearing a decorative scarf (seriously, dudes, knock it the shit off), orders that Weng Weng be thrown overboard, cage and all. Well, he is, and he drowns. He drowns, dies, the movie ends, and I’m allowed to watch that Van Damme movie that I’ve got saved in my Youtube watch-later list, as that would be time better spent.

Just kidding. This movie is still happening and my soul is still sobbing.

Seriously, watching this makes me feel like I have a fever.

EMR: Hey, remember that time you suggested we write something together? Why can't we be happy like that again?

TEOS: Oh, what the fuck! I mean, no shit, Weng Weng was going to survive his bird-cage plunge, but seriously, did they even bother showing how he escaped? He’s not even wet! This is like Jaws: The Revenge-level bad. He’s got an uzi now, though, so that counts for something. He’s really furious - you can tell because the speed of his little legs increases to hummingbird-wing-like blurriness. 

EMR: This shit's, like, 4 minutes from the end now that he's cutting dudes up with his gat and trying to rape this chick in the red. I'll say one thing for Hollywood: they generally know how to pace a movie. And not cast midgets in action roles. Say, do you reckon they'll ever do a remake and cast Peter Dinklage in the lead role?
TEOS: Only if Tyrion Lannister owed me a debt, and I said, “Since you blonde fucks always pay your debts, star in my big budget remake of The Impossible Kid,” and I’m not sure how to finish that joke, since I guess I’m talking to a fictional imp at the same time I’m addressing a real-life man.
Let’s move on.
Dear god, it’s finally over. Fuck you, man. I’m sorry. I know this was my idea. But still, suck it. Ugh. All this movie needed was an ending where Michael Caine sees Weng Weng and Catwoman sitting in a breakfast bistro, which was poorly telegraphed during the first act of this tripe, and then he can hobble away to go join Morgan Freeman in the official Batman spin-off, Now You See Me

EMR: One of the guys at the end sounds like Michael Caine. Is...is that close enough?

TEOS: My-Cocaine.

EMR: Ha! Nice.


'Two Guys, One Quip' will soon return with:

The Dark Knight Rises
Samurai Cop