REVIEW:
Steve Oedekerk, eat your heart out! With much less money, Will Martin has created a genuinely funny and astonishingly faithful parody of the classic kung fu film of the 1970's.

Martin, who is also the creator of Estuary Hounds, a parody of Reservoir Dogs successfully manages to condense an entire kung fu plot within a short 23 minute running time. Obviously inspired by countless films, the story begins with a carefree, generic guy getting ambushed by Leader Soo Yee Lung (Randy Foster) with a corny white wig and yellow cape. Its discovered that Soo is after the man's shipment of herbs that are desperately needed in a nearby village. After a brief fight, Soo wounds the guy with a Tiger Claw-like attack and steals the herbs. The film then cuts to a brilliantly recreated intro with mock credits. The film freeze-frames as Will Martin does a great Jimmy Wang Yu-style training session with a couple of melons on sticks. This scene also serves as the prerequisite "training" sequence that will show up again in a flashback to emphasize just how our hero beats the main baddie. The wounded guy manages to crawl back to Martin and tell him of Soo's treachery before he dies. Martin vows to get the herbs to town, kill Soo, and just for kicks, he also vows to get revenge against a fighter named Golden Phoenix who killed his parents. (Gotta love those frivolous subplots!)

While on his way to town, Martin is waylaid by Soo's men and a mysterious woman (Rohana Kehin) helps him to finish them off. The two team up and eventually are attacked by Soo himself who is beaten rather easily. In a classic Chang Cheh inspired plot twist, the mysterious woman turns out to be the Golden Phoenix herself who Martin must fight.

Will Martin gets big time kudos for fully recreating the essence of the classic kung fu film. Nearly everything is accounted for and its generally a hoot to watch. The film itself has been purposely degraded with a bar at the bottom, occasional noise and it even displays flat colors with darkened contrast. The intentionally corny and out-of-sync dubbing is what you would expect and thankfully Martin doesn't try to get too clever with the hammy dialogue. The costumes are great - the large pendants that Soo and his men wear is just one of many small touches that represent the thoroughness of Martin's efforts.

The fighting is much slower than your average Hong Kong film, but the carefully orchestrated choreography can be fully appreciated by genre fans who will recognize a lot of trademark poses and camera tricks. Soo bounds into view not once but three times in rapid succession. We also get to see Martin catch darts between his fingers with an age old, but highly effective camera trick.

Martin, who plays the lead has his voice dubbed with a southern drawl that doesn't sound as funny as it should. Trying to parody the folks who originally dubbed these old films is tough because they were a bit of a parody themselves. Ralf Lagenhein who plays the unibrowed-underling of Soo gives the best performance with a lot of appropriately hammy grunting provided by Rip Reed who performed the voice of Werewulf. The main villain who turns out to be Martin's companion, Lady Lo is not as interesting as I would have liked her to be. Part of this may stem from the fact that apart from her dart-throwing, she doesn't have any compelling gimmicks. In a broader sense, Martin also missed an opportunity to parody the weapons, especially the goofy inventions seen in Jimmy Wang Yu and Chang Cheh films.

Keeping in mind that The Incredible Kung Fu Guy is low budget short film using only Anglo-actors, its rather remarkable just how authentic the film is. Will Martin is clearly a true fan of the genre who has managed to create one of the best kung fu parodies - period.