Director – Steve Wang (Guyver, Drive)
Starring – Steve Wang, Troy Fromin (Shrunken Heads, Return of the Living Dead II), and Johnnie Saiko (Hell Comes to Frogtown, Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight)
Release Date – 1992
Rating – 2.5/5
Blu Release – 4/5
I’ve been a fan of martial arts and kung fu flicks for as long as I can remember. I watched them growing up with my grandmother and when I hit my teenage years I watched them with some friends of mine. I’ve watched a lot of the “bad” kung fu movies over the years and I absolutely love them. The campier the better. Sometime back Visual Vengeance, the blu ray oriented sister company to Wild Eye, released the 1992 kung fu comedy Kung Fu Rascals on blu. I had to add it to my collection so I ordered a copy and added it to my watch list to check out as soon as I could.
**Spoiler alert** The film follows three young kung fu masters who are on a quest to find a power that can restore their village to it’s glory days. However, an evil man and his gang of kung fu goons are after the same power and will stop at nothing to get it before them. **Spoiler alert**
I went into Kung Fu Rascals expecting to see some cheesy humor and a lot of fun kung fu. Instead, what we have is an extremely campy film with a lot of dialogue filled scenes and not that much martial arts action. I seriously wanted to like it but it wasn’t for me.
The acting in this one is a lot of fun. The film features a big cast of characters with memorable personalities but a lot of the scenes drag on and on for far too long. This creates a lot of time with these characters delivering dull dialogue.
The story for this one has so much potential but struggles with the pacing. At it’s hear its a film with a story we had seen many times during the early 90s with films aimed at children with a select group of people (often teenagers) go on a quest of self-discovery to find something sacred that will save them while an evil villain and his army of soldiers is trying to stop them. I could get behind it if it spent more time focusing on fights and setting the scenes instead of the quick jokes and dialogue heavy scenes. The humor is clearly a parody to the martial arts films of the late 70s except the jokes run their course fairly early in the film resulting in a film that moves at a snails pace with not enough action to hold the viewer’s attention.
Finally, isn’t a blood one but there is some fantastic creature designs that I was seriously impressed by. In fact, I loved them so much that I wish the film was centered more around them instead of the film’s lead. Overall, Kung Fu Rascals might be a bit more fun if you pop an edible or crush some beers. However, it’s not enjoyable as a sober watch and could use a lot of trimming to fix the pacing.
Special Features:
Region Free Blu-ray
Director-supervised SD master from original tape elements
The Making of Kung Fu Rascals: Brand New Feature Length Documentary
The Reunion of the Three Rascals
Commentary with director Steve Wang, Actor Johnnie Saiko, Actor Troy Fromin, Composer & Actor Les Calypool III and Actor Ted Smith
Commentary with Kung Fu Rascals superfans Justin Decloux and Dylan Cheung
Steve Wang & Les Claypool III Meet Again
Chris Gore Interview: Distributing Kung Fu Rascals on VHS
Behind The Scenes Video Diaries
Original Kung Fu Rascals Super 8 Short Film
Steve Wang Short Film: Code 9
Complete Film Threat Video #6 BTS Article
Stills Gallery
Behind The Scenes Image Gallery
Visual Vengeance Trailer
‘Stick Your Own’ VHS Sticker Set
Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original VHS Art
Folded mini-poster
2-sided insert with alternate art
Optional English subtitles
