Enter the Fat Dragon (2020): Review by @Kush_Hayes
Unbeknownst to this reviewer, Enter the Fat Dragon is a remake of a identical titled film from 1978 starring legend Sammo Huang. If you dont know Sammo Hung, hes a martial artist who came up in that period post Bruce Lees death, but his gimmick or hook was that he was a fat man. Now when we say, fat, we are talking a man who only has a deficient metabolism, yet his skill was second to none and his agility was off the chart. Speed, strength, cartwheels and flips at will, Sammo has it all. So a lot of his movies were already adaptations or remakes of earlier successful films, but with the word Fat attached.
Here we are 42 years later we get the remake to Sammo Hungs Enter the Fat Dragon, staring Martial Arts Master, Donnie Yen, who is only 11 years younger than Sammo. Where Sammo was a farmer, Donnie Yen plays a supercop who has had many near death encounters with criminals also amassing a lot of collateral damage to the point during one of these escapades Yens character almost drives a subjects cargo can into his boss back at the police station. This leads to Yen being demoted to a desk job in the evidence room. The arrest he made that got him demoted led to Yen missing his wedding photos with his soon to be bride who has zero understanding of what hes just been through and she breaks up with him, canceling their engagement. Then to add injury to embarrassment, he manages to break his leg. Truth be told I dont even remember how that happens. But all that weight, all that emotional trauma, causes him to stop working out, to start eating junk food, be at the office doing paperwork or at home watching kung fu blu rays.
Six months and an additional 45kgs (or 100lbs for us in The States), Donnie Yen is given an opportunity to get his career back on track. A very simple assignment, escort a fugitive to Japan. Im not sure why once hes at the airport he needs to go further, but once the fugitive in back Japanese custody, it turns out someone is a corrupt agent and in a conspiracy to have the fugitive murdered things get bungled and on Japanese soil, the fugitive gets away without his pants. Our fugitive will turn up later, dead of course and attached to a much larger conspiracy, this one involving cocaine and the Japanese Mafia. Of course we have to have Donnie Yens ex fiance attached to this as an innocent figure in over her head on what she thought would be a simple payday in another country. It goes all over the place from there and we’re maybe less than an hour into the runtime at this point.
Thanks to a website that while unreliable, gives us a number of 111 kgs for Sammo Hungs weight which at 5ft 7ins makes his talent that much more incredible. For most of the film Im trying to figure out if Donnie Yen is wearing a fat mask and costume or if they did some weird cgi thing. Itll be the first selection as during the credits we are privileged to see a time lapse of the make up artists applying it to Yens face. But even with the body suit, What Yen does, while better than anything the average Kush Hayes can do, pales in comparison to what his elder of eleven years has already done. A lot of the time this film feels like a TV show, especially when some of the humor is forced in. That may be due to the fact theres a few TV Networks that helped finance this film, a total of five companies total would produce this. There are some cultural references that I obviously wouldnt understand, despite recognizing that they were there. Fantastic action in fun set pieces, including the back of a cargo van which I have to believe the expanded for the fight scene. Great cinematography capturing Donnie Yens character running up n down buildings and across rooftops and awnings. One thing Im not sure they didnt specifically do for western audiences, Donnie Yens characters name is Fallon Zhu - “...Like Jimmy Fallon, or Fallon Fox…” and I dont understand why we get that explanation.
This movie at worst is silly, but includes a cast of characters you like being with and has entertaining action scenes that will keep you going.
Three out of Five Blueberries
Film is Not Rated, but contains Violence including stabbing and shooting with a gun in addition to Martial Arts combat, drug references and drug usage.
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