Balls of Fury

So I finally got around to watching "Balls of Fury", the 2007 sophomoric flick billed as "a huge comedy with tiny balls"...and you wonder why TLM didn't want to go see this at the theaters with me.

Well, it exceeded my expectations, and I was surprised my a few things. For example, I had no idea that the movie was essentially a spoof of to-the-death martial arts tournament movies like "Enter the Dragon" and "Mortal Kombat", except it's to-the-death ping-pong. Go figure.

[ On a side note, there's at least one actor who was actually in "Mortal Kombat" (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and one who should have been (James Hong). ]

The main reason I wanted to see the picture, however, was to watch serious actor turned caricature of himself Christopher Walken play the part of Feng, the sillily evil grand master of the tournament. He did what I expected him to do; that is, talk in the oh-so-recognizable Christopher Walken way and steal the show. It didn't matter what getup he was in (this one was pretty out there), he's still that guy dancing around in the Fatboy Slim video for "Weapon of Choice" (is there anything this guy can't do? Oh, right, talk differently).



Walken had some strong competition, though, from relative newcomer Dan Fogler, who won't be receiving any Oscar nominations anytime soon but still gave a great performance with his deadpan, slapstick, Def Leppard shirt wearing character and hero, Randy Daytona.

I laughed enough to give this one 3 stars, even.