Then I moved to Brooklyn, discovered Kim’s Video and found a copy almost immediately. Go figure.

Though I pirated a copy of the flick for my own amusement, I discovered that this crusade (like most) wasn’t about the reward so much as it was about the fucking hassle of finding it. Once I’d spent years of plucking through colorful cardboard sleeve after colorful cardboard sleeve, by the time that DVD was done burning and the VHS had been slid through that drop box back to its place amidst other obscurities, I felt nothing. The disc was popped into the pocket of a DVD wallet and zippered away for another day when work wasn’t yanking my soul out through my sinus cavity and I wasn’t clutching at my limited free time like a terminal cancer patient dragging his/her skeletal frame across a hospital room floor for that last nic stick.

Sad, right? Well, keep your chin up and your towlettes moist little Kung-Fu Rascals DVD, because I recently lost my job and you’re being drafted for the only war that actually means something: the war on boredom!

First and foremost, the movie’s directed by a guy who goes by the name of Steve Wang. A few years ago I spent a short couple of months entering immunization data for the state of New York into an info database. Of the many odd and humorous names I entered, one of the most memorable was a Mr. Harry Wang. How much do you parents resent you to give the name Harry when your last name is Wang? What does this have to do with Steve Wang? Nothing. Steve Wang, however, has had a very, uhm, varied career though. Whether directing, writing or working on various special effects and art direction projects, the man’s had his hands in some noticeable cookie jars over the years, include Evil Dead II, both live-action Guyver movies, X-Men: the Last Stand, Hell Comes to Frogtown, the American Godzilla, both Underworld movies, Predator, The Monster Squad, Alien Ressurection and many, many more. Mr. Wang’s worked under professional monster makers like Rick Baker and Stan Winston and is one of those names that skates along underneath the radar and is apparently working on directing a project for Japan’s beloved national hero and hot-dog eating contest champion Kamen Rider. All of this just makes the final product that is Kung-Fu Rascals all the more depressing. Is that a kidney stone I feel stirring in my loins? No, it’s just another cinematic sadness. Wince in pain with me children.

Somewhere at some time in some world there was a peaceful village of Shaolin monks. The village became the target of a group of evil Dr. Moreau-type manimals (mostly some rejects from Frogtown and a pig guy) led by some crazy guy made of Bamboo who looks like Papa Shango’s illegitimate second cousin. The Bamboo Man from Ka Pow has ordered the siege of Monk Town because he seeks an ancient relic the monks are holding: a stone table that looks like a stale gingerbread man. The tablet is actually a map (sure it is) that is said to lead to an ancient treasure of immense power, a.k.a. “the power most big”. Yes, it all sounds pretty generic and it is. Anyway, the tablet escapes from it’s holding place thanks to a native ninja named Chen Chow Mein (Wang himself) who, with the help of his brothers Lao Ze and Reepo, must find the treasure and restore the glory of their village. Of course it’s never as simple as that, because if it was the movie would be over in 17 minutes and I’d be left with another hour or so trying to entertain my girlfriend or stress over what to do with that pile of bodies sitting in the shallow grave in my basement. As such, the boys have to make it through the forces of BM (haha, he shares his initials with bowel movements) before they can relish in their happy ending… that being a semi-unintentional Asian joke, what with the Eastern connotations of what a “happy ending” is. You can laugh, it’s okay, no one will think less of you than they already do.

Our heroes are a simple play on the “Three Stooges” formula in that we have a leader, an oaf and the mostly overlooked third guy that balances the whole thing out. Chen is the cool-headed kung-fu hero stereotype leader guy, Lao is the overweight white guy who’s there to bumble and make an ass out of himself while he tries to convince himself that he’s Bruce Lee, and Ree is the “more capable than he seems” refugee from a post-apocalyptic Roger Corman flick… or a Mohawk sporting extra from “The Flintstones”, but that’s a matter of personal interpretation. As for the villains, they’re a mixed lot of bad guys whose sole purpose is to either serve as a floor show for the make-up and costume departments or just to fill in some mish-mash attempt at tossing stereotype characterizations into a 4-speed blender of uninspired writing. BM looks interesting, but is rarely seen and has absolutely no direct interaction with our heroes what-so-ever and thus provides no immediate threat, so he doesn’t really feel like the dangerous element he’s being presented as. His right hand (job) goon Raspmutant the Mad Monk is the pig-faced lackey type who fails at every turn and ultimately gets turned into bacon by his unhappy boss by the final scene. Of course there’s also the standard posse of goons and assassins, half of which come in the form of guys with animal heads and the other half of which come in the form of normal human no-good-nicks mercenary types that mix the typical wild west bad guy persona (topped by the fact that they’re all white guys) with the clothing and weapons of the feudal east. These killers-for-hire include the limp-wrist swinging gay caricature Dar Ling, the Chinese food delivery guy with the chicken fighting style Ba Foon, the aptly named and toothless interrogator Torture Master, and the leader of these mercs: the corrupt Sheriff of Ching Wa County, who’s played by Les Claypool and his oddly cut facial hair.

So Les Claypool’s in the movie. He also does the limited “music” that accompanies it. I wasn’t expecting that. If you’re now or have ever been a fan of Primus, The Holey Mackerel, Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade or the bass guitar, yes, it’s that Les Claypool. If you don’t fit into the aforementioned category (for which you’ll only receive limited shame points today) or if the years of drinking paint have left your mind an oozing mass of silvery head spoog, Les is the guy that does the “South Park” theme music and is seen in animated form strumming his banjo and singing in the opening sequence. He also won a break dance marathon against the likes of Gandhi, Joan of Arc and deceased one-footed WWF Intercontinental Champion Kerry “The Texas Tornado” Von Erich, but that’s a tale for another day…

And that’s really the worst part of all this, now that I think about it. Not the time I wasted in tracking the movie down all these years or the effort put into watching, reviewing and taking screen caps for it, but the fact that Les Claypool never parlayed this into any type of career as a niche actor. Sure, music’s his gift, it’s his life, it’s his thing that he does, but it would be nice to see him pop up in a movie now and then and put out a performance of evil cheesy goodness like he does here. It’s one of those things that leaves you questioning what might have been. Click on the rolling head at the bottom of this review for the "Easter Egg" video of Mr. Claypool's big fight scene, pieced together by your beloved Death God for your viewing enjoyment. Yes, I know if defeats the purpose of an Easter Egg to point it out so blatantly, but I put a lot of work into putting that damn clip together and I no nobody bothers with these damn Easter Eggs anyway so if I have to drag you by the lip ring, well, I guess that's what I'll damn well do!

The movie’s humor won’t work for everybody (the majority was deflected from my funny bone without so much as a smile) and relies on slapstick and a non-stop poking of fun on the pronunciation of Chinese words. Examples? Characters named “Lao Ze” (pronounced “lousy”), Reepo (pronounced “repo”) and Dar Ling (pronounced, duh, “darling”) are just a few. Most times this doesn’t amuse past the 4th grade level, but there are a couple that are actually a tad wittier if you take the time to think about them. Best part? While escaping the doomed village, Chen must make his way through the Yoko-Oni Valley. Not only is this a play on Yoko Ono’s name, but “Oni” is the term for Eastern demons. Get the joke yet? I’ll give you a second to let it sink in............ okay, maybe this visual aid that I badly Photoshopped together will help you:

The movie’s not entirely terrible. When the three kung-fu stooges finally get to where they’re going, we witness a fairly impressive clash of titans when two stone idols (the Neo Titan and the Meta Spartan) come to life to duel for the flick’s finale. It’s a classic example of how to do a rubber suit battle right and was probably one of the better examples you’ll find outside of a Toho production. If there could have been 10 or 15 minutes transplanted from the middle of the movie and given to this fight, I’d probably be convinced to bump the overall grade up a point. As for what we do get, the fight choreography is surprisingly good! It’s nothing to give Jackie Chan a Hong Kong hard-on, but it’s better than you’d expect. I don’t know if somebody in the industry owed Wang a favor or if everybody took a few classes at a Hollywood Fight Academy, but whatever the case I was impressed. Good job guys, I hope it didn’t hurt too much. Hopefully we’ll see a little more effort out of you for the sequel…

Oh yeah, about that, the end credits promise us a sequel and a comic book. I’ve scoured the internet for both and was not surprised to find neither. I’m not sure if setting the movie up for a sequel was a joke or a sign that Wang had WAY too much confidence in being able to sell his product, but either way it hurts the movie as a whole. Not only do we not get to see BM in any real action, but we’re introduced to another villain with plenty o’ potential in Meesha the Spider Witch, only to get absolutely no pay-off because her role doesn’t really make any kind of impact on the story until this imaginary sequel! Monk Town is never restored and after all this running around for 100 minutes, nothing is accomplished. It sad when I really really want to like a movie, but the movie does nothing but give me reason to the contrary! ARGH! WHY?!