BIG FUCKING EXPLOSIONS

As production continues on Sony’s Kung Fu Kid, a modern day reimagining of the 1984 film, The Karate Kid and inspired by the inclusion of a certain trailer (we’ll get to it later) on the latest installment of Synapse Films’ 42nd Street Forever series, I’ve been inspired to examine the Kung Fu child genre of the 1980s and early 1990s. While I haven’t seen all of these films (mostly the Taiwanese/Chinese productions), I feel if you watch enough YouTube Clips, you have a fairly decent understanding of the genre and pictures.

A scene from Young Dragons: The Kung Fu Kids aka Kung Fu Kids

The Kung Fu Kid genre is the martial arts equivalent of the Our Gang shorts of the 1920s/30s/40s obviously with an emphasis of humor, but with just as heavy emphasis on the kids actually performing kung fu and actually performing these stunts. Using a mixture of over cranking and under cranking, the Kung Fu Kids look like they’re capable of destroying an entire army of hired kung fu goons as well as knocking anybody through a near by piece of glass:

(A compilation of stunts/fights from Kung Fu Kids 2)

If you go to the two minute and thirty five second mark of the clip above, you’ll notice that one of the heroic Kung Fu kids goes through a small glass table. That’s right! For as heroic as these children are portrayed, they get whaled upon. There is no sugar coating or hiding in these stunts. That is the token chubby child going through a small glass table. There are no stunt doubles. There are no cuts within the sequence. It is a kid going through glass and safely landing into a bucket like table. Now, you could ask or wonder to yourself, if the token chubby member of the Kung Fu Kids is actually an adult little person (he does have a rather large butt) and that could be why he’s flying into glass instead one of the other kung fu kids. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

The Kung Fu Kids genre seems to follow at least two to three rules:

1. There has to be at least over three members of the group
2. One member of the group has to be a fat kid and a great source of comic relief
3. They will have a montage showing their skills set to an 80s dance song.

Other examples:

The Incredible Kids AKA The 5 Kung Fu Kids (Please note that each character name in the English translation is a reference to an American action hero of the era. The first Kung Fu kid is named “Little Rambo”)

Now, the film, Lucky Seven AKA Seven Lucky Ninja Kids took the Kung Fu Kid genre to the next level by including girls and a montage sequence set to a song that’s eerily similar to Madonna’s “Like A Virgin.” Also, according to the film programmers at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the fat kid in this film is actually named “Bullshit” in the film. Also, it looks as if one of the Lucky Seven could be another adult little person masquerading as a child. The trailer for this film is included on the new 42nd Street Forever DVD and it’s quite amazing. Very Goonies and very equal since the girls kick as much ass as the boys and just as equally get whaled upon (One of the Lucky Sevengirls goes through a pane of glass).

Now that we’ve seen some fight scenes from the first two Young Dragons: Kung Fu Kids (Kung Fu Kids) pictures, let’s take a look at a fight scene from The Incredible Kids. The Incredible Kids appear to be wearing the same exact jumpsuits as the Ghostbusters and fighting an gang of “Miami Vice” era Don Johnson/Freddie Mercury super fans:

The fight sequence starts out as very comedic and light; very much in the vein of the early work of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. The fat kid passes gas and the bad guy gets knocked out. The kid’s smelly feet knocks out the other guy. All very cute and twee, but then it just takes a dark turn. As soon as one of the incredible kids flies through a window, it just feels weird. Every knock out blow is in slow motion and fluid is flying out of the bad guys’ mouths. Also, you can see and feel the pain that the kid who goes through the window is going through as he slowly gets up. There are no stunt doubles in this film.

Now, this rather surreal trailer for 7 Ninja Kids 2 seems to borrow elements, naturally, Seven Samurai and John Woo’s The Killer but also seems to set the table for the Japanese (slightly overrated) cult classic, Battle Royale. While the other Kung Fu Kid films, at its core, are light hearted affairs with the occasional dark turn, 7 Ninja Kids 2 appears to be a dark serious action film very akin to the aforementioned works of John Woo. Sure, there are women in wacky costumes and kids performing high acts of karate, but they are fighting in dark, dingy bars and battling gangsters and potentially drug dealers with machine guns (I don’t speak or understand French).

Eventually, Kung Fu Kids become Kung Fu Teens and the novelty of it begins to wear thin as they enter the awkward phase. Sure, they could jump high and kick even higher, but their voices or at least, their dubbed voices sound more feminine than usual and it’s not as startling when the fat kid goes through a glass window. Also, dig the crazy costumes in this fight sequence.

Some time in the mid 80s, America attempted their first Kung Fu Kid film with the popular Karate Kid franchise.

While the first film in the series is a classic, The Karate Kid has less to done with kids going through windows and more about learning the art and getting to second base with a super foxy Elisabeth Shue. If some teen or young actor were to go through a window, it would’ve been a stunt double. In 1992, Hollywood tried again to make the Kung Fu Kid picture with 3 Ninjas:

Director Jon Turteltaub used ninjutsu as a way to create  Home Alone style hi-jinxs, but failed to deliver or match the quality of its Asian counter parts. However, 3 Ninjas may be the closet thing to a Kung Fu Kids series in America; the first film spawned 4 sequels over the 90s.

And the low point in the Kung Fu Kids genre may be 1993’s Surf Ninjas. The less said, the better.

Which brings us the summer 2010 release of The Kung Fu Kid starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan as the master Kung Fu instructor. Will the film continue the Hollywood tradition of watered down Kung Fu Kids pictures or will we see Jaden Smith actually fight an adult karate master? Of course, he won’t because its probably against some child labor law. The shadiness of the original Kung Fu Kids films make them endearing and worth hunting down. Who doesn’t want to see a couple of 10 years old take down a thirty year karate expert? Or see a chubby kid fall through a table? That’s the beauty of the Grind House movie house or the genre picture heavy revival house. The ability for films like these to trickle into the cinematic conscious is sadly missed in today’s movie world. We need films like these in order to appreciate the quality of other films within the genre or help push the limits within the respective genre.

At the start of the DVD boom, some of these films probably found a second life, but will companies want to pick these films up for on line streaming or even imagine remastering them for HD? Will they just exist as VHS rips with Russian subtitles downloaded from some blog? Every film deserves a life after its theatrical release even the bad ones.

Two GIFs from Lucky Seven

-Douglas Reinhardt/Skeet On Mischa