Enter The Fat Dragon Is A Really Dumb And Pointless Movie That’s Good
Last night, I was looking at random movies that came out this year and I saw this movie:
Enter The Fat Dragon.
So I was thinking man this is such a ridiculous premise for a movie. “He’s fat AND he does kung fu? I need to see some of this!” What I saw had me hooked.
Taking place in Hong Kong, it opens with an action-packed scene where the main character (Fallon Zhu, a kung fu cop played by Donnie Yen) is taking a trip to the bank for his to-be wife and ends up in the middle of a bank robbery. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Our protagonist, Fallon, in a comedic fashion, immediately decides to be the hero and tries to stop the robbery. Somehow the fight is drawn out to the point that the robbers get to their getaway vehicle and Fallon jumps on the vehicle while it’s moving and begins fighting them on it.
In the middle of this fight on the moving getaway vehicle, a Hong Kong news reporter pulls up on the other side of their vehicle and begins reporting on the fight…about as close as you’re going to get to a fighting between people on a vehicle without actually being on it.
The ridiculous shit doesn’t end here. A competing news entity pulls up on the other side and they began throwing insults at each other. All while the less-verbal fight between Fallon and one of the bank robbers is still happening. It’s also important that I mention that at this point in the movie, he’s not fat. I’ll come back to that later.
In the end, Fallon beats up all the robbers and takes over the getaway vehicle and saves the day. But he crashes the vehicle into the local police station on accident. He’s demoted and moved to another area for this, one of his co-workers reveal that everyone kinda hated him cause he overworked everyone who just wanted to clock out on time, and his no longer to-be wife leaves him because they have an argument about how he was too busy saving the day to properly be a groom.
Being stuck basically being a security guard and probably depressed, he snacks constantly and isn’t very active anymore, so he gains a lot of weight in 6 months and is now 250 pounds.
So that’s how the movie’s title becomes relevant. He’s fat now.
And it turns out, there was more to that bank robbery than the surface indicated. One of the people at the scene have to be transported to Japan safely and Fallon is sent with him to guard him. His ex-fiance has a job in Japan also, so they cross paths yet again. She’s a bit surprised by his weight gain, but doesn’t really think much of it.
In Japan, there’s all types of fights he has with the Yakuza, run-ins with the police being corrupt there, new friends are made, blah blah blah.
But I wanna close this with something I think is incredible about this movie.
HIM BECOMING FAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT AT ALL.
HERE HE IS CLIMBING A FUCKING POLE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT WITH A BUNCH OF YAKUZA MEMBERS.
Wait Caleb, are you saying fat people can’t be athletic? Are you being fatophobic? No. At least, I don’t think I am. I’m just saying…
The entire premise of the movie is that he’s a fat guy who does kung fu. He gets fat rapidly later in the movie. But it has nothing to do with the plot. He never says “whew this weight gain got me fucked up. I can’t do what I used to!” or anything like that. He’s still jump kicking people and climbing buildings. He’s just fat now. And it’s barely acknowledged by anyone. I’m not saying it should be.
But…that’s the premise…isn’t it?
And honestly, I don’t know if I’m even complaining here. It’s just incredible to me that this is the premise of the movie and it doesn’t matter at all. I don’t get what the point of him becoming fat (and having Donnie Yen wear a fat suit) was.
Was it just because they felt it’d be funny to see a guy doing crazy unrealistic kung fu shit while fat? I thought the movie was funny actually, but it was how ridiculous and slapstick everything was that did it for me. Him specifically being fat didn’t add or take anything away from that.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe he’s mistreated for being fat or his wife says I love you, you’re still hot to me and I love what’s inside most of all? Anything at all? He’s just…fat now?
Anyway, despite that insane aspect, I still think it’s a good movie. It managed to wow me because it has simultaneously basic and zany writing. It was a perfect balance of that aspect that allowed me to just turn my brain off and just watch the shit happening on the screen and let it entertain me without thinking about its politics or goal in mind. Sometimes, that’s all you need. Thanks
