Review of Balls of Fury

Introduction

Most modern comedy films have been a bit rubbish in my experience, so I've come to this one with reasonably low expectations.

It's a martial arts spoof involving table tennis. Randy Daytona was a child ping pong prodigy in 1988, but was humiliated by a German in the Olympic final. Cut to the modern day and he's performing in a cheap cabaret act based around his skills.

The government thinks he would be perfect for a secret mission to infiltrate the secret island of Master Feng (who just happened to kill Randy's father) who holds regular tournaments (think Enter the Dragon, but without "don't look at the finger"). But first he needs to sharpen his skills, with the help of a legendary ping-pong master, in order to get invited to the tournament. And if you've seen any martial arts type films, you'll know the rest...

Video

A 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer which is pretty flawless and looks just fine. There are lots of good little visual gags and nods to various other films that this spoofs too. No complaints.

Audio

A DD5.1 soundtrack which works perfectly. It's not the most amazing of tracks, but it does the job well enough. If you don't like Def Leppard, this film is not for you, as they just happen to be Randy's favourite band, so there's plenty from them during the film.

Extra Features

A selection of deleted scenes and an alternate ending, none of which offer anything over above the film itself.

Next up is a brief making-of documentary called "Balls Out" which is mostly just PR fluff but is fairly inoffensive.

There's also a brief sketch masquerading as a documentary about the film's "ball wrangler" who supposedly looked after all the table tennis balls used during filming.

Conclusion

An amusing little spoof of Enter the Dragon/The Karate Kid/Dragon and others. It's not going to win any awards and it may not make it onto your list of greatest comedies ever, but it's nice harmless fun.

It's more fun if you've watched some of those other films mentioned or just some martial arts films in general, as you can see little influences throughout. And it's always fun to see Christopher Walken hamming it up as the bad guy. Yes there are some very predictable and cheap gags along the way too, but don't expect the earth and you might have a bit of a laugh.

The DVD itself is fine and will make a fair rental, it just won't end up in too many permanent collections...