Tacky and still falls under the exact typical-ness of a east meets west movie

Rating: 2/10 (28 July 2008)

For nearly a decade there have been action, adventure, and even romantic comedies that have a strong interest and emphasis of the "east meet west" culture...i'm sure you seen this story a thousand times...middle aged or middle class Caucasian man goes either the the east or somewhere in the world meets up with Asian female (or east Indian depending on your movie and/or director who can't seem to find any other male of a different race appreciative for the main character role)...they have some weird and interesting adventures and then they hook up; yada, yada, yada....FINE!!! and if you don't believe that this type of obviousness exist check out movies like, "Snow falls on cedars" or "The last samurai", how about, "The quiet American" or how about something recent like oh...,"The forbidden kingdom" and another movie coming soon with Nicolas cage (Bancock Dangerous)or an upcoming movie with Hugh grant and zhang ziyi (HUGH GRANT...COME ON!!). This will continue sadly until someone from the minority starts to see this happen and say, "hey...i'm just as good as that person too and i'm BLACK or Asian or LATINO!" (Afro-American male actors very seldom is portrayed as a main character in a east meet west role and no "Mississippi Masala" doesn't count!)
But until then we are going to get the same tacky, and typical movies that displays a another case of the "Asian East meets Caucasian west" and, "Balls of fury" is another attempt at this from a comedian side of the spectrum. Now don't get me wrong Maggie Q and Aisha Tyler are HOT in this movie....but that's as far as good credit i will put towards this film. The jokes are not as funny, they try to overdo the comedy way too much and i felt that was making my head hurt, and GEORGE LOPEZ!!? come on what's wrong director and the casters that find these actors couldn't find a REAL comedian lately!? I mean Kevin Hart is more funny than this dude and he's an underdog comedian! The plot tries to be serious but fails badly...in a nutshell, Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) a failed ping pong player is given an opportunity from the FBI to go undercover to stop some gunrunner Feng (Christopher Walken) and expose his true plan but in order to gain trust he has to play...yep you guessed it, PING PONG to stay one step ahead and outwit *or try to!* the opposition.
Now, let's see what's wrong with this picture well i say....EVERYTHING! again Feng who is played by Christopher Walken, a man that has been nominated many times in GOOD MOVIES to suddenly be dropped in this bat of acid; that's like Ben Kingsley in, "Bloodrayne" what are you doing!!? again in the typical of nature a Caucasian man trying to fit into the Asian culture and did it badly; it was really sad to see him placed in this position but i'm sure others will disagree but its really up to you to figure this out for yourself. The plot and storyline had a bit of the "Enter the dragon" aspect but they tried to copy on that in some weird mock-ish way. The romance between Randy and ironically Maggie was again falling under a typical line up of east meets west romance and i found that faulting, I felt that the direction could of made this comedy an actual comedy but the premise wasn't there to put that up this film in the standards of what comedy is.
The end result, was a poorly made movie for my taste there was no direction to this it was trying to make a straight out laugh movie but it didn't do that for me all it did was make me shake my head and mutter, "Typical, typical, and more typical" cause that's all it was. But beggars can't be choosers and what's bad for me might be different for the next person and when you come in watching this movie i guess you have to keep an open mind and i did...but it gave me a headache after the first hour so you can read this review but the choice is yours to figure if this movie was good...but you might as well rent this film cause you might want to take it back after its done.
4/10
Story: I felt this didn't have much of a story going for it; the plot outline is straight laced but that was about it. It faltered a great deal and that what made me lose interest in the movie.
Character Development/acting: Lack there was, seeing Maggie Q in something sexy and Aisha Tyler were the only two reasons i was watching this movie besides that...the characters were dull, and unsurprisingly overdoing their roles.
Direction: Its amazing these days that directors,writers, and people that finds these actors keep looking towards the same type of east meets west romance...its a sad state of affairs in Hollywood or wherever you go that they can't find an actor that's within the minority for a main character role, and don't get me wrong certain actors an play certain roles great and some i feel that they must of known the director or someone to get in that way...either way you put it was typical to my taste and very tiresome and hell will freeze over when i see a movie where the Afro-American main male lead gets swept into a fantasy ancient china to save a kingdom and fall in love with the woman and save the world and all of that lord knows that might be just as good as well...but i doubt that will happen; but one can dream so until this....movies like this will continue....sadly.