(Half of) Tenacious D and the Dragon Scroll of Destiny
So, we all know Jack Black right? In the amazing documentary Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, we see how he leaves home because Meatloaf is some super zealot nutbag, how he hears the voices of the gods of metal in his head, and how basically he can rock out so fucking hard he can even beat Satan at his own game. But did you know he is ALSO a master of KUNG FU FIGHTING!?!??!!!!11!?!?!2
So in China, much like in Little Tokyo where the Samurai Pizza Cats live, everyone is some kind of animal. The Kung Fu Supreme Master is a slowass Tortoise, the guy making the noodles is a goose, and Jack Black is a big ol’ Panda. Now, some might say it’s somehow insulting to Pandas to relate them to a slightly overweight guy known for heavy metal and smoking a bit of the green, but look, the guys funny, he’s not your regular adonis hollywood body shape, and frankly — he seems like a really NICE GUY. If ever there was a movie about me, I’d want Jack Black playing me, because I think he could pull off my comedic timing and awesomeness pretty well. Skip the green stuff though mate, I’m allergic.
I’m doing that digressing thing again huh? Anyway, JACK BLACK IS A FUCKEN PANDA. He really likes Kung Fu and wants to learn it, but he seems destined for a life of making noodles at the shop of his Bird Dad, played by Covetous Shen from Diablo III (aka James Hong). Now there’s nothing WRONG with noodles, frankly I find them tasty and quite fun to make improvised lasso’s out of, but yeah — he dreams of greater stuff. This movie opens with one of the coolest little “animation within an animation” scenes of him being the ultimate Kung Fu master, with the ultimate smack talk and style, and then has him waking up to comparatively dreary noodle shop life.
Meanwhile, the most awesome of awesome ancient Kung Fu Supreme Master Randall Duk Kim, as a tortoise named as Oogway, has a vision that the Bad Kitty Al Swearengen will escape. Now if you haven’t watched Deadwood and don’t know who that is, hopefully you’ve at least watched Pirates of the Caribbean Four, and I can say the Bad Kitty Blackbeard the Pirate. Imagining either of them as Tai Lung, who is voiced by Ian McShane, is kinda hilarious. Unfortunately my wife has seen neither, so for her sake I’m going to say “Imagine the picture of me in my big grey cat onesie that we bought for that costume party”. Apparently that in itself is pretty hilarious.
Oogways number one student turned master is Rainman, a little weird mouse/rat/red panda or something. He’s in charge of the Kung Fu Palace and the Marvel worthy superhero team of the Furious Five. These guys are awesome. The Tigress is a Tomb Raider, the rope (we call them ropes in our house, just like in Indiana Jones IV) is one of Charlies Angels and doubles as Sherlocks minder. The Monkey is, like, a whole genre of martial arts films unto himself, the Praying Mantis is apparently funny for some reason, and finally there’s a Crane that keeps popping up as a really weird guy in Men In Black (and yet is never an alien). Rainman asks the Kung Fu Supreme Master to choose which of them can be the Dragon Warrior (I’ve heard that somewhere before), so he can give them this mystical scroll thing that we ALL know Jack Black would look at and think “Hey man, I bet I could turn that into a bong”.
Now Jack Black really wants to get in to see this lot perform their Kung Fu awesomeness (that word is used a lot in this film, and I love it), so he convinces Covetous Shen to let him go up there (although being such a covetous Covetous Shen, he has to go as a vendor or some kind). Fighting the ancient enemy of both of us, a big fuckoff flight of stairs, he makes it up there and tries to watch.
Finding the second ancient enemy of both of us, (inconsiderate assholes), Jack Black can’t get in because someone closed the door. Why they had to close the door is beyond me, but I don’t mind so much, because obviously hilarity will ensue(™). Channeling his inner Wile E Coyote, our panda hero tries to peek through doors, scramble up to windows, and fling himself over the wall using trees, before finally finding a suspiciously unattended stand of fireworks. Man, I gotta say, that’s a real Work Health & Safety issue there, and we see just what can go wrong when Jack straps a shit ton of them to a chair to shoot himself over said wall. Covetous Shen, worried that his son has been distracted by wandering Zakarum Priestesses, rocks up to see what’s going on just in time to freak out and get understandably upset that Jack Black has lied about his reasons for coming up here. Don’t worry duck dude, everything will work out fine, and while you’re here can we grab a Hellfire Ring?
Jack Black rockets over the wall and lands smack bang in front of Oogway just in time to be shakily pointed out as the Dragon Warrior, to the shock of everyone but the zen Kung Fu Supreme Master himself who thinks it’s pretty damn neat. Rainman practically loses his shit because it can’t possibly be an untrained Panda, but in the end he goes all passive aggressive and agrees to do the training in an attempt to shame the Panda out of the palace.
Meanwhile, over in the most badass prison since the Phantom Zone, Michael Clarke Duncan is showing off just how well they’ve got Bad Kitty locked up to Rainman’s messenger who came to warn the prison guards of the vision. This teaches him a valuable lesson about bragging, because in doing so he accidentally helps Bad Kitty escape, gets the ass of everyone under him kicked as well as his own, and lets Bad Kitty know that a Dragon Warrior will be waiting for him in the Kung Fu Palace. Bad Kitty takes this as a bit of a challenge and wants the Dragon Scroll of Destiny anyway, so he warns everyone he’s coming by letting the messenger go after a bit of pseudo-erotic asphyxiation (and maybe calling him a cocksucker, or saying “Arr” or something?), and then heads on foot to his upping comeance.
Training doesn’t go so great for Jack Black. In an all time low, he pretty much fails the tutorial level of the dojo (does Kung Fu even call it a dojo?) and the practice dummy knocks him flat. Look, I’ve played a LOT of games, I can tell you that if a practice dummy knocks you flat, you started on waaay too hard a difficulty level Maybe he should have dialed that shit back from Ninja Gaiden Black to Hello Kitty Island Adventure? Regardless, he gets some baller advice from Kung Fu Supreme Master Oogway and remains steadfast, taking some severely embarrassing beatings and mockings with aplomb that even Deadpool would be proud of. Oogway gives some top notch advice to Rainman as well, reminding him it’s his bloody job to train the newbies and to toughen the fuck up and do it, before himself ascending to the Spirit World in a puff of pink petals. When 900 years old you are, stick around and fight everyone else’s battles for them you will not, hm?
The Fantastic Fabulous Furious Fucken’ Five hear about Bad Kittys escape and set out to head him off at the pass. Really, it’s Good Kitty Tomb Raider Tigress who sets out, and the others realise “Holy shit, we’re gunna look like gigantic assholes if we don’t get the shit beaten out of us along with her”, so they catch up. Now, while we’re talking about this, her name is Tigress right? The others are Mantis, Crane, Monkey, and Viper (yaah call it a rope!). Now, the lack of clarity here (seriously, what SORT of Tiger? Tai Lung’s a fuckin’ tiger and no one called HIM Master Tiger. What if ANOTHER Monkey learnt Kung Fu, would they be called Master Monkey II?) and racial profiling aside (again, seriously, that lasts for the whole trilogy, there’s even a Master Chicken for fucks sake), this doesn’t seem like the best of ideas. If anything, they should have stuck around with Rainman and maybe even the Panda to like Voltron up against Bad Kitty, but whatever — they get the ever loving shit kicked out of them in spectacular fashion. Not only that, but Bad Kitty uses some Xena like pressure point shit to paralyse four of them, leaving Crane (What sort of fucking Crane? South African or European?) to carry their butts back to the palace.
While that’s happening, Rainman has a moment of well timed clarity when he discovers Jack Black in the kitchen suffering from the munchies and captures him all spread eagled between a couple of cupboards munching away on cookies with the look that my darling wife often catches me with when I’ve found the jar of Nutella. “Aha!” thinks Rainman, “I’ve fucken got you, you deceptively skillful fuck”, and proceeds to use the desire for food to train Jack Black into awesomeness. Now, most people don’t pay a hell of a lot of attention to the training montage/fight that goes on here, but I want everyone to highlight it for later, ok class?
Crane rocks back up with the paralysed four, and thankfully Rainman knows what to do about it because they make pretty gross statues. Seeing this, Jack Black is quite appropriately scared shitless, so Rainman gives him the Dragon Scroll of Destiny to power him up for the boss fight. Unfortunately, as far as Legendary Orange Items of Legendaryness go, the DSoD falls a bit flat when it’s revealed to contain FUCK ALL, so Rainman figures he might as well try to take on the mad cat himself. I mean, it’s kinda his fault anyway, he was the guy that trained the kitten many years ago before he went all Champawat Tiger. The Failed Five and Jack Black nick off to evacuate all the villagers from the valley and Rainman stands his ground to solo the guy. Maybe he’s a hunter and he can kite him or something? I dunno, let’s move on before I add too many World of Warcraft analogies in here.
Covetous Duck, while packing up his noodle stand and swallowing all his diamonds, tries to comfort Jack Black by revealing the secret ingredient of his secret ingredient soup is in fact, FUCK ALL. That’s right, FUCK ALL. So, Jack Black has an Oprah moment and realises that if he trusts in himself, he CAN be fuckin’ awesome and defeat Bad Kitty, because that secret ingredient soup is exactly like the Dragon Scroll of Fuck All Destiny. There is no spoon, and thus it is him who bends in the wind, can see the code of the matrix, and has the power of the one. Keanu Reeves would be proud of the “Woah” moment our pal has here, it’s pretty epic, so he dashes back up to face his mortal enemy after all.
That’s right, those fucking stairs again. Seriously, someone get this guy a goddamn escalator.
When he gets to the top, he finds Bad Kitty has beaten the ever loving shit out of Rainman, so he challenges the asshole to a rock off. Hey, if he loses, well, it worked out well enough against Dave Grohl so fuckit right? Luckily, he actually DOES know a lot of Kung Fu, turns out watching the Furious Five likea stalker teaches you a bit of stuff, plus Rainmans’ teachings have actually taught Jack Black quite a lot. Not only that, he uses just about every move that Rainman taught him during the awesome training montage/fight mentioned earlier, which is just MASTERFUL visual storytelling. That’s right kids, the lesson here is to remember your training and use the tools at hand to finish the job, don’t disregard them and rely on some mystical energy no one can see to do the job for you.
Jack Black wins, using something called a Wu Shi finger that I remember from a date to a Chinese restaurant in high school. It looks like a massive explosion (which is also part of my memory from how that date ended, I think the food was off), but I’d like to think that rather than the implied death of Bad Kitty he’s just knocked the fuck out and taken back to another kickass prison to spend the rest of his days in a plastic cage playing chess with Michael Clarke Duncan.
Covetous Shen is proud. Rainman is proud. The Furious Five are a touch perplexed their years of training were no match for the instincts of a guy working in a noodle shop, but are also proud. The whole fricken valley is proud — it’s pretty touching really. There’s a post credits scene with Rainman and Jack Black eating dumplings by the peach tree where Oogway ascended, showing a nice little sapling growing out of the ground. I’m pretty sure that’s either a little bit more symbolism to go with the film, or a secret suggestion that Jack Black should have joined Karl Urban in the epic that was Dredd, storming the towers of the Peach Trees Arcology to take on Ma-Ma — but that’s a different story, and sadly does not involve pandas.
Anyway, then Nick Fury shows up at the prison where Bad Kitty is kept, and recruits him for his own Suicide Squad.
