
“Enter the Fat Dragon” Theatrical Poster
Director: Tanigaki Kenji
Cast: Donnie Yen, Niki Chow, Teresa Mo, Wong Jing, Louis Cheung Kai-Chung, Jessica Jann, Takenaka Naoto, Tetsuya Watanabe, Wong Cho-Lam, Lawrence Chou, Jerry Lamb, Yan Hua, Anthony Chan, Philip Ng
Running Time: 96 min.
By Paul Bramhall
I guess any review of Enter the Fat Dragon should begin by addressing its existence (it’s as good a place to start as any!). First up, yes, the production was conceived all thanks to a 2015 commercial that Donnie Yen starred in for the memory foam brand Sinomax. In it, we get Yen in a fat suit (think Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal), in which he goes up against his slim self in a race to meet their returning partners first, and somehow it all ends up being about the very comfortable looking Sinomax memory foam mattresses and pillows. I was sold, and it only takes a brief look at the comments section of the clip on YouTube to realise a disproportionate amount of them read “You should make a movie out of this!” It’s somewhat fitting then, that a producer such as Wong Jing should set in motion the plan to do just that.
Secondly, no, it’s not a remake of the 1978 Sammo Hung movie of the same name. Although, in fairness, both Sammo and Donnie’s characters share a love of Bruce Lee, so there are certainly some thematic similarities between the pair. In terms of plot though, they’re 2 distinctly different beasts. In the updated version, Yen unsurprisingly plays a righteous cop with anger management issues, much the same as he’s done several times over since 1988’s Tiger Cage (but when you do it as well as he does, it’s not a complaint). After one ridiculous brawl too many, he finds himself demoted to the archive room, and to top things off his aspiring actress fiancé dumps him. Skip forward 6 months later, and a diet of potato chips and soft drinks has taken its toll on the waistline to the tune of 250 pounds. Continue reading →
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