Paws Of Fury turns a Mel Brooks’ blueprint into a clearinghouse for Asian clichés
The animated martial arts-themed film will make viewers long for the nuance of Blazing Saddles
Film Reviews Mel Brooks
Released in 1974—and intended as a racial satire—Blazing Saddles got away with some stuff that’s problematic by today’s standards. Paws Of Fury: The Legend Of Hank reimagines Blazing Saddles as a samurai picture with animated talking animals. But creatives from the eight (count ’em) different production companies involved have apparently all been living under a rock for the last half century. Unless, of course, they’re delusional enough to think the premise is somehow less noxious if they replace all the characters with talking animals—which would not be at all surprising given the intellectual laziness and artistic bankruptcy in every other choice in this film.
This is no extrapolation: Originally titled Blazing Samurai, the film credits the screenplay by Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, and Alan Uger as its basis. The update transplants the story from the American frontier to a feudal Japan populated by felines. These cats get around by riding horses, because the filmmakers clearly haven’t thought this through. The black sheriff part in the original is now a beagle named Hank (Michael Cera), who we find out in a flashback set to the West Side Story score aspires to be a samurai because other canines bully him back home. But dogs are not welcome in Japan, and he winds up on death row. Ika Chu (voiced by Ricky Gervais), who conspires to gain control of the village of Kakamucho, dispatches Hank there to assume the position of town samurai, knowing full well he will be chased out by the villagers. Instead, disgraced samurai Jimbo (Samuel L. Jackson essentially reprising his role from The Protégé) trains Hank to be the savior that Kakamucho so desperately needs.
Even in a cartoon, someone like Hank being oppressed in some exotic land is exactly the kind of toxic online strawman that is morally reprehensible for a studio to turn that into a motion picture in 2022. But by failing to exhibit any trace of affinity or reverence to Asian culture, martial arts or any of its narrative touchpoints, Paws Of Fury also exemplifies the worst kind of cultural appropriation. There’s no consultant listed in the credits, nor is there evidence that any research of that sort went into the screenplay or the animation. Among the some 300 cast and crew members listed in the film’s IMDb entry, you can count the Japanese names on one hand. Screenwriters Ed Stone and Nate Hopper name the fictional town Kakamucho not because it means anything in Japanese, but because you get something if you replace the Ks with Cs.
Aside from “contract” and “beauty salon” rendered correctly in kanji, most words that appear in the animation are either nonsensical scribbles passing for calligraphy or English words in the wonton font that restaurant takeout containers and martial arts school signs absorbed decades ago. Basically, the animators are otiose to the point that they can’t be bothered to use Google Translate. As for the beauty salon, the signage is (perhaps obviously) not historically accurate, but it seems to appear largely because the filmmakers conflate the Japanese with Asians of other ethnicities who stereotypically run these businesses.
Meanwhile, Stone and Hopper reach for the lowest hanging fruits possible as cultural signifiers. One imagines they were incredibly pleased with themselves for working origami into the script, but there’s also a fat cat you may or may not be surprised is called Sumo (Djimon Hounsou). Ika Chu, which underscores the fact that the writers also seem to know nothing about Pokémon, has a British accent for no reason other than being voiced by Gervais. Then there’s the shogun, named after frequent Akira Kurosawa leading man Toshiro Mifune, who must be rolling in his grave. To make matters worse, Mifune is voiced by Mel Brooks, who replaces the redface he did in Blazing Saddles with yellowface in this. And then South Korean rapper Psy’s “Gangnam Style” is on the soundtrack in another act of the film’s lazy, melting-pot approach to exploring Asian culture.
Reckless cultural insensitivities aside, Stone and Hopper’s writing is simply not smart or funny. Poop and fart jokes comprise the core of their repertoire, and if you’re curious how reliant the film is on this material, Paramount is literally handing out whoopee cushions to promote the film.
Of the eight companies and about 300 cast and crew members involved, it’s clear that not enough red flags were raised—if any—about the thoughtlessness of this production and its portrayals. Whether or not its predecessor holds up (fully or even in part) to contemporary standards of sensitivity, Blazing Saddles not only enlisted Richard Pryor as a screenwriter but at least aspired to comment on the bigotry it depicts. Paws Of Fury defangs that film’s commentary and turns its R-rated ambitions into a reminder of exactly why there need to be more people of color involved in the creative decision-making—on all projects, but especially ones like this.
207 Comments
I’m sure it’s a shitty film, but “get the token Asian on staff to review the Asian-themed movie” always turns out great.
This is un-fucking-readable. The AV Club, now famous for bloviating struggle sessions that masquerade as reviews.
And I’m not even defending this obvious crap movie either. The standards for this site have utterly and wholly collapsed, to be fed on by fringies and Stockholm syndromers. I am OUT.
“Blazing Saddles got away with some stuff that’s problematic by today’s standards.”Not really, pretty much the entire movie was making fun of racists and racism. It’s still an extremely progressive movie.
Remember in the summer of 2020 when streaming services took down a bunch of episodes from old sitcoms featuring characters in blackface, even the ones where the joke was “hey, look at this racist idiot who thinks it’s okay to do blackface”? Well, I think there may be similar reactions to that little old lady who calls Cleavon Little’s character the n-word. We seem to have lost the ability to understand that pieces of fiction do not necessarily endorse everything they portray.
one of my unpopular opinions is that I feel this way about Robert Downey Jr in Tropic Thunder. It was making fun of hollywoods history of blackface and illustrating how fucked up it was.
I’ve met people that don’t understand that he was playing an austrailian playing a black guy.
And the fact that somebody who doesn’t get the intent can have a soapbox through social media is the reason why no one wants to tackle real satire any longer.
Or a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude!
If you think being OK with Robert Downey Jr’s role in Tropic Thunder is an “unpopular opinion,” I think you’re just giving too much power to a very small group of people who write about popular culture.
I don’t think that is unpopular. Tropic Thunder was and still is very funny. In the last decade people seem to have lost the ability to process humor. Tropic Thunder is not punching down at black people or mentally challenged people, its punching up at shitty Hollywood types who exploit those peoples stories.
There’s a lot of the use of the words fa**ot and d*ke that seem to be there just as punchlines in themselves without any real social context. I think we’ve also lost sight of the fact that one can be critical of how a film choses to use language while not saying the film should be banned or destroyed.
“Well, I think there may be similar reactions to that little old lady who calls Cleavon Little’s character the n-word.”You don’t have to guess if there would because there wasn’t.
Yes, because there where many little old ladies who said that. And there were many sadistic Jap soldiers who tortured our US POW’s to death. And the Chinese are now torturing their own minorities? This yellowwashjng of Orientals as warm and fuzzy is horrific. They’re blood thirsty savages who want to take over the world…..
you’re not wrong but noone would make blazing saddles in 2022*. you couldn’t make a police academy movie in this climate.*aside from the producers of paws of fury: the legend of hank, of course.
Only because Bobcat doesn’t do his old shtick anymore, though.
he could direct!
I was trapped in a hotel in the Azores one night, and the only thing left on TV was Police Academy 6. That’s how I know it is the worst movie ever made.
Why would anyone want to make a Police Academy movie, ever?
You bite your . . . tongue . . .
To teach kids the importance of not shoplifting; the same reason Homer took Bart to all those Police Academy movies.
The Stonecutters need beer money.
fair enough
you couldn’t make a police academy movie in this climate.Yeah but that’s mainly because David Graf, Bubba Smith, and George Gaynes are all dead.
I exactly! They managed to make Blazing Saddles, with its awesome message, today.Martin missed that.
Really?
All these YouTube channels and you’re pulling out the “you can’t do that on television”?
The fuck outta here with that nonsense.
Tropic Thunder?
“Blazing Saddles couldn’t get made today” is such a tired old saw that seems about as lacking in subtlety of thought as the straw-men audiences it assumes would be unable to grasp the movie’s perspective and commentary. I saw an instagram meme the other day intimating that people would have a conniption fit if Archie Bunker were on the tv in 2022. Like…the guy’s basically Peter Griffin, but more people are yelling at him, telling him he’s wrong. And I’m fairly certain All in the Family is stilly syndicated within an inch of its life. Ironically, the comments were turned off for that particular post.
You couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today? Okay, then explain The Boys. And Doom Patrol. And The Umbrella Academy. And biggest of all, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Have you actually seen Blazing Saddles? It’s absolutely not even remotely close to the any of those shows. Doom Patrol and Umbrella Academy?!? Really?!?
Sunny, which is allowed to continue airing because it’s basically grandfathered in, and because they were pressured to scrub their blackface episodes from streaming and syndication. Although, to be fair, you can still hear Charlie say the N-word in season 1 in streaming, though I’m fairly certain that never gets played in reruns, but perhaps that speaks more to the way that our contemporary approach to how we treat satire is very reactive and scattershot.
Always Sunny has had multiple episodes pulled from streaming due to blackface.
Are you aware the Always Sunny had to pull a handful of episodes off various streaming services?
If Archie Bunker were on TV in 2022, he’d come off as too subtle. Fox News has about three hours of Archie Bunkers ranting directly into the camera every weeknight.
I mean, it couldn’t get made today. Gene Wilder, Cleavon Little, Slim Pickens, Alex Karras, Madeline Kahn, David Huddleston and Harvey Korman, they’re all dead.
Yup, I believe Mel Brooks has said as much; “of course you couldn’t make it; Richard Pryor is dead!”But there is a more recent quote where he intimates that present-day sensitivities would stand in the way as well, so grain of salt.
This might be apocryphal, but when asked if you could make Blazing Saddles today, Brooks replied along the lines of “Of course not. You couldn’t make it then either, but we did anyway”.
Yet Mel lives on!!!!!
Fuck, that hits hard when you see it all laid out there like that.
I always felt that Django Unchained more or less disproved that “Blazing Saddles couldn’t get made today” argument, although the debate has gone on long enough now that I suppose even that retort is a bit dated.Not saying that the movies are of entirely comparable caliber or quality one way or another, but any criticism one could make about the depiction of in-universe racism would be similar enough, and it seems like the film weathered it fine
to amend my previous statement, someone like jordan peele could probably get away with a blazing saddles in 2022.
I’d argue that there are more than enough people that *couldn’t* grasp that concept, and as those people never shut up, maybe that’s not an inaccurate statement.Even Archie Bunker was revered amongst a certain audience that didn’t grasp the context that Archie was never intended to be a hero, and Lear felt awful about it. From my own limited sample, the folks watching All in the Family in syndication aren’t doing so to appreciate the nuances of the bigot next door. They’re doing it because they agree with him. The art is not the problem; the audience is.
Peter Griffin sucks.
True, but I think the fundamental point wasn’t that Peter Griffin is good, but that the long life of Family Guy disproves the notion that the modern world simply won’t tolerate people making a lot of jokes about race, gender, and sexuality.
I am not arguing that with you.
I think a few things might be trimmed or revised today—like the scenes with the gay dancers, which were weak gags anyway—but Blazing Saddles has actually aged really well. If anything, it’s red state conservatives who would be outraged by the movie. I haven’t seen anything since that’s been as savage in its contempt for our romantic notions of the Old West and “country folk.”
Yup, and to “yes and” that, I think the “you couldn’t do this today” comes from more conservative sects whose perspective is less “some of this stuff is iffy” and more “they don’t let me say the n-word anymore, so they probably won’t like a movie where it’s uttered.” Less in the vein of “I find Blazing Saddles distasteful” and more in the vein of “I think people on twitter would hate to hear me quote along with Blazing Saddles.”
You know, morons.
It barely got made in its day. People who keep saying X couldn’t be made now are one, very uncreative and 2, seem to be assuming things were easier to make 50 years ago.
Something something Jojo Rabbit something Couldn’t make that today.I think a lot of folks don’t get that you’re going to need more than just an overwhelming urge to scream racial epithets into a camera for 90 minutes to make a successful movie anyway.
It’s beside the point you’re making here, but people who complain about Archie Bunker and Blazing Saddles are giving away that they laugh with the casual racists, not at them.
They’re both great satire that still holds up, though doesn’t need to be remade today, because they portray these characters as bumbling fucking idiots. Context matters.
“Blazing Saddles couldn’t get made today” is such a tired old saw that seems about as lacking in subtlety of thought as the straw-men audiences it assumes would be unable to grasp the movie’s perspective and commentary.”There’s literally a comment right above you providing evidence that audiences cannot, in fact, grasp its perspective and commentary, or at least that media companies think they can’t.
Most people would have no problem with a movie like Blazing Saddles today, but there is a small, very loud minority who take every excuse to denounce anything as racist, no matter if it is intended as parody. The school that says that intention doesn’t count, if it can be interpreted as racist by someone, it is racist.
It would be very hard to get funding for this kind of movie, because studios would be aftraid of a backlash. Especially if all you read is a synopsis and can’t be sure the humor will actually work, something that is extremely hard to tell in advance.
You’re not allowed to say that because everything must be judged through modern day cultural woke zeitgeist and absolutely never in anything resembling actual context. Please turn in your internet pass, sir.
But I NEED the internet!You know…for…work.
You can take my internet badge and internet gun, but I am still working this case dammit!!
I’m sorry, we were looking for: “Hold it, next man makes a move, the Nilus gets it!”
We don’t need any more rogue Internet cops lieutenant! You’re dismissed!
cultural woke zeitgeist? how can you type stuff like that without your body recoiling in horror and your brain trying to throttle you?
Right, ‘cause Jews are litigious. Racist!
I feel like I see this trite ”you couldn’t make Blazing Saddles nowadays… because it already has been made/ they’re all dead!!!” joke much more often than I actually see anybody earnestly make this point. This movie is sure to shut everyone up though. You absolutely can make Blazing Saddles in 2022, just as long as it’s retooled into a lowest common denominator children’s movie!
That feels like a Mel Brooks joke
Just set the remake in 1870. What the hell are you worried about? You’ll be able to sue them!
I actually watched it a few weeks ago and while the race stuff is iffy, the jokes about gay people are totally not iffy. The whole final scene where the fight breaks through the studio walls and interrupts the musical is extremely and very problematic.
Plot wise, agreed. It’s casual use of racist and gay slurs would probably be looked at with more scrutiny. I would argue that the slurs are not the most effective aspect of the movie or the best punchlines.
I mean, it’s a classic, and I’m a Chink who has indeed been docked a day’s pay for napping on the job. I like to break the racial stereotype that we’re all hardworking overachievers.
I mean, you’re not wrong, but lets not forget the pretty homophobic stuff that Blazing Saddles also included. Yeah, it’s a triumph for anti-racist filmmaking, but the gay jokes… did not age well. Or start out well either.
By today’s standards, you cannot accurately depict racism for the purpose of making fun of racism. A, the degree of nuance and irony necessary to depict the ugliness of racism is taboo, and B, if there’s any chance a single viewer un-ironically enjoys the depiction of racism, then that is the fault of satirist. Today’s standards do not care to think critically about artistic intent.
I guess you forgot where they use a gay slur not once, but twice in the movies.
“Even in a cartoon, someone like Hank being oppressed in some exotic land is exactly the kind of toxic online strawman that is morally reprehensible for a studio to turn that into a motion picture in 2022.”Wow, you people really don’t know how to write. I’m doing somersaults trying to figure out this word salad. You obviously do not know how dependent clauses are supposed to work.
And by “you people” I mean the new AV Club writers. Just to be clear.
His grammar is as bad as his take.
Interesting that a martial arts movie, set in Japan, and comments on racism… only uses one Japanese/American actor.
I knew this would be awful after it took, God I’ve forgotten how long it’s been in development, but an F? I’m genuinely impressed.
Back in my day, an F used to mean something. This is just a bad D- movie.
So a gentlemans F.
I was genuinely shocked at how bad this looked in the preview, but yeah, F is impressive. I think it’s probably the racism, in addition to it being terrible.
The whole tone of the trailer honestly looks fake, like someone took Tracy Jordan’s Who Dat Ninja? and made it reality, but beyond that it genuinely looks bad, animation wise. It looks unfinished, like the animators all resigned in protest halfway through, and some poor intern patched whatever they had together.
I feel half the fake movies and shows on 30 Rock could probably be made without any level of irony.
Someone on the Where The Crawdads Sing review commented that that film sounds exactly like one of those 30 Rock fake movies.
Im still waiting for Gold Case!
Yeah I might have to watch this now
Surprising, it’s getting good reviews. Close to 70% positive on RT at the moment.
This movie looks awful, but I’m wondering if Tsai would mind enlightening us on which parts of Blazing Saddles he thinks shouldn’t exist. Like, be specific. And when he talks about “today’s standards,” who is setting those?
There is a set of people who think that ANY use of the n-word is bad. I understand their point, but I disagree.
Go on. When do you use the n-word…?
When portraying a racist little old lady for a very funny joke at the expense of racists?
I don’t need to specifically use the n-word to disagree that it should never be used by anyone.
I would venture that the actors playing racist characters in serious, well made movies should be able to say it (during filming, while reciting the lines of the character) without being branded racists themselves.
Wasn’t it Django Unchained where one of the white actors felt really bad about saying that word until his black costar reassured him that it was necessary for the role?
In movies like Blazing Saddles.
I guess he means if it’s in a historical setting – you know, if it’s historically accurate for a character to use the n-word in that situation. I’m sympathetic to the viewpoint that the word is now so toxic that it takes away from the comedy somewhat. It’s perhaps harder to laugh at an out-and-out racist character nowadays, even when they’re the butt of the joke.
You don’t personally have to use it for it to make sense for a character to say in a fictional story. If you’re writing a racist or making a story about racism, it would track that some characters would use slurs. Depiction in fiction isn’t the same as an endorsement in reality.
The “French Mistake” scene includes pretty unironic use of a now-distasteful homophobic slur, but that’s the most I can think of, and I can pretty much guarantee that’s not what people think of when they hand-wringingly aver this movie would be rejected by “today’s sensitive audiences.”
That’s the most you can think of and not the repeated use of the n-word “s**c”, “z***er-head”, “t***l-head”, and “r**-head” played for laughs? Or the “I like rape” joke? None of that will fly today.
Ignoring the fact that beyond the n-word (which is put in the mouths of the “good townsfolk” to illustrate how the western genre props up white supremacy), none of those words you quoted show up in the movie…Are you saying this because you find the movie and jokes distasteful, or because you’ve made up someone in your head who finds the movie and jokes distasteful?
Well, Hedley Lamarr did lump in Methodists with rustlers, cut-throats, murderers, thugs, nitwits, et. al./s
As well as m*gs, p*gs, and th*gs!
In the very first scene, Lyle calls a Chinese worker a c***k. And then there’s the Kansas City f*****t scene. Are you sure you actually saw the movie? And are you saying with a straight face that outright saying those words for laughs in today’s world wouldn’t be met with a wave of condemnation? Its funny but not surprising you deflected and ignored that which is my point.
I’ve seen it a grip of times (even studied it in a semester on Westerns; it fits in very interestingly with a lot of revisionist westerns of the 60s/70s, and ages better than many). Last watched it about a year ago.Its funny but not surprising you deflected and ignored that which is my point. You literally did that in not responding to my question about how you feel about the movie and instead doubling down on your laundry list of no-no words (while eliding the fact that they’re always put in the mouths of bigoted buffoons as illustrations of the buffoonish face of bigotry, a fact that’s part of the movie’s text and not an unfortunate byproduct of its time). I’m trying to understand how I deflected and ignored your point by pointing out 80% of the language you initially cited as objectionable didn’t actually show up in the movie.And I have a feeling you deflected because you know you enjoy the movie and you’re making this argument on the auspices that someone else wouldn’t like it, not that you don’t. Which is my ultimate, final point: the whole “they couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today” argument is a non-issue that’s only raised by the contingent of people who continue to like and support the movie.
Because I asked you first, and instead of answering, you deflected and moved the goalposts with bullshit and continue to do so. So i’m gonna take that as a “yes, you agree that it wouldn’t fly in today’s world, but my internet ego as an AVClub regular won’t admit to being wrong, so i’ll obfuscate with “final point” nonsense.” You won’t even admit to such words and language being used in the original cut, which tells me you probably have never really even seen it before.
Figures as much and thanks. Go on with that last word. Make it as insulty and snarky as possible.
Golly, you’re just pulling every tactic out of the “debate me, coward” playbook.
Did you do a really poor job studying it? Because yeah, those words do appear. The gay slurs are extremely plentiful right up there with the racist ones. There are also repeated jokes about rape.Yes, how some of those words particularly the n-word is used in context is relevant, but the casual use of a lot of those slurs just for laughs would not be as readily accepted today.But as many, many people have pointed out if your use of racial slurs is the reason your movie was good, maybe it wasn’t that good. Or maybe the real answer is that Blazing Saddles today would simply use different language without it really impacting the story.
If you think they were saying c***k for laughs, the movie is WAY over your head.
Uh, yes they were saying it for laughs because that’s the point that is going way over your head as you stupidly try to force feed it into modern liberal sensibilities; that what was funny 50 years ago wouldn’t be now.
I would save my breath on this guy, as he seems to refuse to believe 1) people still watch and enjoy this movie and 2) audiences are capable of contextualizing 50 year-old humor, simultaneously understanding it may not fly in contemporary entertainment and that it’s still capable of being humorous.Plus he likes to call people stupid. Which is mean.
I mean, it’s pretty obvious that the guy using that slur is himself in the same boat – or rather, camp – as the sissy-Maries he’s berating.
Nowhere did he say that any part of Blazing Saddles shouldn’t exist, just that parts of it hit different today. If anything, he’s making the point that an R-rated movie from 48 years ago is somehow more progressive than its own 2022 remake aimed at kids.
That’s not the point he’s making, since he explicitly puts aside the question of whether it “holds up, in full or in part,” implying there’s a conversation to be had there.
Beans for dinner around the camp fire?…and the resulting gas explosion?
“Whether or not its predecessor holds up (fully or even in part) to contemporary standards of sensitivity, Blazing Saddles not only enlisted Richard Pryor as a screenwriter but at least aspired to comment on the bigotry it depicts.”This is a strange statement. Pryor wasn’t brought on as a sensitivity reader, and the thought of such is absolutely hilarious. And, “at least aspired”? Blazing Saddles remains every bit the trenchant skewering of America’s foundational mythology of white supremacy as it was on release, with few peers appearing in the intervening decades. If it wasn’t, then these filmmakers wouldn’t have copped it so readily.
Pryor didn’t even write any of the racial stuff, which was all Brooks and Wilder. His biggest contribution was Mongo.
That’s totally false. (Wtf? What a weird lie?) Pryor was going to star in it, until Warner Brothers said no because of his drug arrest. He wrote tons of stuff. He wrote most of sheriff Bart’s dialog. “Excuse me while I whip this out.” That’s pure Pryor.
It comes straight from Mel Brooks himself, in multiple interviews.
He was also there to establish guardrails for Brooks and Wilder. Part of his job was to tell them when they were going too far and needed to dial it back.
I didn’t know that. Mongo is so lame.
You didn’t know that because it’s not true.
This is completely false. Gene Wilder didn’t write any of that movie and wasn’t even supposed to be in it. He was brought in when the original Waco Kid was found to be an actual alcoholic and couldn’t do the role. Wilder did it as a favor for Mel Brooks.
Mel Brooks intended to work with Richard Pryor on this movie from the beginning. All of this is in Brooks’s memoir.
Having a seat at the table is probably more important than being there as a sensitivity reader or for writing “the racial stuff.” I mean, arguably that would be a bigger example of tokenization anyway.
Ooh, is this the first post-purge F?
I was about to say I do believe so. Can’t remember the last F, maybe a Dinesh De Souza film.
this movie looks like something that was stuck on ‘uploading 99%’ since 2011 and just finally finished.
Shitty animation quality, co-stars Ricky Gervais, trailer wrapping up with a ripped fart gag that just had to be in the trailer? Check, check, and check.
You’re not far off. The original idea dates to 2010. The movie was announced in 2014, picked up for distribution in 2015 and entered cryostasis when the company set to animate it closed shop the following year.I want to imagine that when it restarted production, the animators began with a plea for divine intervention.
That’s a pretty good one.
Well, at least they depicted one thing accurately: The Japan of that era was egregiously racist, to the point where a foreigner really would be seen as a different species, and basically a dog.Or hey, I dunno, maybe the Wonton font and the fact that cats are riding horses is an indicator that this IS NOT JAPAN, and complaints about how “”Asian”” culture (your word not mine) is depicted here are being made in bad faith.
As opposed to today’s Japan, which is just incredibly racist. Used to have a job there which required a few trips a year, and my co-workers would spend half the time complaining about Koreans. I imagined they spent the other half complaining about Americans when I left the room.
I wonder what Uncle Roger would think of this?
“Even in a cartoon, someone like Hank being oppressed in some exotic land is exactly the kind of toxic online strawman that is morally reprehensible for a studio to turn that into a motion picture in 2022.”Even if you’re right, this kind of buzzword salad prose vomited onto the page deserves an ‘F’ as well.
This seemed like a really straightforward point to me. Maybe we’ve finally reached the point where “buzzword” is being used as a meaningless buzzword?
…wut? Then you didnt actually read it closely, or you have terrible reading comprehension. Maybe try reading it again. Slowly. It’s a nonsensical sentence.
That’s because you’re not intelligent
Yeah, gotta agree with Turbo. It made sense to me. But I’m guessing that’s not really the problem you have with it hmmmmmmmmmm?
The final ‘that’ needs to be omitted for it to make any sense at all. And I’m not sure what a “toxic online strawman” is in this context—a dog being oppressed by cats in Japan?
Thank you
Michael Cera being a stand-in for oppressed people.
What does Cera have do with “toxic online strawman”?
Yes. Without the “that”, the sentence at least has meaning, though it’s still shit writing. “Word salad” is too kind; it’s “word garbage”.
Then you either didnt read it closely enough, or you have terrible reading comprehension. Maybe try trading it again. Ignore the buzzword part and focus on the word salad. It’s a nonsensical sentence with random extra words tossed in.
I’ve read it three times and I still can’t figure it out.Is he saying that it’s okay to be discriminatory to Hank?That it’s not okay to portray Hank being discriminated against?
The author is saying the latter, that it’s not okay to portray Hank being discriminated against, because it repeats the “yeah, well would [foreign people I find weird and exotic] be so tolerant and accepting of our [read: white, Western, Michael Cera-esque] culture?? I don’t think so.” argument, which is a baseless strawman.
To be honest, this is not really bandied about against Japan much these days on toxic online fora, but that really only makes the movie seem incredibly dated—as though it were conceived back when Japan was still only known by a few Orientalist clichés (samurai, sumo, scribbly-writing) and there was a panic that they were going to steal all our manufacturing and technology jobs and topple Western hegemony.
Morally reprehensible?? To have racist bad guys, (who learn inclusion?)I don’t follow, Martin?
I stopped reading at “otiose.”
“someone like Hank” A dog? It’s a “toxic online strawman” for cats to be biased against dogs? I read the article twice and I didn’t see any other traits Hank the dog might have that made the author think Hank being oppressed by cats not okay to depict in 2022. I’m genuinely confused.
Far and away the worst trailer I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to the movies a lot in the past couple of months, and this trailer kept popping up. Each time I was blown away by how unappealing the movie looked.
This movie sucked less when it was about panda bears.
I’m surprised that the village being named “Kakamucho” (or “caca mucho”?) went without comment.
it’s mentioned Screenwriters Ed Stone and Nate Hopper name the fictional town Kakamucho not because it means anything in Japanese, but because you get something if you replace the Ks with Cs.
I saw it right away and made a deflated “ohhhh…I get it”. It’s so zero effort I’m actually jealous of the author of this article for not picking up on it.
I’m not surprised that a film that spent as much time in development hell as this did would turn out to be an absolute flaming turd.
Oh no. Oh no. This finally made it to release.
Blazing Saddles…at least aspired to comment on the bigotry it depicts.“Aspired?” That’s the whole movie. That theme is pretty much in every single scene.
“Aspire” relates more to intent than success, consistency, or concentration of effort; I know we tend to use the word in the context of either trying something you’ve not yet achieved or having failed to complete said aspiration, but the word still fits and applies. Blazing Saddles aspired to comment on the bigotry is depicts, and it succeeded in spades…oops.
Mel: “This here puppy is going to put us back on the map. Blazing Saddles…y,know! For kids!”
I freely admit that I’m not of Asian descent and as such can’t say how this “should” be written. But surely the issues with the cultural signifiers here should just be one part of a larger review and not…the entire review?
On this site, an analysis of the political content of a movie, with nothing else, counts as a review.
It also takes a bit away from his righteous indignation that he is also mad that cats ride horses for some reason.
The first paragraphs lay out that this is a script that leans heavily on being context-swapped Blazing Saddles. If there is anything worth saying next, it’s how the movie handles the cultural critique that is hard-wired into its predecessor.
If the movie were better, I’m sure there’d be a more substantial review of other aspects, but paragraph 6 lays out that there’s just not anything interesting to say about this movie than how badly it handles a foreign culture.
Got my ticket for tomorrow. Can’t wait to savage this on Letterboxd!
You’re the saddest person on your block.
Knew this would suck just from the posters. The voice acting isn’t nothing to rave about plus the cats look extremely ugly.
Politics aside, casting Ricky Gervais in your animated feature is absurd. It’s almost as bad as The Simpsons hiring Lawrence Tierney, except it won’t accidentally be hilarious. It will be predictably annoying and unfunny.
I long ago realised the reason why Ricky was so great at being David Brent was, well, because he wasn’t acting. That’s pretty much who he is.
Reviews are mostly positive…so maybe don’t take one writer’s opinion as gospel.
Don’t want to see it even if it got great reviews. A animated movie where the cats are ugly is a big no for me.
Interesting hill to die on, but you be you.
I would really like to know who saw Blazing Saddles and was like “we should Kung Fu Panda this movie.”
I don’t think this reviewer is joking. This is the most unintentionally hilarious thing I’ve ever read. Martin doesn’t even understand my Blazing Saddles was progressive.
Nothing is more asinine than a bunch of adults ragging on a movie they haven’t seen that was made for little kids.
Well, you’ve all sure sucked the fun out of ‘Blazing Saddles.’What do I owe you?
My big takeaway from this review is that Martin Tsai thinks he’s smarter than George Takei. And more progressive.Martin: you’re not.
“but it seems to appear largely because the filmmakers conflate the
Japanese with Asians of other ethnicities who stereotypically run these
businesses”
And that’s where you convincingly showed that this was not a movie review, but some weird Racial Report on this shitty looking movie.
Because, see, *you’re upset that they’re doing their racism wrong.*
Fun parody of “wokeness run amok,” I guess.
Please please please don’t let this be the last film credit for Mel Brooks. He deserves so much better.
He still has History of the World Part 2 coming.
He’s 96! He might not make it!
he should’ve stopped in the 70s and focused on producing art films and doing fucking amazing interviews
I have the depressed feeling that children are going to be stuck seeing the same animation style in every single freakin’ movie made. Are the designers of the “Spider Verse” movies the only ones who figured out how to make CG look unique!?! I thought animated movies were supposed to let you escape real life in the most fantastic and imaginative ways that only animation can do. But, you know… whatever.
This seriously looks like a stupid movie but I also think the author of this article is getting his knickers all in a wad. Lighten up, guy.
“But creatives from the eight (count ’em) different production companies involved”Are you really mocking the fact that it’s incredibly difficult to get a movie made.Sick burn.
I had (and still.have) no interest in this film, but it is somewhat interesting that the script was inspired by Blazing Saddles. I had assumed it was basically a re-skinned Kung Fu Panda with different animals and a “samurai” theme in place of kung fu. Still not interested in actually seeing the film though.
The fabulous comic “Usagi Yojimbo” similarly has anthropomorphic animals in feudal Japan riding horses for transport. It’s possible that creator Stan Sakai didn’t consider this inconsistency either, but the dimension-hopping Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at least pointed it out in a cross-over. 🙂
Uh, yea Martin, uh, putting you in charge of this movie would drain all the laughs away. A culture that can’t laugh at itself is a dead culture. Stop being so sensitive When China takes over the world then you can lord it over everyone.
I saw this trailer for the first time before Thor: Love and Thunder this past Saturday, and there were multiple, confused, audible “what the fuck”s from various points in the theatre. I’m amazed that Paramount wants their name attached to this.
So if I subjected my kids to this I’d be a bad parent…?
thanks to the author, a lot of people (me included) now know this movie exists, and will enjoy it!
I’m genuinely (and rather ghoulishly) fascinated by the fact that this film exists. It feels, as others have pointed out, like a parody project within a larger Hollywood satire, and thus is yet another example of reality being far dumber and more on-the-nose than any of us want to admit
Remembering when I criticized this movie for being another animal learns martial arts film and people jumped on me in the comments, defending it. Where are y’all now?
With regards to older movies / TV having “problematic” content…. Given how lazy and unimaginative Hollywood is these days, and how they are always “reviving” or “remaking” other movies – what if they took one of those things with “problematic” content and remade it – *editing out the problematic content*?
Like they did with… Paws Of Fury.
what a truly boring thought experiment
This sounds great. I can’t wait to see it.
They made a kids’ movie teaching about racism and this reviewer is offended because he claims it’s about reverse-racism.wow. just… wow.
How is this flick not a horrible Kung Fu Panda ripoff?
You can tell this movie is bad from 10 miles away because the trailer alone makes one thing stupidly clear:
Someone sitting in a room thought that if Kung Fu Panda could be a hit, why couldn’t we make a Samurai Dog?
I miss Ignatiy
In just the snippets of marketing I’d seen online, I thought this was maybe based off Hong Kong Phooey, which in reading this review, might have been the better choice for inspiration.
Wow.Just…wow.I don’t know which I’m more blown away by: a) the phoned-in voice acting (by EVERYONE), b) the horribly unfunny…EVERYTHING, c) the surprising appearance of George Takei in the roster.(Qualification: I’ve loved most everything all these folks have done before, elsewhere. Damn. /smh)
I’ll be glad when I no longer have to sit through the trailer for this before every movie I see in theaters.
As we all know, it’s the responsibility of every creative type to make sure everything is accurate when it comes to race, or gender, or physical or mental ability, which is what makes this article so correct and just. In absolutely NO WAY is anyone allowed to tell a story just for the fuck of it without consulting with dozens of groups to make sure it’s sensitive, it’s woke, and it’s saying something.It’s the responsibility of creators to advance and gguide humanity. We are charged to be the parents that tell the children, ie all non-creatives, how to think and act and speak. Duty before imagination!
Wow, I had no interest in this project, but if it can reduce a reviewer into an incoherent, pissy rant like the one I just read, I might have to give it some credit!
Are there White People in WAKANDA?
I didn’t think it was that bad. It’s much better than a bunch of kiddy cartoons and not some cynical IP move by the all encompassing Mouse. And yet… a kiddy cartoon based in Blazing Saddles is such a weird proposition that it’s hard to square unless they’re dreaming up some Mel Brooks multi verse and I am here for it
Even in a cartoon, someone like Hank being oppressed in some exotic land is exactly the kind of toxic online strawman that is morally reprehensible for a studio to turn that into a motion picture in 2022.I learned to read for this???
Hmmm
An entire review written in woke scold language. Interesting.
anyone who uses the phrases “problematic” or “cultural appropriation” un-ironically deserves to be ignored into oblivion.
So check – making racial based commentary isn’t ok if its satire.Blazing Saddles is offensive to the reviewer. CheckI also feel reviewer is offended because Hank is played by a white actor. (Cena)Reviewer makes hyperboles – Says only 5 (5 fingers on one hand) Asians in all of cast and crew. There are 5 Asians (if we include South Asians) with speaking roles. 7 if you go ‘additional voices’, two Asian executive producers, four Asian art directors, numerous production staffers, at least a handful of editors etc.Basically if you liked Blazing Saddles and you’ve got kids this things a romp. They reversed some personalities on roles, with Cena being more like Wilder and Sam Jackson more like Little, but with their authority positions reversed. They do send ups of some of the same gags, but they pull out the Khan role as there’s no way of making that kiddie friendly replacing it with a low moment for Cena’s character. The sight gags involving sculpture and toilets are pretty amusing.And as one member of the cast is probably one of the most active Asian American activists EVER, having helped bring about reparations for the Japanese Internment, the I wish he was Immortal George Takei, I’m willing to take his word for it that this is tongue and cheek and meant to make positive impacts with it’s story.I had the honor of talking with Mr Takei on several occasions discussing among other things, the Chinese Exclusion Act, his internment and how he chooses roles, including the one he regrets doing with Jerry Lewis and how he will never take on something he feels is degrading to Asians.This film sends the message that we should treat people based on the insides. It also has a redemption arc, and tells us about recovering from mistakes. It also shows how bad it is when we don’t show up. That’s the worst thing we can do to folks who we care about.