International Walnut: For Your Height Only

Movie Reviews That'll Put Yer Eye Out, Kid!

For Your Height Only

Published Tuesday, May 09, 2006 by Brian | E-mail this post

For Your Height Only (1979), Challenge of the Tiger (1980)

The third volume in Mondo Macabro's "Dick Randall Collection" trumpets the arrival of Weng Weng as Agent 00 in the whacky spy spectacular "For Your Height Only." As a second feature, the DVD also includes the Bruce Le vehicle "Challenge of the Tiger." Although the DVD is humorously touted as being a "Low Kicking, High Kicking Double Feature," the emphasis seems slightly more focused on For Your Height Only (as is this review), and rightfully so, as this movie proves to be a truly zany, ridiculously funny piece of filmic absurdity.

For Your Height Only opens with a group of thugs kidnapping a doctor whose plane has just recently touched down in the Philippines. The panic-stricken doctor pleads for his release, reminding his vicious captors that he is merely a guest in their country - but alas, the doctor protests too much. See, these men are not simply rowdy street rascals! Rather, they are members of a crime syndicate led by the mysterious Mr. Giant who is bent on doing stuff that is really bad and oft times equally mean.

Thus enters Weng Weng as the dapper white suit-wearing, "small" talk-hating, three-foot-tall ball-smashing secret agent known as 00. When he's not proving to the ladies that "size doesn't matter," or shaking his moneymaker at the local dicotheque, Agent 00 attempts to bring the syndicate to its knees (usually with a swift kick to the testicles) so that he can then rain a barrage of tiny bitch slaps upon any fool who crosses him in his search for the aptly named, Hidden Island. Perhaps outnumbered, but never outsmarted or outclassed, Agent 00 breaks bones without breaking a sweat, leading him closer to his inevitable showdown with Mr. Giant, and leaving his bruised and battered foes to wonder whether they'll ever manage to get their hands on that slippery little Weng.

Anyone attempting to watch a movie about a midget spy titled For Your Height Only and expecting "great cinema" will surely be disappointed. However, if this is the case, you're obviously not the smartest dress in the shop window and certainly all too familiar with the sharp sting of disappointment. For the rest of you, this is some really sublime stuff. The numerous fight sequences are silly, but fun (there's enough crotch violence to give even Bob Saget pause) and are usually highlighted by Agent 00's many gadgets (boomerang hat, x-ray glasses, mini jet-pack...) and his very unorthodox fighting "technique." Suffice it to say, if you think the only thing worthwhile to ever come out of Manila was envelopes, then you're in for a small surprise named Weng Weng and a really fun time with For Your Height Only.

As mentioned, the disc also includes the Bruce Le (one of the many Bruce Lee knockoffs) in Challenge of the Tiger. The film teams Le up with costar Richard Harrison as an unlikely couple of globetrotting agents attempting to retrieve a stolen formula designed to kill human sperm, and save the world from a madman who's attempting to "blackmail the human race!"

Despite the whacky premise, Challenge of the Tiger is a far less entertaining than For Your Height Only and I had a hard time staying interested. The fight sequences are fairly pedestrian (apart from an early scene in which Bruce Le faces off with an angry bull) and for the most part, are photographed and edited in a really lackluster fashion. While this film probably doesn't deserve its own DVD release, it's nice that it is included as a second feature (with no major price increase) and I'm sure there are those who do, and will, enjoy the film.

Mondo Macabro does another great job bringing these two curios to DVD. Both films have been digitally restored and remastered in widescreen, and feature stills galleries and bios, in addition to the ever expanding Mondo Macabro trailer highlighting their past and present releases. So if you haven't already, be sure to check this disc out for big laughs from cinema's original little bad-ass, Weng Weng.

Originally published at: Horrorview.com

Recommended links:

For Your Height Only
The Deathless Devil/ Tarkan Vs. the Vikings
Lady Terminator
Virgins From Hell

Labels: dvd, for your height only, mondo macabro, review