The Foot Fist Way (2006)

Danny McBride, Ben Best and Jody Hill wrote a "cult-ish" low-budget film called 'The Foot Fist Way'; about an obnoxious (but funny) Tae Kwon Do instructor named Fred Simmons, who has a marital crisis that affects his training of students. Endorsed by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay as one of the funniest recent comedies to come out, and they give this independent flick an audience, and I curiously checked it out as it was just released on DVD in Australia.Yes, it's funny! Not brilliant by any means! Danny McBride's acting style has continued to be apparent in other projects, and he has since been featured in films like 'Fanboys', 'Pineapple Express', 'Land of the Lost', 'Tropic Thunder' and he even had a serious bit in 'Up in the Air'. It all started in 'The Foot Fist Way' for him, and he was easily the king of this movie. Jody Hill, who went on to direct 'Observe and Report', also plays a somewhat interesting but limited character in Mike McAlister. Ben Best plays Chuck "the Truck" Wallace, and has quite a few funny scenes too. Some of the kids were great as well, and there is some impressively edited and directed action sequences and martial arts to boot. The fight scene between McBride and Best was hilarious and impressive at the same time- I would have never have thought McBride had some mad skills.If you are into low-budget comedies, or interested to see how Danny McBride got his career going, then this film is definitely worth checking out. Not brilliant but quite good! *** out of *****!

As a TaeKwonDo black belt I was hoping for a funnier flick... but this was just so over the top. Had the language not have been so bad it would have been tolerable. I don't know why they thought it was necessary to have so much foul language in the film when a curse word or two would have been enough to convey the scene. The plot was OK but it could have been so much better. I thought it could have been funny but it just wasn't. I was actually impressed though that the techniques and TKD were actually very good for a movie about TKD. Given the detail given to accuracy of forms and verbiage I hated to see punches to the head in the film.By the way: "Tae" means "foot" or "to strike with the feet". "Kwon" means "hand", or "to strike with the hand". "Do" means discipline, art, or way. Hence TaeKwonDo (foot-hand-way) means literally "the art of the feet and the hands" or "the art of kicking and punching". Different schools and/or styles may impose different variations on the formal definition however.

at least thats my view. i do not consider this movie a comedy at all. sure it has some funny scenes. but most of it makes you despise the main character even more. and still at the end you see the core of him being real. it's great how the director manages to make this turn plausible. i wasn't aware of the low budget nature of the movie till i read the reviews here. it really doesn't hurt it. and the acting is absolutely adequate. in conclusion: it's a great film about real live (similar to andreas dresen's movies about German life). it sure hurts but still can't be denied. maybe you just have to like this kind of movie. i sure did.

I came to this movie with talk of it being hilarious, brilliant and having apparently been the toast of Sundance. I didn't totally believe all the hype, mainly because that's always what the majority of such talk is, but I did have hopes that the film would be good at what it tries to do. Taking its lead from the painfully flawed David Brent in The Office, The Foot Fist Way focuses on taekwondo teacher Fred Simmons as he leads his class to be (perhaps) as good as him, fails to control his cheating wife and idolises taekwondo champion and film star Chuck "the truck" Wallace. In terms of narrative flow there isn't really much that justifies discussion because, rightly, the story is only a frame within which to put the character study of an arrogant man who has zero self-awareness. In this there is a lot of potential and accordingly the best parts of the film are not specific events or plot points but just little moments that remind the viewer what a self-important and embarrassingly pompous man we are watching.It is not something you'll never have seen before of course and the many other variations will show you how painfully funny (and painfully painful) that this sort of thing can be, whether it is Spinal Tap or David Brent. Problem is with the Foot Fist Way is that it feels like a really good idea that has not been fully carried out. So there are moments which are both painful and funny but then there are also lots of scenes that are just surprisingly straightforward, failing to either be funny or to be insightful in regards the character of Fred. It is a shame but it does mean that the film is distinctly average. Even at a short running time of 83 minutes, the film still struggles and surprised me by feeling much longer – it should have sprinted and been over before you knew what was happening.No fault to McBride though, he feels natural and is convincing in his character. As one of those involved in the writing he does share some responsibility though because the script just doesn't give him enough to work with often enough. He is the whole film though and when he has the material then it is at its best. Bostic is a good "white-trash" cliché but is surprisingly wooden for the majority. Best's turn is funny and produces some narrative drive but also has the detrimental effect of jostling for time with the comedy character study which I thought the film should have stuck with. The style of delivery could have been different and, although some say it is overused, I think the "making a documentary" approach would have worked in the favour of the material as we have seen countless other times.I wanted to really like this film because you can see the potential but sadly it is never fully realised. This doesn't make for a terrible film though and it does still have its moments where things work but mostly I felt like it was a big case of "close but no cigar" in regards the script and the delivery. It is OK and perhaps worth a look on television but there are much better versions of the same idea out there, many of which leave this film looking distinctively average.