Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis.
WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.
In 1957, a legend was born; a pint-sized legend that rocked a white suit, triumphed against adversity, and wooed the ladies. His hair was as black as squid ink, his smile glinted like the afternoon sun, and his nipples were the size of silver-dollar pancakes.
He came, he saw, he littled. And in 1992, he died of bad crab.
But in between those two history-changing years, he became an action-star sensation in his native homeland of the Philippines, and his presence in the film community carved a never-fading presence and laid root to his still-celebrated career.
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Weng Weng: He's armed, dangerous, and fits into most overhead storage compartments. |
1981’s For Your Height Only would be one of two (possibly more) films in which Weng Weng would play a fun-size James Bond-ish super spy known as Agent 00. This role would continue in 1982’s The Impossible Kid (as well as in 1981’s Agent 00, which may or may not exist).
For Your Height Only begins with a montage of the main Weng in action, grasping weapons, jumping off rooftops, and being an all-around tiny bad ass. Once the montage ends, the plot picks up with the kidnapping of the brilliant Dr. Kohler by a Filipino mob for nefarious purposes, namely his formula for the A-bomb. Details of the kidnapping are relayed to Mr. Giant, the shadowy leader of the crime syndicate, by his number 2, Mr. Keiser. They speak through a special blinky mirror/intercom thing, leaving Mr. Giant faceless and mysterious (and with perfect voice dubbing).
Meanwhile, Weng Weng lounges by the pool, wearing a yellow terry-cloth robe and far-too-large sunglasses. His secret spy watch strapped to his tiny doll wrist begins blinking, so he leaves his bikinied company behind him.
On his way through the parking lot to wherever he is heading, he spies the attempted assassination of Irma, a local beauty who states that her refusal to join Mr. Giant’s crime syndicate for purposes of prostituting herself and peddling drugs has led to multiple attempts on her life.
After sending the assassin scurrying, Weng Weng and Irma begin an everlasting partnership for the next 82 minutes.
Weng Weng pumps his mini legs over to the syndicate’s crime compound and begins his assault of little kicks into the knees and genitals of many henchmen. Irma, however, prefers to go for the Adam’s apple, which she does frequently with many men.
Apart, Weng Weng and Irma are soldiers on a quest for justice, but together, they are a force to be reckoned with.
They corner one of the henchmen and demand to know where to find Columbus, one of the bosses of the syndicate.
"Talk, or you’ll eat lead!" orders Weng Weng, his dubbed voice akin to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s take on Truman Capote.
Having been told of Columbus' whereabouts (at a nearby hotel), Irma enters and pretends to offer herself to him. During this womanly deception, Junior Mint-sized Weng Weng crawls in through her legs and slides across the floor, out of view of the boss. Columbus, a bald, Morgan Freeman-looking fellow, gets up from the bed, his gun drawn, ready to shoot Irma. Weng Weng suddenly kicks himself across the floor in a glorious slide and takes a single shot, killing Columbus and knocking his own head on the wall behind him.
"Ow, my tiny head!" cries Weng Weng, grasping his softball-sized skull.
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| Too little for a regular bed and too big for a doll bed, Weng Weng was forced to sleep on the floor. |
Later, Weng Weng goes to see a peer at his spy agency, who shows him a series of “new gadgets” to add to Weng Weng's arsenal: a gold ring that detects ALL poisons, a necklace tracking device, a very tiny machine gun, an Uncle Sam hat that ejects a dangerous blade, an ordinary-looking pen that fires bullets, a belt-buckle filled with various tools, and lastly, X-Ray sunglasses.
"I like the way you pay attention," he oddly states to Weng Weng, as he continues to tediously explain each weapon and what it does, trying best to remember all of his lines for this long, uninterrupted scene.
On his way out, Weng Weng tries out the X-Ray specs on the two cute receptionists, getting a good giggly look at their privates. Weng Weng is both a super spy and pervert. Do not bring him home to mother, unless you need the chimney cleaned.
While Irma successfully infiltrates the crime syndicate as a new member (and I have no idea how this was possible being that both Weng Weng and Irma had previously stormed their compound and killed one of the bosses), Weng Weng meets with a random woman on whom we have no information at all.
"I like ‘em little," states the woman as Weng Weng smiles. As his head is turned, the woman dumps poison into his Coke (Weng Weng’s drink of choice), and leaves him. Luckily, Weng Weng’s spanking new ring detects the poison immediately. Not caring that he was almost killed, Weng Weng drinks his remaining Coke from the bottle, and does not apprehend the woman that tried to poison him.
Say, what was that all about?
No time to explain; it's time for Weng Weng’s shirtless scene!
Ladies, clench those legs!
Irma spots the syndicate’s plot to smuggle bags of cocaine out of the country hidden in loafs of bread.
"There’s lots of dough in this dough! The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker!" Mr. Keiser emphatically exclaims, sounding like a hard-boiled private eye from the American 1930s.
Meanwhile, Weng Weng follows Irma’s tracking device necklace to their location and hides under the table. As the men continue their drug-smuggling operation just mere inches away, he hammers on their feet, and the men make extremely over-the-top gorilla “ouch” faces. Weng Weng then springs into action and very lightly hits each of them on the head with a bread pan, knocking them out.
Later, yet another boss, Cabbie (whom I have taken the liberty of naming myself, because I’m pretty certain the movie did not), demands to know how that "little midget" grew wise to their scheme. Someone suggests that a spy might be in their gang, but that idea is quickly and thankfully discounted for absolutely no reason.
The next afternoon, Weng Weng and Irma walk through the park hand-in-hand as she relays new information to him.
"I worry for you," says Irma in a motherly tone. "Maybe we should work together to infiltrate Mr. Giant's hideout." And then she wonderfully adds: "But you’re such a little guy, though; very petite, like a potato."
"Let’s go," Weng says, cutting her off immediately, the movie’s awful editing making it seem like he does not care for the analogy.
That night, the syndicate sweats a local businessman out of his collection of gold at one of their hideouts. The businessman, dubbed by a smarmy Frenchman, sits nervously on a crate.
Weng Weng, again following the lead from Irma, tosses a gas bomb and takes care of all the henchmen, freeing the businessman easily.
Another plot foiled by the half-pint super spy!
Spotted by members of the crime syndicate, a chase gives way in the street as Weng Weng flees in itty bitty terror. Weng Weng tosses his special hat, which hovers around the henchmen and scares them all off. The hat returns to its owner and drops on the smiling head of Weng Weng.
In yet another scene where one would assume that Irma’s cover was blown, her and Weng Weng flee from several of the henchmen following her.
"I’ll meet you later at the discothèque!" Weng shouts as the two separate. He then serves up a kid’s meal of whoop-ass, elbowing and kicking and stamping genitals like he was born to do.
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| Weng Weng's favorite defensive move: The Kickstand. |
Weng Weng goes back to his apartment, but runs afoul of an assassin waiting in the lobby, a gun hidden in his umbrella. The assassin is easily defeated by Weng Weng, but his team of henchmen pursue him. As some of the assassin’s henchmen run up a stairwell, Weng Weng suddenly launches at them from off-screen and impossibly high, obviously being thrown by some off-camera grips. His football-sized body somehow hurtles the men to the floor, and he punches them into darkness with his fists of fury.
Weng Weng then bursts into a random room in which a hot little thing lies relaxing on the bed. Before planning a masterful escape from her balcony, he runs over to the bed and lays on this complete stranger a very intoxicating kiss. It’s so hot that they both keep their eyes open the whole time and stare at each other, as the girl’s hand delicately caresses Weng Weng’s teensy head. He then jumps off the balcony of the apartment, and using the assassin’s umbrella, softly floats to the rooftop of a jeep below.
On the way down, and shot from afar, we are treated to the sight of a very fake Weng Weng dummy attached to an umbrella as it floats to the ground, the "body" swinging haphazardly this way and that.
As promised, Weng Weng and Irma rendezvous at the discothèque, and upon exiting, attract the attention of some of the henchmen.
"Where’s that little midget?" asks one of the men.
"Probably hiding in her handbag," answers one of the men.
You laugh (or not), but it’s entirely plausible.
After getting dropped off by a taxi, Irma is kidnapped by the henchmen, apparently FINALLY seeing that it was her leaking the information about their shady dealings, and she alerts Weng Weng via the tracking device in her necklace. The boss, spotting the blinking red light in her necklace (good one, super secret intelligence agency), rips it from her neck and orders she be taken to Mr. Giant.
The boss uses the tracking device in a trap for Weng Weng and corners him in a warehouse.
"Where’s Irma?! TALK!" Weng Weng shouts, although it sounds an awful lot like:
"Where’s Irma?! FUCK!"
Weng Weng is tied up and one of the henchmen amusingly places Weng Weng very carefully in a tiny box as if he were the newborn Jesus.
Mr. Keiser communicates via blinky mirror with Mr. Giant, who sounds like he was dubbed by a middle-aged British man, and Mr. Giant says he would be pleased to have an interrogation session with Agent 00.
Not one to give up, Weng Weng uses a handy tool from his belt buckle that burns an escape hatch in the side of the box, and he easily dispatches the henchmen guarding (read: sitting on) his box.
One by one, henchmen are punched, kicked, and/or have poison darts blown into their throats, as Weng Weng gets closer to JUSTICE.
"He’s as slippery as an eel! How do you hold onto an eel?" Cabbie demands to know. "I declare war on that little stinker!"
Weng continues to cut a swath of justice on his mission to free Irma, masterfully shooting each henchman with a single bullet. He finally crosses paths with Cabbie, three times sliding across the floor and firing his gun. Out of bullets, it looks like Weng Weng may be visiting that tiny men's suit store in the sky, but as Cabbie continues to balk, Weng slides his not-so-ordinary pen into his hand from his sleeve and quickly shoots Cabbie.
The next day, Weng Weng infiltrates yet another crime compound and continues his no-holds-barred assault on the axis of evil. Weng Weng literally grabs a henchman’s gun and beats him to death with it, before firing the gun itself at a nearby guard tower’s henchman and being blown back by the gun’s trajectory.
Get it?
Cuz he’s got the stature of a baby.
Weng Weng’s tiny machine gun serves up a cold dish of MURDER to each henchman unfortunate enough to cross his path. The magic gun fires automatic rounds as well as tiny bombs, and makes short work of the way-too-many henchmen. One of those men stalks slowly down a walkway, waiting for Weng Weng to show his face...who then surprisingly does, bursting out of some bushes!
With a BOOO-I-I-N-G noise to punctuate his appearance, "kind-of-a-boner" Weng Weng shouts "here I am!" and shoots the man.
CUT TO THE DISCOTHEQUE!
Weng Weng rendezvous with another agent named Anna, also dubbed with a British voice, and collects information on Mr. Giant. During their meeting, Anna’s very rude male companion drunkenly orders her back to their table. Weng Weng then slaps this rude man into unconsciousness for close to a half hour.
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| "Well, hello there, little one. From what summer camp do you hail?" |
Later, at Anna’s apartment, she thanks Weng Weng’s chivalry with a bit of nookie. In a scene that must have been over-dubbed while the sound technician's supervisor was on vacation, the following exchange takes place:
Anna: You’re a great person, you know.
Weng Weng: [very rushed] You know what they say, it ain’t the size, it’s the way you use it.
Anna: Maybe, but are you a sexual animal?
Weng Weng: I dunno.
Anna: I’m crazy about you, Agent 00. Why? I dunno. Maybe it’s the way you strut your stuff. Sex is like tequila. Take one sip, and you’re a goner.
Weng Weng: Shall we get it on?
Anna: Yes, darling. Bare your bod.
Seriously, there’s no way that was ever in the original script, despite how goofy the movie has been up to this point. That’s just too weird.
Sound technician whose supervisor was on vacation: I applaud you.
After the coitus, Weng Weng slides on his snappy Uncle Sam, blade-emitting hat, breaks into yet another secret location, and finds a map detailing the location of Mr. Giant, Irma, and… Dr. Kohler!
You COMPLETELY forgot about him, didn’t you?
So did I!
Weng Weng infiltrates Mr. Giant’s secret hideout on an island with the aid of Weng’s newest gadget: a jetpack! As Weng Weng wobbles back and forth on his way over the crevice and onto the island, one wonders how these genius filmmakers were able to make the strings attached to the jetpack only kind of visible, instead of obnoxiously visible.
Weng Weng FINALLY meets the infamous Mr. Giant, another midget who is still taller than Weng himself. The two midgets throw wee punches and little kicks, before the fight ends with little-person grappling and a puny gun firing mini bullets into Mr. Giant’s not-so-giant torso.
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| MINI DANCE PARTY!! |
Meanwhile, Weng Weng’s unit storms the location and kills hundreds of henchmen all dressed in red-crested sweaters and matching berets.
Weng Weng frees Irma and Dr. Kohler as the henchmen continue to easily catch bullets in their bellies.
Know who else catches a bullet in the belly?
Irma.
"Irma!" Weng Weng shrieks, struggling to lift her heavy body to him. She dies, her last words being, “Mission accomplished!”
The movie ends with Weng Weng saluting a grave that’s assumed to be Irma’s, but whose name is blocked by flowers because they were most likely filming guerrilla style in a local cemetery.
Weng Weng may have loved and lost, but his fight isn’t over. He has many more enemies to overcome, ladies to bed, and tiny to be, and his presence in film history has only just begun.
