What's Up, Tiger Lily? (DVD, 2003)

Yes, Phil Moscowitz...wisecracking Japanese secret agent & self-proclaimed "lovable rogue" who, aided by sexy sisters Suki & Teri Yaki, trades punches & bullets with evil mastermind Shepard Wong, smoothly smiling gangster Wing Fat & various other Saracen pigs, Spartan dogs & Spanish flies for possession of the top secret recipe for the world's greatest egg salad in the wonderfully wild & wacky world of "What's Up, Tiger Lily?"
In the 1980 Woody Allen movie "Stardust Memories" aliens tell the filmmaker that they love his movies, "especially his early funny ones".
Well, this is the proof of the pudding, because this flick by Allen in his directorial debut is no-intellectual-pretensions-ju​st-straight-out-hilarious fun, right up there with "Bananas" & "Take The Money & Run".
Taking a well-made semi-serious sixties spy movie from Japan with an attractive & talented young cast & then redubbing it with his own cast of lunatics that included then-wife Louise Lasser & Frank "Batfink" Buxton as the voice of Phil, Allen created a crazy classic well worthy of being a part of anyone's comedy collection.
The DVD itself is excellent, a quality widescreen print complete with both the TV & theatrical versions with great sound for you fans of sixties rock group the Lovin' Spoonful who did the score.
While it would have been cool for them to have included a subtitled version of the original "Kagi no Kagi" (Key of Keys) just for comparison purposes, at least they were nice enough to include an easy-to-find 'easter egg' of the egg salad recipe that everyone is killing each other over...only problem I have with the disc, in fact, is that the print on said recipe is too darn small to read on my decades old Sears television!
Now excuse me while I turn into a Pan-Am jet & take off down the runway...`

Don't bother playing the alternative track, because it's only really funny in a few places, and leaves some jokes out that are a bit racy, but makes some scenes lack any sense, namely the safecracking scene. The features offers a scene by scene comparison for both tracks, to see which you like better. Press the right arrow button on your remote to highlight Woody's glasses, and press enter to see 10 great egg salad recipes.
The special features aside, this film is well-restored, and it's a shame they stopped publishing it. Compared to recent efforts in the same concept, like Kung Pow - Enter the Fist, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Rifftrax, this movie is still one of the best. It takes two serial spy films, and edits them together into a crazy story with an ever-horny protagonist, spliced with original music by the Lovin' Spoonful.
As a kid, this movie was on cable every week, and after I got what it was about, I started to like it, and would watch it whenever it was on. It was one of the only movies we could all watch, when I was a teenager, as such, it has a special place in my heart. Having re-watched it, years later, it's surprising to understand just how much my sense of humor was shaped by this movie. Even a decade or more later, I can still analyze some of my jokes as being inspired in form by the jokes in this movie.
All that aside, this movie is worth watching, because it is very polished, but also very raw. There are incredibly inventive gags in here, that have only been seen in other respected comedies, like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I hope that if you have the chance to appreciate this film as I do, you get a copy, soon.

I'm going through a Woody Allen phase right now and wanted to see this film again after not having seen it for some twenty years. It is actually better than I remembered it, frequently quite funny. Woody Allen and company have dubbed zany English dialogue onto the soundtrack of a Japanese action film and have turned the espionage quest by the hero into a search for the ultimate egg salad recipe. Yes, it is somewhat silly, but also charming in a naive, 60s-ish way. Besides, the film itself isn't bad and the women appearing in it stunning to behold.

The DVD contains two versions of the film: the one originally shown in the cinemas, and the version shown on TV. It's interesting to compare the bits that differ in the versions (and the menus make this fairly easy to do). In several cases, the TV version is funnier than the original.

If you like the 60s or light comedy or Woody Allen (who introduces the film and supplies several of the voices in it), it's worth a look.

Freakin he-larious!!! I love these over-dubed movies. Or whatever they are called... I wish there were more like it!

This 60's campy comedy is right out of the era of "Whats New Pussycat" and "Casino Royale". Not the 2006 version of Casino Royale but the 1967 comedy version. All of the dialog is cleaverly written by Woody Allen who is still one of the best comedy writters and directors around. I laughed outloud more than once. If you are into the cult films from the 60's, you would not want to miss this classic. What;s Up Tiger Lily? is fun and silly all in one 80 minute romp.