For Your Height Only

For Your Height Only is one of my favorite bad movies. It would be easy to call it exploitative trash, but the movie is so much more than that. Chronicling the exploits of Weng Weng as Agent 00—a diminuitive Filipino knock-off of James Bond—For Your Height Only is pure crazy fun.

Horrible dubbing, acting, editing, choreography, special effects; none of it can stop the movie magic that was made here. It only adds to the experience. Sure, Weng Weng is small, a little greasy, and sort of homely.  But this guy kicks ass! For real. And perhaps the movie wasn't intended to be funny, but that's part of what makes For Your Height Only great.

Weng Weng is Agent 00, working for the ultra-generic Secret Agency; an agency so bankrupt that they can't even afford to equip him with decent gadgets. Perhaps it's too secret to get a budget. The scene where he receives his amazingly shoddy gear is one of the many highlights of the film; his equipment includes a weapon pen that can't be used to write, but as his Q tell him "you can't have everything". The rest of his gear is equally amusing.

Agent 00 is up against the scraggly gangs of Mr. Giant. The gangs communicate with Mr. Giant by speaking to him through some sort of lighted disco mirror that looks like it came from a tag sale. Everything in the movie is equally low-rent; watch as the gangs try to look intimidating in their beat-up VW Bugs.

Romantic dialog from the movie includes such gems as "You're petite, like a potato." The ladies cannot resist Weng Weng's charms. His excellent 70's attire probably helps; he's got some snazzy suits. There's some serious competition going on throughout the movie for most horrible outfit ever among the rest of the cast.

There's no lack of action in For Your Height Only.  Weng Weng is a master of the martial arts, and unleashes his tiny fists of fury along with scores of kicks to the groin. There are even some flying jump kicks to the tailbone. You want swordfights?  You'll get swordfights. Or at least really big knife fights. And gunfights, penfights, hatfights, you name it. Weng Weng doesn't take crap from anyone. And he jumps from buildings and floats with an umbrella, Mary Poppins-style. He even has a JETPACK.

In all seriousness, Weng Weng rocks. He died young but made a couple of other movies first that are harder to get a hold of, including a western called D'Wild Wild Weng. I highly recommend this film to folks who love trashy action movies; my sides hurt from laughing the first time I watched it. As one IMDB reader put it, "Possibly the supreme achievement of mankind's presence on earth."