The Impossible Kid (1982) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Tuna and I have both praised For Your Height Only, the offbeat Filipino movie about a 2'9" clone of James Bond. The Impossible Kid is the sequel, in which the diminutive Weng-Weng again plays "Agent Double O."

While For Your Height Only had been a straightforward Bond parody, right down to the high-tech gadgets, The Impossible Kid is actually more of a chopsocky film, in which Weng-Weng is now an agent of Interpol. It's not as consistently funny as the original. It has a few inspired moments, but it derives 75% of its humor from the same gag: Weng-Weng defeating one or more six footers in hand-to-hand combat. That joke is pretty funny the first time, and might have worked once more in a special situation, but when it's employed repetitively, it fails to deliver laughs during the reprises. Of course, Weng-Weng inevitably ends up punching his opponent in the dick, so that's always good for a chuckle.

The greatest difference between the first one and this one is that For Your Height Only was dubbed into English by some truly demented guys who realized the comic potential of the film and topped it off with surreal and comical 1930s film noir dialogue. The Impossible Kid was dubbed by a much more literal-minded group, and occasionally seems boring.

It's still amusing in spots. Here are some of the film's highlights:

• A group of Filipino industrialists, accompanied by Weng-Weng, listen to a tape from some "terrorists," which ends with the admonition that "this tape will self-destruct." Sure enough, in a few seconds, the entire television explodes! A few seconds later, however, Weng-Weng and his boss are shown listening to the very same tape in the Interpol office, and it seems to be in fine condition!

• The head terrorist turns out to be one of the industrialists, yet earlier in the film he himself would have been blown up by a live grenade tossed by one of the terrorists, except for the timely intervention of the little fella! Now THAT'S a good cover.

• I have no idea what Weng-Weng's real voice sounds like, but in the English-language dubbing, his voice is provided by someone with a smooth baritone, ala Shadoe Stevens! (That was not true in the earlier film.)

• Weng-Weng is very unusual for a little person in that he has the agility of a professional gymnast and can run quite fast. (Well, his legs move fast, anyway. Obviously he doesn't cover much ground per stride.) He doesn't seem to move like a typical little person, but rather like a very athletic young boy. This enables him to do some tremendous stunts and some astounding fight scenes.

• In one of my favorite moments. Weng-Weng is asked to leave the industrialist's house after appearing uninvited. He beats up a few gigantic mobsters who try to manhandle him, then walks out on his own. As he casually walks past a few more henchmen, he punches one of them in the nuts - for no reason at all other than to show that he's the alpha male.

• The dialogue is bizarre. At one point in the tape, a terrorist says, "I am the leader of a world-wide organization - with affiliates all over the world." (As opposed to, I suppose, those world-wide organizations which are not actually world-wide.)

• At one point, Weng-Weng and his tiny motorcycle escape from some baddies by leaping over a chasm, Evel Knievel style. From the decidedly non-parabolic arc of the flight, it is obvious that the stunt is not done with forward momentum, but by having the entire cycle attached to a wire!

The end of the film gives us hope that the little fella will appear in a third adventure called License Expired, but that film apparently never got made, at least to my knowledge. It's too late now because Tuna tells me that Weng-Weng's license to kill has been revoked by the Almighty himself. A hero in his native Philippines, the li'l warrior received a state funeral procession in which one guy carried the coffin under his arm. When the procession reached the shore, Weng was placed upon a paper boat and accorded a Viking funeral. Of course, arrows would not have been practical, so one of the dock hands ignited his little barge with a lit cigarette.