Watch What's Up, Tiger Lily? For Free

Thanks for the memories!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Review: Were the hell do I start with this movie? It has to be one of the weirdest movies that I have seen this year. When I first started to watch this film, I was tempted to switch it off because it was awful and in another language but after Woody Allen comes on screen and explains what the movie is about, it then begins in English and the dubbing is swapped for humour. The film does take some time to get going, but once it does, you can't help but laugh at the way that Woody Allen cleverly changes the original script. Some of the voices cracked me up and the whole search for the recipe concept was ridiculous but funny. The original Japanese movie was REALLY bad but when it gets mixed up with Woody Allen's warped sense of humour, it will have you in stitches. You really have to take this film with a pinch of salt and try and remember that it was Woody Allen's first movie as a director, even though he didn't have any actors to direct. You will find it hard to keep up with the storyline, which is mentioned during the movie, but it's definitely worth a watch just for its pure stupidity. Proper Strange! Round-Up: If anyone was asked to remake this poor Japanese movie, I'm sure they would have turned down the project straight away, but Allen used his brain and produced a watchable movie that is funny and original. The silly noises that the main character makes when he's fighting were a great addition to this strange film, along with the strange voices of the gangsters and the weird guy with the cobra who was going to marry a chicken. Don't Ask! Anyway, I'm not going to say that this was a masterpiece that was a complete work of genius, but I will say that Woody Allen made a decent remake from a bad original. If your a Woody Allen fan then you really have to watch this movie.Budget: $400,000 Worldwide Gross: N/AI recommend his movie to people who are into there badly made Japanese movies with a Woody Allen dubbed script. 5/10

Woody Allen to me has always been an interesting director who is witty and insightful, showing themes that are relatable to anybody and having characters that are neurotic but very compelling in how real they are. He and his films are not for everybody, some people don't like the neurotic approach he takes to his characters and he has been criticised for being self-indulgent. Of all his films, What's Up, Tiger Lily has a number of good things but it for me is one of Allen's weakest films with a sense that he was yet to properly find his voice(it was in Annie Hall when he found it). And it is one of his most polarising. There are things to like about What's Up, Tiger Lily. It is made very well, not audacious but skillful. The acting is more than serviceable and the voices while purposefully cartoony are really entertaining to listen to, particularly the snake-obsessed henchman. The soundtrack is also very catchy in a groovy way but the best thing about What's Up, Tiger Lily is the dialogue and the use of mismatched words, much of it is just hilarious as well as very quotable and has Allen's witty, acerbic style all over it. Not all the humour works, the egg salad part is just silly and some of the ahead-of-the-time jokes may seem in bad taste now(some are not going to take lightly to a few of the sex jokes. The film had such a great idea but it came off in a way that felt over-cooked and under-cooked, basically a one-joke idea that did run out of steam too early. The film starts off brilliantly and the dialogue is all great, the story though is paper thin and much of the pacing is dull and in serious need of a tightening up. Not helped by The Lovin' Spoonful music interludes, the music is really good but the interludes are just bizarre(done in a way that feels completely out of kilter with everything else), are not really all that interesting and just slow the film down considerably. They were put in without Allen's consent apparently and it shows. John Sebastian adds very little here and just seems out of place and somewhat annoying. In terms of direction in What's Up, Tiger Lily, Senkichi Taniguchi's is fine while Allen's is competent but with a sense that he was understandably(considering it's a debut) yet to find or refine his style. All in all, not a very easy film to rate or talk about, it does have a lot of laughs and shows some effort but it could have done much more with the concept it had and Allen has done far better. 5/10 Bethany Cox

On Woody Allen's first outing as director, instead of making a real film, he spliced two Japanese films and had voice actors re-dub the dialogue so it tells a much different storyline from the source material. However, during the intro where Woody is interviewed, he makes it clear that what happens with the action and what happens with the spoken plot are supposed to be two completely different things, they end up being very similar. Most of what happens mirrors, although more comically(supposedly), what seems to happen in the action.This isn't even an original idea(it had been done before with silent films). Only a few parts are actually funny and even those aren't that great. I've seen some other Allen films and they were superior in every way to this nonsensical garbage. The jokes are painful. I think a bunch of frat boys could have come up with funnier dialogue that was completely opposite of what was happening in the action.In fact, I'd rather watch the actual two Japanese spy films with their original dialogue(even if it wasn't dubbed and was in subtitles) than re-watch What's Up, Tiger Lily.The two best aspects of this "film" are the 80 minute runtime and the striptease by the very "healthy" China Lee at the end of the film. If you are a Woody Allen fan, then I suppose you "must" see this, however, if you are not, totally avoid this film. Watch Mystery Science Theater instead, if you must see something that's similar.

When I was in high school (early 70s), this was a cult favorite. But of course, when it would occasionally show up on late-night TV, it would be severely chopped. Nevertheless, there were some jokes that always made me laugh:1) Detective grabs his head in pain and says, "Oh, my leg!" 2) Crazy Peter Lorre-voiced guy "marries" his chicken to a cobra. Passerby covers face with hankie and says, "I always cry at weddings." 3) Scene in tower where the director and his wife make their mandatory walk-on appearance.When it showed up uncut on cable recently, I looked forward to renewing my acquaintance with a big laugh-fest, but was disappointed. The jokes I remembered were there...but not much else to bust a gut about. There are long stretches where nothing much funny happens, because Woody's hands were tied by the footage he was given. Another drawback of the process is that Woody can't program in any sight gags, which are such an important part of his later films. So we're left with some weak verbal humor and lots of dead spots (frequently involving John Sebastian and friends).We have to remind ourselves that at the time this was released, Woody was primarily known as a stand-up comedian (3 successful LPs), and as a writer for TV and print. He was not a filmmaker yet. He merely tried to bring his brand of stand-up to the Japanese spy movie he was given. For the time, I suppose this would have been a little racy and the humor was different than what you'd find on TV. But it hasn't worn well over the 40 years since its release. I'd rather watch Jay Ward's FRACTURED FLICKERS show, which was a definitive masterpiece of old movie parody.To me, the weirdest thing of all is to see Woody speak during the closing credits but hear someone else's voice. That says a lot about how well the producers thought America knew Woody.Although I enjoyed Woody's early films in high school and college, if I had to choose an era of his career to focus on, I'd start with Zelig (1983) and go through Radio Days (1987). I don't think "What's Up Tiger Lily" would even make my top 20 list.