In the wild and wacky world of chopsocky there are basically two varieties of flicks: The serious ones and the comedies. Although they're both often pretty funny, the looser comedies are usually the ones that hold up better. Humorless, overly serious flicks like, oh say Samurai Death Bells tend to grate quickly (unless they really spin off into the Ed Wood unintentional hilarity zone, in which case they're great) while the goofy caricatures and politically incorrect jokes of a film like Matching Escort can be endearing in a way.

Matching Escort begins with a young girl having her feet locked into "heavy iron shoes," which clash with her cute red outfit. The shoes cause the girl to stumble but eventually help her develop abnormal speed and dexterity. The film then quickly fast-forwards to some time later, with the girl now grown up. Some bad guy kills a bunch of people (Boy, this review is starting to sound like Real Ultimate Power), including the girl's family, and she suddenly finds herself on the run, at which time she removes her heavy iron shoes and flies away. Meanwhile, a dashing master and his gay-coded "lad" travel the country side doing this-and-that. They met the girl earlier (there were sparks) and eventually meet her again, only this time she's cut her hair and is hiding out as a male beggar. My gaydar went into overdrive, not only at the overtly fey character of the "lad" but at the master's twinkle when he re-met the girl, now in reverse drag. The whole thing played like some weird in-the-closet chopsocky; Call it Camp Fu.

The story is silly (and pretty standard), the visuals are dreary (more on that in the video section), and the sets and swords are made of cardboard, but this is the little fu-flick that could. There is something sweet about it. It can't begin to compare with the Drunken Masters or Iron Monkeys or the world, but it's a fun diversion.

VIDEO:
The image quality, frankly, is shit. (Can I say that? I think I need to.) This is one of the worst looking DVDs I've ever seen. There are virtually no colors, the print is garbage, and the image is blurry nearly beyond recognition. Going into detail is useless. This movie looks totally horrendous. Sorry!

AUDIO:
Much like the video, the audio is dreadful. The voices, which sound recently dubbed, are ludicrous and the whole thing is just blaring and noisy. Crap.

EXTRAS:
A trailer for something called Draining Lizards. Um, yuck?

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I chuckled at the hee-haw comedy in this flick, but, really, this DVD is dung.