Rating: *
Review Date: 1/7/06
Producer: Dick Randall
Cast: Weng Weng
Unreal. This is one of those films that I've passed over at the video store for ten years because it looked like too much for even ME to stomach. And it looks like I was right. This amazingly bad piece of cinema takes the James Bond formula and marries it with midget exploitation. Three foot tall Weng Weng is Agent 00, the Filipino Secret Service's best agent. When an American scientist gets kidnapped in Manila, Agent 00 is assigned to rescue him and he's given a wide variety of gadgets to get the job done. Ever the ladies man, he even finds time to woo pretty girls while he's on the case. The body count in the film is laughably high, and the endless hordes of bad guys are the worst shots I've ever seen. The film is packed with greasy Filipino bad guys with loud unbuttoned shirts, who are later replaced by bad guys with red berets and huge red targets on their chests. This is probably because the good guys at this point are greasy Filipinos with loud unbuttoned shirts. The film's climax is an unbelievable hand-to-hand brawl between Weng and another midget. I should have seen that coming, but I didn't.
As you might expect from a Filipino production, everything about it is awful. While Weng does a decent job of holding his own, he always looks nervous and unsure of himself, breaking the suspension of disbelief that he's supposed to be a bad-ass superhero. The action scenes are ridiculous, and scenes that involve Weng shooting someone often employ dropped frames, as if the kickback from the gun was too much for Weng to handle. Indeed, at one point he picks up a rifle from a fallen bad guy and fires it, only to be completely knocked on his ass. In sticking with the James Bond theme, Weng's arsenal of gadgets include an Oddjob inspired bladed hat and a miniature flying jetpack. The James Bond theme music is also shamelessly used throughout the film. If nothing else, "For Your Height Only" stands as a true testament to cinematic absurdity.