For Y'ur Height Only

The rerelease of 'For Y'ur Height Only' marks the start of this year’s Terracotta Film Festival, a cinematic celebration of East Asian cinema.

With its questionably abbreviated title, 'For Y'ur Height Only' pays homage to James Bond, or, to be more precise, gleefully urinates all over the memory of Albert R Brocolli’s spy franchise. The 007’s analogue is an 82cm tall martially trained ‘homme de guerre’ ready to shoot first and ask questions later but not before the occasional disco dance and dalliance. After all, what woman could ever resist the carnal advances of a sufferer of primordial dwarfism with a ridiculous haircut.

As cheers and laughter erupt as Weng Weng enters the scene, one cannot help but admire the main protagonist. The pint-sized Pinoy rarely has much to say and yet oozes charisma like garlic butter from a well done chicken kiev. He spends most of the film sliding along the floor and kicking his enemies in the genitals seemingly locked in a purgatorial time vortex of crappy kung-fu.

About half way into 'For Y'ur Height Only' there appears to be the beginnings of a sex scene when the picture abruptly descends into darkness. It was unclear whether this was a technical fault, a lapse in the dated film footage or a deliberate obfuscation of Weng Weng’s ‘Wang Wang’ which, if it were seen, would no doubt be seared into the back of the audience’s collective consciousness till their last dying breaths. Regardless, the omission of our little fella’s ‘little fella’ was probably for the best.

Whether it is the delightfully misnamed villain or Weng Weng’s commanding officer who introduces our hero to his gadgets with the smoothness of a daytime QVC shopping channel presenter on a midnight shift, this exploitation film never ceases to amaze for better or for worse and is worth a watch – well, provided you have some strong prescription medication to hand.