KUNG FU ROOKIE Review: A Hard-Hitting Beginners’ Lesson In Action Fan Service

Kung Fu Rookie opens on VoD and digital March 14 from Omnibus Entertainment.

Timur Baktybayev is a new face in the arena these days. He’s an actor, producer, and a rising star in Kazakhstan where the action genre crackles every now and then. Through the lens of Aman Ergaziyev, he now looks to put the country back in the spotlight with a discernible hat-tip to Jackie Chan with Kung Fu Rookie, which opened locally in October of 2023 before hitting international festivals the following year.

Young villager Timuchin (Baktybayev) arrives to the city of Almaty to live with his uncle, Samat (Kuandyk Shakyrzhanov). While balancing between helping with Samat’s grocery stall and pursuing his dreams of becoming a police officer, Timuchin also falls for Alua (Janelle Sergazina), a municipal worker who doesn’t take kindly to him at first.

What follows is a trial-by-fire test of Timuchin’s own resolve to keep the peace and right wrongs when neighborhood thug Arsen (Riskul Konakbaev) escalates a littering incident into a full-on confrontation. When Arsen crosses a line, Timuchin is compelled to set things right, only to arouse an even bigger threat when a crime boss resurfaces to collect what’s his.

Kung Fu Rookie doesn’t attempt to obfuscate itself as a tribute to Chan. It most certainly is, as a beat-for-beat action comedy that practically transplants the plot from Rumble In The Bronx right into Central Asia, with extra sprinkles of Who Am I?, Police Story 2, Mr. Nice Guy, and even Thunderbolt thrown in. There are some plusses to celebrate with Baktybayev front and center of the action and hijinks, although it’s no stretch to add that fan service in any capacity does have its limits.

Baktybayev is a feasibly charismatic choice as a nascent and prospective star, and the story does plenty to keep the film moving and sustain interest.  It takes a while to understand certain motivations for a few other characters with one scene involving a food stall customer throw a purse away after Timuchin hops over leaps and bounds to catch the theif who snatched it. A more truncated rewrite of this scene would easily attribute to Timecop if Ergaziyev thought it applicable.

Most of the action sequences are beat-for-beat homages to Chan’s past work, with choreography and coordination by the film’s star, as well as Kazakh Union Action Team and their stewards, Bauyrzhan Abishev and Serikkazy Tilebaldi. There’s an opening parkour/chase scene, an introductory street fight, a park fight, fight scene in a gangster’s hideout, a warehouse fight, and a gym fight, all in the space of the film’s eighty-minute duration. The preliminary two-on-one finale between Baktybayev and co-stars Erkebulan Toktar and Talgat Duisenov has its moments leading up to the main event pitting Baktybayev against hulking co-star Kuat Khamitov who plays the villain.

These action sequences are fun to watch, and they do have their uses as practice scenarios for aspiring stunt performers looking to ply their trade. What falls short in their applications to Kung Fu Rookie, however, does depend on how amicable your palate when it comes to films like these. Chan is one of the best to ever do it, which presents a challenge for most purists to take to films attempting mimic the kind of page-turning magic Chan accomplished in his prime. Even some of the best remakes and reboots, regardless of mainstream or independent status, never manage to eschew scrutiny.

For what it’s worth, Kung Fu Rookie is the kind of action comedy that exemplifies what’s possible for storytelling with an eye toward the niche. While its concept isn’t as pragmatic as it might read on paper, it does cast a deserving spotlight on Kazakhstan’s talent pool, as an extension of the more nominal action and stunt community that could stand to mutually benefit in helping to carry the aesthetics of old school Hong Kong action cinema to the next generation of audiences and performers alike.

In essence, Kung Fu Rookie is definitely an acquired taste – one that pays invariable tribute in every tangible way to one of Hong Kong cinema’s biggest living trailblazers. For what it’s worth though, Ergaziyev and leading man Baktybaev have us paying attention. With Kazakhstan getting more genre thrills this month with Olzhas Ibraev’s new film, Super Courier, Baktybayev has me curious in the best way.