ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

jbirks106 A lot of these gags would be rejected MST3K. Any Monty Python movie, to me, is funnier than, which I'm even Allen would file Juvenalia. But if you can sit through a half hour of a Japanese that's been overdubbed and not the line "hey, an oriental!" funny, then I have no hope for you. What, that's not insightful enough? I should just add more verbiage to satisfy some arbitrary line? Feh! I've read plenty of reviews that just went on and, with no more than the most facile of observations and were poorly written and verbose into the bargain, and here I am trying to make just one simple but highly cogent point and ... 2, 4, 6, 8 ... oh no, you're not getting bonus lines from me, not after this treatment! I'm going back and just randomly deleting words! Hahaha!

TheLittleSongbird 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

Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) What's Up, Tiger Lily? is... well... odd. It's Woody Allen's directorial debut of sorts. What he has done is taken a Japanese film from 1965 and redubbed it for comedic effect. The original film is a spy flick in which the main characters are searching for some important piece of microfilm. In Woody Allen's redub, they are instead looking for the perfect egg salad recipe. Yes. The only real adjective to describe this movie with would be... silly. Redubs that change the plot of the film are not something we see a lot, as least not that I know of. So it is neat to see a talent like Woody Allen do this and succeed for the most part. There isn't much to this film and its more or less just a gimmick than an actual credible film. Overall its not something you can really criticize without looking like an ignorant asshole. Despite anything else I could possibly say about this movie, I will admit that it is really funny. There are a few clever parts where I laughed out loud, and the movie as a whole was definitely amusing.There's not really much else to say about What's Up, Tiger Lily? Watch it if you want a good laugh and nothing more. It's probably a good thing that this kind of filmmaking hasn't gone anywhere, but I can definitely imagine watching this back in 1966 and thinking, "Hey, this Allen guy is going places." It's obviously not his best and hardly worth mentioning above his other films. So I guess I will finish this out as a short review for a short movie (80 minutes). What's Up Tiger Lily? should at least make you laugh if you accept it for what it is.

Bogmeister MASTER PLAN: must get recipe for egg salad. The premise is simple enough: take a standard movie thriller from Japan and remove the original sound track. Then, dub in your own wacky dialog. This ends up as the most unusual parody of the James Bond-type spy action of the sixties, with Japanese actors of the time voicing silly, inane sentences, usually in an overly silly style. One sinister henchman, for example, speaks in the style of a bad Peter Lorre imitation, way over-the-top. The whole thing is hit-or-miss: if you're really into awful Lorre imitations, you'll probably be giggling; if not, you'll just find that aspect, well, kind of stupid & tiring. A lot of the intended humor stems from just listening to some weird, juvenile guttural sounds or snickering seeming to emanate from the actors on screen; of course, that's the illusion: the actors you see had nothing to do with all the strange noises you hear. So, the main question is how clever was Woody Allen and his 'staff' of voice actors in adding on their interpretations of what passes for funny? It was hit-or-miss, about 50/50. There's also the problem of all those insertions of The Lovin' Spoonful singing for no reason except to fill up time. That doesn't do much for the pace of the film.The film begins with a standard action scene from the original Japanese film and it's not that bad, involving a flame thrower and then a 'lady-in-peril' scene, with some exciting fights. It actually looks like the conclusion of the film. We suddenly switch to Woody Allen, seated in a nice office with an interviewer, as he explains his vision of re-authoring a film. Allen's one big scene is pretty amusing and he pops up briefly later, as well as at the conclusion. The movie itself doesn't make much sense and is hard to follow. The hero, some kind of agent, encounters femme fatales and various villains, all in the pursuit of a code describing the ultimate egg salad recipe. The hero gets into some fights, always yelling stuff like "Saracen Pig!' and 'Spartan Dog!' It may sound funnier than it actually is. He's also good at pulling carpets out from under the feet of bad guys, which may have been funny in the original film, as well. Many of the more clever bits involve the dialog of the villains, who put a very strange spin on some of the threats they make, such as a special camera that takes pictures which removes the clothes from the subjects. The ending has some genuine thrills. The main connection to the Bond films, however, is that two of the actresses here also appeared in "You Only Live Twice" a couple of years later. Hero:6 Villains:7 Femme Fatales:6 Henchmen:5 Fights:7 Stunts/Chases:5 Gadgets:3 Auto:4 Locations:7 Pace:6 overall:6