Plan B: Scheiß auf Plan A is 2016 German martial arts action comedy, directed by Ufuk Genc and Michael Popescu, and starring Can Aydin, Cha-Lee Yoon, Phong Giang and Eugene Boateng.
Can, Phong, Cha and U-Gin are best friends and at the same time the most unsuccessful action star wannabes this side of Hollywood. But when they unexpectedly get a casting call falling on their laps, it becomes the very last chance to finally show what they are really capable off.
The only problem is that their agent U-Gin reversed the address, so that instead of walking into a movie set of their dreams they run into a troupe of tough gangsters who take Phong hostage and send the others on a relentless treasure hunt in order to free their friend, entangling them in a complex conspiracy to dethrone the kingpin of Berlin's underworld.
Plan B: Scheiß auf Plan A provides examples of:
- All There in the Script: The blonde who beats up Can and Cha at the strip club remains nameless in the film, but she is credited as "Club Boss".
- Basement-Dweller: Can still lives with his mother, something the others are all too happy to remind him when he starts talking down to them.
- Big Bad: Gabriel, the undisputed boss of the Berlin criminal world. The aim of almost all heroes and villains in the story is to take him down.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Eddy is an unhinged psycho who wants to take over as kingpin of Berlin by usurping Gabriel. However, he is too psycho and too dumb to realize Victoria is manipulating him into doing the dirty work for her.
- Blackmail: The key to Gabriel's criminal empire is a safe full of incriminating material on powerful politicians, prosecutors, businessmen and the like. Nobody can afford to piss him off or stop working for him.
- Captured on Purpose: Victoria spread rumors about Gabriel's safe and allowed herself to be captured by Eddy in order to get him to do the heavy lifting in locating the safe.
- Complexity Addiction: Gabriel's scheme to keep his safe full of blackmail material hidden is extremely convoluted and needlessly complicated. So much so that when the scenario it was designed to prevent actually happened, the entire thing came within a hair's breath of completely collapsing.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Any time the heroes go up against large numbers of mooks, the demolish them with ease. But every time they get into a one-on-one fight they go through a meat grinder and are barely able to prevail.
- Cowboy Cop: Kopp has this reputation in the department, although it is more of an Informed Attribute in the film proper.
- Dark Action Girl:
- The blonde Club Boss, who effortlessly beats the shit out of Can and Cha... at the same time.
- Victoria puts up a surprisingly decent fight against a wounded Phong.
- Dirty Cop: Kopp's new partner is in Gabriel's pocket. So was the last one, for that matter.
- Elite Mooks: Two distinct cases...
- The Club Boss at the strip club, who wipes the floor with Can and Cha.
- Victoria's two main goons, who each go up against Can and Phong during the final fight.
- Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: It would seem that everyone in the Berlin underworld is a proficient martial artist, as even a stripper busts out Kung Fu to fight our heroes.
- Forced Meme: Can spends the entire movie trying to make "You're a disease... and I'm the cure." into his own catchphrase, but nobody plays along or cares. It doesn't help that he stole it from a movie.
- Gambit Pileup: By the movie's climax, no less than three gambits have crashed into each other, with the protagonists stuck firmly in the middle.
- Genre Throwback: To the 1980's action movies.
- Indy Ploy: the whole point of the movie as the heroes are thrust into a situation they have no idea how to get out of and have to make everything up as they go along. It even in the title, which translates as "Plan B: Fuck Plan A".
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: The only reason the protagonists get involved with a power dispute among the Berlin criminal underworld is because one of them writes down the number in a an address as 96 instead of 69.
- It's Personal:
- Kopp has been trying to put Gabriel behind bars for the last 20 years, and their enmity has become very personal to him.
- Can develops a personal beef with Eddy's main mook because said mook stole Can's memento from his father.
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Hilariously subverted when the guys need to talk their way through a Chinese warehouse in the docks. The lady in charge only speaks Chinese, but Cha has no idea what she is saying because he is Korean.
- The Load: Unlike his friends, U-Gin can’t fight at all and for most of the movie he does nothing but complicate things for them.
- Mexican Standoff: At the end of the movie there's a three way standoff between Gabriel, Victoria and Kopp, with the heroes stuck in the middle. It ends in a Blast Out.
- The Mole:
- Eddy's main mook is working for Victoria.
- Kopp's new partner is working for Gabriel.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Gabriel decides that the best way to deal with the guys raiding the places where the clues are hidden is to tip off the police. This ends up being his undoing as it tips off Kopp about what is going on and allows him to be present for the final confrontation and kill Gabriel.
- One-Man Army: Despite being just stuntmen and aspiring actions stars, Can, Phong and Cha are each near unstoppable fighting machines who can beat up multiple opponents single-handed.
- Shout-Out: The movie is a love letter to The '80s, and features several references to action movies from that decade, as well as others:
- For the audition, the guys all dress like movie characters: Can as "Cobra" Cobretti, Phong as Marty McFly, Cha's jacket is modeled on Bruce Lee's iconic yellow track suit, and U-Gin’s outfit resembles Michael Jackson’s getup from Thriller.
- One of the chapters in the film is titled Big Trouble in Little Istambul.
- As part of their search, the guys have to go to a cemetery and visit the grave of one Frederic Krueger.
- Can often repeats the mantra Live for nothing or die for something.
- Detective Robert Kopp is nicknamed by the other policemen as RoboCop. And who can blame them?
- Spanner in the Works: The heroes derail everyone's plans the minute the walk in to the wrong address.
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: The main police officer in the movie has the surname Kopp.
- Villainous Rescue: Just as Victoria is about to kill Kopp and the boys, Gabriel shoots her dead from behind.
- Wacky Wayside Tribe: While looking for the coordinates in the cemetery, U-Gin is abducted by a cult of some sort and Can and Cha have to fight them to free him. Cha in particular has to fight the cult leader. But said cult has nothing whatsoever to do with the main story and they’re never referenced afterwards.
- Wrongful Accusation Insurance: When the cops finally catch up with Can, Cha and U-Gin, they specifically inform the guys that in the course of the day they've committed 24 counts of assault, vehicular theft and didn’t pay for the champagne at the strip club. However, Kopp later lets them go and doesn't charge them for any of these crimes.
