Kung Fury (2015) Review

A few months ago I had the distinct and honorable pleasure of watching one of the funniest and creative (ironic) films ever. This film combines every great 80's pop culture reference into a 30-minute short film that currently has over 25 million views on YouTube, is available on Netflix, and is now being distributed on Blu-ray for infinite amounts of orgasmic synth-neon-buddy-cop-sci-fi-fantasy glory.

As the film's YouTube description says:

"Kung Fury is an over-the-top 80’s action comedy that was crowd funded through Kickstarter. It features Kung Fury, a Kung Fu renegade cop who travels back in time to kill his Nemesis, Hitler. The film features nazis, dinosaurs, vikings and cheesy one-liners. The campaign that was launched in December 2013 was backed by more than 17,000 people who together gave more than $630 000."

This is the first movie directed by Swedish filmmaker David Sandberg. He has directed television commercials and music videos. Perhaps feeling like he couldn't be creative-enough in his own right, in 2012 he decided to quit his job and immediately began writing the script for an action-comedy. I can't even begin to tell you the amount of pop culture references being payed homage to in this film. OK fine I will list some: 

-Lethal Weapon

-48 Hours

-Raiders of the Lost Ark

-Tron

-Conan The Barbarian (and countless other fantasy films of the 80's) 

-Nintendo (and the Power Glove)

-Arcades

-Ninjas and Asian Culture (Due to the economic boom of Japan in the 80's)

-Ferrari and Lamborghini

-Miami, FL (Miami Vice, Scarface, and the Cocaine Boom in the 80's)

-Dinosaurs (Land Before Time, Theodore Rex, and other dinosaur films of the early 90's)

At first, Sandberg spent $5,000 on producing and shooting footage with his friends, which became the trailer that debuted on YouTube on December 26th, 2013. 

He initially began a with a goal of $200,000 to make a 30-minute film. Later, he added a secondary goal of $1 million to rewrite the story into a full-length feature and a possible distribution deal. The film's budget fell short of the $1 million mark but allowed for the minimal amount for Sandberg and his friends to make their film. Shot on a Canon 5D and a Sony FS700 and in front of green screen, the majority of the film is done on the computer. Sandberg used most of the film's budget compositing endless amounts of digital sets, extras, special effects, establishing shots, and gore. 

Right from the opening "Laser Unicorn" studio logo, you can't help but form a smirk on your face when see a VHS quality logo styling a unicorn with a laser eye while a chrome font spells out the name. It feels like something right out of a Conan movie. The first image of the film is an establishing shot of the cityscape of Miami in 1985. What made me laugh about this shot is that if you know anything about Southern Florida in the 80's, it was the center for drug trafficking and had a huge crime wave. In Kung Fury, we see fire, smoke, and explosions in the foreground and background, over exaggerating the state of the city at the time. Within the next 2 and a half minutes we go from gang members blowing up a police car in mid-air with their machine guns after sending it flying through the air by way of kicking it with a skateboard, to a murderous arcade machine killing people with his middle finger lasers after saying "Fuck You" to the kids playing it, to the main character of Kung Fury jumping off a building and shooting his Lamborghini car door open and driving it so fast it flies into the air so he can get on top of the roof and shoot the murderous arcade machine. If you haven't seen the film, don't even try to imagine it, because the film is so amazingly ludicrous that it manages to actually make these images work. And why does this film work? Because it goes from one insane sequence to the next without really slowing down. Movies in the 80's were edited rather slow compared to today's standards. Kung Fury is so quick with its scenes that your brain is trying to process it, which is very reminiscent of today's Old Spice commercials. The story is pretty straight forward, playing off the generic time-traveling buddy-cop plots of the 80's and early 90's. Sandberg uses the very basic plot as an Apple 2 Keyboard Time-Hacking vehicle (movie reference) to introduce an absurd amount of over-the-top characters and plot conveniences to make your head spin so fast it round-house kicks the Kung Fuhrer himself, Adolf Hitler (another movie reference). Here is the link for the film in its full-length:

So again, I ask...why does this movie work? We need to do a little bit of research into the past, and no I'm not talking about Germany in WWII or the Viking Age, I'm talking about the last 30-40 years, and more importantly, the last 8 years. Since the 1970's and on, there has been an obsession with nostalgia. First there was Happy Days, American Graffiti, Back to the Future, Dirty Dancing, Grease, and Porky's which celebrated the era of Rock'n'Roll before the JFK assassination. It was a simpler time in pop culture and these films/TV shows were an attempt to recapture that feeling post-Vietnam and during the Cold War. In the 90's to early 2000's, there was a reemergence of nostalgia for the Disco-era with That 70's Show, Freaks and Geeks, Dazed and Confused, Boogie Nights, Wet Hot American Summer, and Quentin Tarantino's Blaxploitation-type films. In the last eight years, since the rise in popularity of Daft Punk and Lady Gaga, the 80's are back. Since then, we have seen a crazy amount of 80's film and TV Hollywood remakes starting with Miami Vice (2006) and ending with the recent Vacation sequel, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. In 2011, the film Drive was released. It was heavily inspired by Michael Mann's 80's crime thriller Thief. Using a synth soundtrack and 80's-like cinematography and costumes, the nostalgia train had officially left the station. Not only did Drive help in the 80's nostalgia wave, but it ushered in a new era of 80's inspired clothing, music, and video games. Look no further than the video game precursor to Kung Fury, the DLC (Downloadable Content) video game Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. If you are a fan of 80's action, sci-fi, and fantasy films, then look no further than this gem. I could go into a whole other paragraph on that game and its amazingness, but I won't. Just know that it's very similar in using pop culture references and homages to tell a comedic story. Lastly, as a part of the nostalgia boom, and my personal favorite, the Best of the Worst series by RedLetterMedia. The point of this video series is for the hosts to watch and review the worst short lived and direct-to-video films of the 80's, 90's, and beyond in the most hilarious talk-show-like commentary I have ever seen. I'll leave a link down below. I will also leave a link for the up-and-coming genre of 80's-inspired music called "New Retro Wave" or "Synthwave". And speaking of music, the filmmakers were kind enough to make a promotional music video for the film's concluding song titled "True Survivor" featuring the Hoff himself...awesome.

  

All in all, this movie is a must-watch for anyone who has a medium-to-advanced knowledge of 80's and early 90's pop culture. Even if you aren't knowledgeable about this era, it is an Old Spice commercial set in the 80's and pushed to 30 minutes in length with Thor, Hitler, Dinosaurs, and Martial Arts. The film knows what it is and doesn't try to be something it's not. The one person I have to thank for introducing me to this film is my wife. She and I found it while browsing through Netflix and within the first 30 seconds, I was immediately hooked.

Links:
Best of the Worst Series
New Retro Wave Music