The 80s action film parody is not an unusual sight across any visual medium, but it took someone from outside the United States, someone who experienced the original films when they were America’s most explosive expert, to deliver the tribute the genre deserved.
That someone is director David Sandberg, and that tribute is Kung Fury, a film that, as Nerdist Industries’ Scott Weinberg said, “feels like it fell right out of 1985 and hit just about every awesome b-movie genre on the way down”.
The film stars Sandberg as the titular detective, whose supernatural origin combines a slew of classic tropes: he is simultaneously struck by lightning, bitten by a cobra, and attacked by a ninja in a Miami back alley, all mere moments after he sees his partner, Dragon, sliced in half.
For all its references, Kung Fury does have some great ideas. Not the least of them is Triceracop, the half-triceratops, half-cop that he is reluctant to call his new partner.
Of course, the film would never have worked if not for the high quality visual effects. Intriguingly, Sandberg had most of his actors perform solo in front of a green screen in his office. He then composed the shot in post-production against a 3D location. While the excuse for this decision was apparently driven by budget restraints, the result offers a distinctively retro feel that live-action backgrounds could never have matched.
Kung Fury made its premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it screened in the Directors’ Fortnight. It marked the end of a three year journey for the movie, which originated as a trailer in 2012 before receiving over $630,000 USD in funding from Kickstarter backers who were eager to see a 30-minute version released.
There’s more where this came to. After its success at Cannes, and the nearly 25 million views the film has received on Youtube, a feature version is now in the works. Sandberg promises that while the character will remain the same, everything else will change, ensuring fans that it will be worth checking out on the big screen.