71–80 of 124 posts
A couple of "mistakes" that I caught while watching, thought HN might find them interesting: - There's a reference to Viagra (6:20) but it hadn't been invented yet. - The "hacking time" sequence around 10:30 contains Java [1] which obviously came from the future. There are a few others, perhaps intentional. I won't spoil them here :) [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/7478u4gkvnmjg6p/Screenshot%202015-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saw two (was it three?) decapitations in the first two minutes. One thing which distinguishes the 80s "genre" was that those things were rarely shown outside movies like The Omen. TV was deliberately sanitised, protagonists developed nice, tidy holes when they got shot, they had time for a few last-minute words, they expired with dignity.
It's grotesque on purpose. Note the burning baby carriage and "Try cocaine" billboard in the beginning. And that goes all way through, as core of its satire.
This movie is amazing. Every scene is just genius :)
Even the meaningless swearing to try to look "cool" was spot on.
So yes. Maybe not "genius" but it so precisely hits the spot that it's undeniably good.
A couple of "mistakes" that I caught while watching, thought HN might find them interesting: - There's a reference to Viagra (6:20) but it hadn't been invented yet. - The "hacking time" sequence around 10:30 contains Java [1] which obviously came from the future. There are a few others, perhaps intentional. I won't spoil them here :) [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/7478u4gkvnmjg6p/Screenshot%202015-...
I'm pretty sure these things are easily valid in a universe where Vikings rode dinosaurs and wielded machine guns.
Watching this last night made me feel old. I just don't get it. The ridiculousness and therefore the comedy seems to exist for the sake of being ridiculous. It isn't grounded in anything. That makes it lose it appeal very quickly for me. It reminds me of some of the old SNL movies. It takes a premise that was fun, funny, and interesting and stretches it into something that can't sustain itself. Different strokes I gu…
This film is pure concentrated 80's cheekiness and really takes you back. If you were do destroy bad 80's popular culture and keep only 30 minutes of it for reference, this would be it. Of course it does not work alone for many, because everything in it is reference back to the 80's.
It's very well done. I got 80's flashback from just those tracking errors in the beginning of the tape alone (funny how associative memory works).
deeper analysis:
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/37mw8y/kung_fury_ha...
Nobody in the thread has yet called it what it is: retrowave. This was a musical genre first. It wholly appropriates the aesthetics of a subset of 80's media and condenses it into a "historical fantasy" world that is easier to digest than the authentic thing. You don't enjoy retrowave for its writing or storytelling, generally speaking. Treat Kung Fury like an extended music video and it makes way more sense.
I've never heard it called Retrowave before (thought that is a good name for it). I know it by the names Outrun or Synthwave. Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, M|O|O|N, Miami Nights 1984, Lazerhawk or basically anything from the Hotline Miami soundtracks are all good for anyone wanting more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's grotesque on purpose. Note the burning baby carriage and "Try cocaine" billboard in the beginning. And that goes all way through, as core of its satire.
I realise that, but "80s action comedy" isn't really true. 80s action comedies include such gems as The Naked Gun, Beverly Hills Cop and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. What's the referent for this movie, if it's "80s action comedy"? I can't think of anything like it, it's more like Duke Nukem frankly.
Nobody in the thread has yet called it what it is: retrowave. This was a musical genre first. It wholly appropriates the aesthetics of a subset of 80's media and condenses it into a "historical fantasy" world that is easier to digest than the authentic thing. You don't enjoy retrowave for its writing or storytelling, generally speaking. Treat Kung Fury like an extended music video and it makes way more sense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Satire requires some kind of political statement or social criticism. Kung fury isn't a satire.
One could argue it's a social criticism of 80's exploitation films and Michael Bay movies.
which are also social criticism themselves ... a social criticism of a social criticism ? now everything looks like post-modernism lol... Seriously, there is no social criticism here, just tropes of 80's movies.
Slowly but surely it is becoming possible to "consume" nothing but Internet for entertainment, even if you demand video. It's still got a ways to go. But Hollywood probably ought to be more scared than it is. (Hollywood qua Hollywood isn't necessarily going anywhere, "the best" are always going to congregate somewhere, but the "current regime" is probably going to very shaken up in the next few decades.)