
Kung Fury – a comedy funded through Kickstarter [video] - lelf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg/
======
chipsy
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.

~~~
eco
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.

~~~
waffle_ss
Don't forget Kavinsky!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavinsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavinsky)

~~~
trafficlight
Com Truise is another solid choice.

------
diego
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-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7478u4gkvnmjg6p/Screenshot%202015-05-29%2010.14.51.png?dl=0)

~~~
usingpond
Also, when the dinosaur is fighting the Nazi robot, the Swastika flips sides.

Boy, I sure hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

~~~
andrey-p
I... thought you were joking before I watched the film.

------
jerf
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.)

~~~
bane
Yeah absolutely, I had some amazing highly personalized collections of youtube
channels on different subjects that I could watch instead of TV pretty much 24
hours a day.

Google killed off collections the other day because it makes the viewing
experience "better" or some stupid garbage that nobody will ever be able to
explain and will certainly be replaced by a worse answer at some point. But
for a couple years I basically had a half-dozen highly-personalized tv
stations I could watch.

~~~
_random_
If something is nice Google either kills it or makes it not nice.

------
zxexz
This is wonderful. Does it remind anyone else of Danger 5?[0]

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYXHzOqnMpk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYXHzOqnMpk)

~~~
zxyzzxxx
Surprisingly similar.

~~~
zxexz
One might almost imagine Kung Fury was heavily inspired by Danger 5. At around
7:30 in the YouTube video, they add Hitler. And then he shoots the phone; a
trope memorably used in Danger 5. Also, the cop with the triceratops head -
people with dinosaur and animal heads are another major trope of Danger 5.

I'm still appreciating Kung Fury, though. Just an observation.

~~~
Zikes
It also reminds me a great deal of Far Cry: Blood Dragon, which used many of
the same tropes.

------
shmerl
I asked them to release it on GOG, to have an official DRM-free download
option. If you buy it through their site:
[http://kungfury.com](http://kungfury.com) (to support creators) you get
access to it on vhx.tv, but you can't download it from there.

Of course you can download it from Youtube using something like youtube-dl,
but it's not as straightforward.

~~~
hedwall
(I was a backer though) But I can download it from vhx.tv (an .mp4 file).

~~~
shmerl
Backers can, but those who buy it now - can't and I don't really see any good
reason for it.

~~~
rosser
An exclusive perk for backers only?

~~~
shmerl
Looks like it, but it's weird since it's released for free on Youtube anyway.
So why should they prevent you from downloading it _especially when you paid
for it_?

~~~
anigbrowl
Because they already sold the download option to the backers. People want
exclusivity, and those people who have the mp4 are secretly (though not
necessarily consciously) feasting on your tears of DRM-frustration because
they have something you don't.

This might sound cynical, but that's how people are . There was a documentary
that came out last year called _I Dream of Wires_ about analog modular
synthesizers, which are going through a renaissance right now thanks to low-
cost short-run manufacturing and a much wider audience for electronic music
than existed during the previous modular heyday of the 1970s. So they raised
lots of money on Kickstarter, and one of the rewards for backers was
_exclusive_ access to a 4 hour Blu-Ray copy, with tons of additional footage
that would be cut out of the theatrical version, but which you would certainly
want to watch if this was your particular nerd obsession. Anyway, the film got
made OK, but (as is very typical) the producers vastly overestimated likely
interest in the film and discovered the hard way that it was too niche of a
subject to appeal to regular documentary distributors. Having gone a bit over
budget and spent some personal money to get it finished, they naturally wanted
to break even, so after what they thought was a decent interval, they started
selling the extended 4-hour Blu-ray edition to the general public on their
website.

 _Bad idea._ The people who had bought that thinking they were getting
something exclusive were furious, and stalked the filmmakers across every
electronic music forum where they popped their heads up, calling them
fraudsters and thieves. They weren't any worse, off, as such; they had got
their Blu-Rays (although I think they had to wait a long time for them, as
with many Kickstarter campaigns that fall way behind schedule), and they
included all the promised content delivered to a professional standard. But
they thought they had bought a limited edition, and threatened the makers with
lawsuits - the result being that the DVD release got pushed way back and the
extended 'ahrdcore edition' has had the price jacked up to $199 (which almost
nobody will ever spend) in line with the donation requirement for the original
reward.

~~~
shmerl
_> Because they already sold the download option to the backers._

That's not reasonable. They could get more backers if DRM-free release (for
everyone) was a simple part of the base goal. I.e. selling DRM-free as a perk
only reduces the number of their backers. I only support those projects which
have a clear DRM-free release stated in their goals. And I'm not alone.

 _> People want exclusivity, and those people who have the mp4 are secretly
(though not necessarily consciously) feasting on your tears of DRM-frustration
because they have something you don't._

This sounds sick. I don't care for exclusivity, I care for art. And actually
such kind of attitude in the project would make it feel repealing for me. And
of course as with any DRM, it doesn't stop one from copying. That's all
besides the fact that Youtube doesn't have DRM. It just makes downloading more
manual than it could be.

~~~
anigbrowl
_They could get more backers if DRM-free release (for everyone) was a simple
part of the base goal._

I have to say, prove it. My theory is that most people don't care about DRM
the same way you do, and that more people like owning something than want to
make it widely accessible, based on the abundant evidence already available
about their willingness to buy exclusive rewards. What do you base your
assertion about the potential number of backers upon?

 _This sounds sick. I don 't care for exclusivity, I care for art._

That's nice of you, but it's a fact that we live in a consumer society and one
of the most common sales tools is to exploit the law of supply and demand by
creating artificial scarcity - even by limiting the numbers of Kickstarter
rewards designed to get people to donate before someone else. You can
effectively solicit a higher donation level by restricting the availability of
the perk, and I find it hard to blame people for exploiting a business
strategy that is known to work.

In all seriousness, how much _do_ you care for art? What $ amount would you be
prepared to donate or put at risk by investing? I'm not asking this to win an
argument, I'm genuinely curious about the economic value you attach to your
ideological position. Would you be influenced by some combination, eg for $x
you become a patron of the DRM-free copy but you also get a special T-shirt or
other item that's not available to others, and if so to what degree?

 _And actually such kind of attitude in the project would make it feel
repealing for me._

You've gotta sell what people want to buy. If you say you're going to be
making the top-of-the-line quality product available as widely as possible
later, then many people will reasonably ask why they should bother giving you
money now. I don't think that people in the aggregate are as generous as you
may be as an individual. Now, if you're quite wealthy and in a position make
very generous donations that could balance out beautifully, but the basic
business model of Kickstarter and similar sites is about raising lots of small
donations from a crowd rather than targeting a smallish number of more
substantial donors.

 _That 's all besides the fact that Youtube doesn't have DRM._

Yeah but YouTube video quality is shit. Of course it's good by historical
standards but then TVs used to be much less capable than today. Many people do
not find the quality satisfactory for leisure viewing. If you watch the same
video on YouTube and Vimeo (eg many people upload camera tests to both
websites) you can see a substantail difference on Vimeo, and mp4 quality would
be better again. I don't like watching YouTube on a television, in general.
Admittedly this is more of a short-term problem, and it will all be 'good
enough' soon enough, just as Netflix streaming was mediocre in quality for the
first year or two but now looks fine most of the time (at least on a HDTV).

~~~
shmerl
_> My theory is that most people don't care about DRM the same way you do_

It's a common practice for many crowdfunded projects to pitch for more backers
by stating that release is DRM-free. You can see people commenting about it,
if it's not stated (and projects clarifying this point).

Take a look at fiasco with Veronica Mars crowdfunded film which was released
with DRM. Backers of the film said all they thought about this failure.
Interest in DRM-free releases was expressed very clearly there. If anything,
crowdfunding is a major driver in putting an end to approach of the sick-
minded publishers obsessed with DRM.

 _> In all seriousness, how much do you care for art?_

As much as I'm interested in something. If I see a project that's interesting
to me, I consider supporting it on condition that it doesn't plan to use such
unethical garbage as DRM in result. How much would I invest in it? That
depends on the project. I don't do it out of having unlimited funds. Not at
all - my funds are pretty limited. I do it because I care for those projects
and without my support they are less likely to be created. I don't see how
exclusivity fits into this. It doesn't mean I'm against perks - if someone
wants to invest more, it's OK if they get more rewards. But DRM is not
something that should be added as a distinguishing factor to anything. Because
it shouldn't exist to begin with. Would you support the project which says
that if you pay more, they'll give ecological wrap for you, but for the rest
they'll ship the product in poisonous package?

Another reason to support some projects is to demonstrate demand. For
instance, I would support games which are released for Linux (if I'm
interested in them too), but won't support those which don't plan a Linux
release.

For instance, Underworld Ascendant added Linux support to the base goal after
getting feedback about it. As you can see, this also reduces exclusivity -
it's inclusive, because more users are reached when release is cross platform.
DRM-free release is similar in this sense.

~~~
anigbrowl
OK, but do you have any numbers to back up the economic side of the argument?
I get that it's an ethical issue for you, but you lose me when you talk about
'sick minded publishers,' because different editions with or without DRM are
simply what they have available to sell, and they're just allocating to
wherever they see the best price.

If Alice will pay $10 for a streaming copy (with DRM), Bob will pay $30 for a
DRM-free copy, but Carol will pay $50 for an _exclusive_ DRM-free copy, the
rational approach is to sell to Alice and Carol for a total of $60. Bob says
that other people would be willing to buy the DRM-free copy later, but from
the producer's standpoint the only thing that matters is who's willing to pay
money up front because a) there are a lot of costs that have to be paid up
front* and b) backend revenue is uncertain.

* Of course you can defray those up-front costs by asking people to work for free or deferred pay, which has been a very popular trend over the last decade. But it's awful to work that way and none of the projects I've ever done that for ever turned a profit.

Unfortunately Kickstarter doesn't provide a way to play the two off against
each other, eg setting up 2 projects for DRM advocates vs owners and going
with whichever one outraises the others.

 _Take a look at fiasco with Veronica Mars crowdfunded film which was released
with DRM._

I did. I think it was a storm in a teacup, because the intersection between
fans of a TV show and people who care passionately about DRM is just not that
big. The primary issue seemed to be that people did not care for getting their
digital download through Flixster and would rather have redeemed through
iTunes or Amazon. As best I can see from the project page, ~22k people were
willing to pay a $10 premium over the next reward to get a digital download in
addition to a T-shirt, but not another $15 to get a DVD. About 10% of the
comments post-release consisted of grumbling about the Flixster download
(primarily that it was slow and/or buggy and unreliable; I'm not sure what
percentage of them cared about the underlying principle), so it looks like
maybe 2500 people who spent about $25,000 were pissed off, or ~4% of the
backers contributing 0.5% of the budget.

The basic problem for producers is this: you can estimate the number of people
interested in purchasing a restricted version of the film by looking at other
projects which offer that and seeing how many of those reward offerings
actually sold. I believe you that there are people sitting on the sidelines
instead of donating/purchasing because they care about a DRM-free release, but
how do I quantify what that demographic is worth?

 _If I see a project that 's interesting to me, I consider supporting it on
condition that it doesn't plan to use such unethical garbage as DRM in result.
How much would I invest in it? That depends on the project. I don't do it out
of having unlimited funds. Not at all - my funds are pretty limited. I do it
because I care for those projects and without my support they are less likely
to be created._

OK, but your lack of support has to be set against the number of people who
are willing to pay for some exclusive right. In the case of _Kung Fury_ that
was about $90,000 - ~6000 people were willing to pay $20 for a 1080p download
with exclusive content, vs $5 for the DRM-hobbled streaming version you paid
for. So what I'm asking is: if you see a film you think you would like, what
extra amount are you willing to pay to ensure it is made available DRM-free?
It doesn't matter if you'd make a big donation of $1000 once a year to advance
the cause, or you'd rather donate and extra $20 to 50 different projects, or
even just 5.

But right now I have no idea how much you and other people who care about DRM
are holding back. I looked at several different Kickstarter projects that
offer DRM-free downloads (including _Game Loading - Rise of the Indies_ ,
which raised over $60k AUD) doing a similar analysis (trying to ID how much
people were willing to contribute for the digital download only, rather than
the next reward with additional swag) and the numbers seem to be in the low
thousands. Even if I scale budgets the numbers are a good bit lower, eg about
$45,000 in DRM-free download purchases if I imagine that other projects had
brought in the same overall revenue as _Kung Fury_ and allocate the
appropriate amount to download rewards.

This suggests that there's only half as much money on offer up front for DRM-
free downloads as for exclusive offerings, and so that it's more rational to
use a market segmentation strategy than to offer the same thing at the same
price to everyone. From a producer standpoint, cash is the only thing that
people are willing to accept as payment for work, and real cash now is much
more persuasive than hypothetical cash later.

I mean, maybe you and other anti-DRM people should set up a fund and disburse
grants or something, but only to people who commit to DRM-free movie and game
releasing. That's how other people promote their causes. Money talks, as they
say.

~~~
shmerl
_> OK, but do you have any numbers to back up the economic side of the
argument?_

There is research which shows that DRM always reduces potential for sales. So
crowdfunding isn't any different in this aspect. Remember, they profit from
sales post release too, and not only from crowdfunding investors.

 _> I mean, maybe you and other anti-DRM people should set up a fund and
disburse grants or something, but only to people who commit to DRM-free movie
and game releasing. That's how other people promote their causes. Money talks,
as they say._

In my experience, most crowdfunded projects shun DRM (at least all that
actually caught my attention), which is an indication for me that voting with
your money works. They clearly see that DRM-free releases gives them more
backers.

------
slg
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 guess...

~~~
nabla9
Maybe you are not old enough?

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...](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/37mw8y/kung_fury_has_been_released_for_free_on_youtube/cro20li)

------
yankoff
This movie is amazing. Every scene is just genius :)

~~~
steve19
Is it though? I watched more than half of it. It is a bunch of satirical
scenes full of memes copy n pasted together with almost nothing in the way of
actual storytelling, which makes it less of a movie and more of a collection
of youtube clips.

~~~
shmerl
It is satire, so enjoy it as is :)

~~~
aikah
it's not a satire at all, it's a parody,i'd even say a tribute. To understand
the difference, an obvious example: Robocop is a satire.

~~~
shmerl
Satire is a genre, which uses parody (literary approach to the story). So it
is both - satire and a parody.

~~~
aikah
Satire requires some kind of political statement or social criticism. Kung
fury isn't a satire.

~~~
yellowapple
One could argue it's a social criticism of 80's exploitation films and Michael
Bay movies.

~~~
aikah
> 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.

------
SG-
Was instantly reminded of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dofacvjRkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dofacvjRkc)

~~~
ckeck
Surprised no one mentioned this already. I was a KS backer for Kung Fury and
pretty sure that Blood Dragon gave them some "inspiration". Love them both!

------
relaytheurgency
Seems like it borrows a lot from Axe Cop

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHGfSBr2FrY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHGfSBr2FrY)

~~~
irln
My son and I thought the same thing. The fact that they were able to upgrade
it to live action and still pull it off was an accomplishment.

------
state
The production quality is surprisingly good for something I found through a
link that includes the text 'funded through kickstarter'.

~~~
shmerl
Check this trailer out too:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTidn2dBYbY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTidn2dBYbY)

~~~
state
Yeah, this is pretty impressive. I assume the production team probably has a
lot of experience. Thanks!

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
That guy is 28! What is it with swedes that makes them so non-dilettantes?

------
Joeboy
Cool array of '80s home computers at 10:20, including ZX Spectrum with
cassette player _and_ microdrive.

~~~
shmerl
See also
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkrWRHCDQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkrWRHCDQU)

------
cmdrfred
I'm in Colorado today can't wait to get done work, head back to my hotel, and
enjoy some of what this fine city has to offer while watching this.

------
waynecochran
That is so bogus ... Hacker man used pow(x,2)... why would he do that when he
could have just done x*x? I mean, that's so freshman CS student...

~~~
shmerl
He also pressed Break and the voice said "Enter" ;)

~~~
stefantalpalaru
He always presses Break instead of Enter. That's some next level hacking right
there.

~~~
pkrumins
He remapped break to enter.

------
otikik
I started not liking Triceracops but at the end I was sold.

------
bane
For the people for who this went _wooosh_ , can you chime in if you lived
through this time period and remember the media or not?

(full disclosure, I thought it hit the nostalgic feelings I have from that
time almost perfectly)

~~~
Torgo
I was a kid in the 80's and I thought the movie was pretty accurate.

------
dragontamer
Kung Fury is more about the faux-80s that was brought about by Far Cry: Blood
Dragon.

Not that that's a bad thing, but "true 80s" flicks are a bit different IMO
(ie: Breakfast Club, Back to the Future and the like).

~~~
m0nty
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.

~~~
shmerl
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.

~~~
m0nty
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.

~~~
modfodder
You're aiming to high when you reference The Naked gun, Beverly Hills Cop and
Bill & Ted. This film references the lower budget fare more than the popular
big budget films. Don't think of the films you'd see of the cineplex in the
80s, think of the films you'd either see late night on one of the local UHF TV
stations or on VHS, often starring Chuck Norris or some no-name mediocre white
martial artist. Also emphasis on Action, not the Comedy (or think of Kung Fury
as a comedic take on 80s low budget action films).

I was a backer, but also grew up in the late 70s/80s and this film skewers my
childhood movie memories to near perfection.

------
DonHopkins
Did anyone else notice that Hackerman looks like the 1980's edition of Bill
Joy?

HACKERMAN'S HACKING TUTORIALS - How To Hack Time

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkrWRHCDQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkrWRHCDQU)

