Kung Faux review

For the most part, television remains a world nearly devoid of risks and innovation. It is a place where the folks in charge do their best to play it safe out of fear of damaging their tenuous position at the top of the heap. So something as artistic as, say, Postmodernism would be out of the question in the higher echelons of pop-culture. Ironically though, Hip-Hop music has been relying a lot on reconstituting old hits into new ones in a kind of risk-free postmodernism – so the value of “PoMo” as a stylistic choice can’t be completely written off.

Kung Fu revisionist Mic Neumann for example, has an offering worthy of the PoMo canon, alongside Godard’s Weekend and Bunuel’s Chien Andalou. But in case the mere mention of postmodernism has you hitting the snooze button, allow me to be clear: What we’re dealing with here is old-school kung fu movies, sliced down to the best bite sized morsels, re-dubbed by a bunch of Hip-Hop smartasses and electro-defectified with future-retro graphics and Hiiyah! You’ve got the ultimate postmodern martial arts mash-up. Like a Saturday morning cartoon on steroids meant for those weaned on Coleco, Strawberry Honeycombs and B-Boy style boombastic. Kung Faux is all of this and more.

Gag dubbing is nothing new – Woody Allen made an art of it with What Mic Neumann offers is the mood to go with the voices – a virtual backdrop to create an entirely new visual and auditory feast for the Kung Fu junkie in you.

The stories revolve around simple and familiar plots – young clumsy kid has to deal with local street toughs, goofy kickboxer tries to avenge his friend’s death. With simple additions like a pothead sensei and a Chinese crime boss with a suspicious Jamaican accent, the avant-garde factor begins to emerge.

Spellbinding might be overstating the show’s cleverly crafted visual spectacle, but it’s fair to say that there is always something happening on screen, even when there are no punches being thrown. To be sure, the shoddy state of the material goes a long way to offer some authenticity to the project, but any degradation is rendered irrelevant through the use of clever techno-trickery to give everything the electro pop sheen of an 80s console game. Subtitles, logos and enhancement FX provide plenty of supplemental energy to the show. This is exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to see playing on a closed circuit television at the coolest bar you’ve ever been to.

But if you’re watching it with the sound off, you’re only getting half the thrill. Kung Faux holds up both ends of the dual nature of great television – the audio is as heavily produced as the video. Thoughtfully chosen tracks and a thoroughly engineered soundscape are exactly the kinds of things you’d expect from something coming out of the hallowed halls of Tommy Boy, and Kung Faux is no exception.

Oddly enough, and I can’t believe that I’m saying this, one of the cooler features on the DVD is the ads which fill out the episodes to a proper half hour. Kudos for being able to raise some sponsorship capital while still holding on to some precious street cred with ads for And1 videos and Heavy.com. A karaoke game to lay down your own vocal version of the show is also included as a thoughtful bonus.

Check out our video review of Kung Faux in the main section of our website.