The Interview and Kung Fury: Two movies that tried to satirize the death of a dictator, but only one succeeds in making it entertaining.
In 2014, Sony Pictures experienced an incredible amount of backlash from the North Korean government over the release of its then most recent movie, The Interview.
The movie was a controversial political satire about two journalists, played by James Franco and Seth Rogen, going to North Korea to interview Kim Jong-un with the secret intent of assassinating him.
When dealing with such a taboo topic like murdering the leader of one of the most repressive and controlling countries in the world, it’s appropriate to expect some form of backlash. The real-life controversy this movie created was met with brutal resistance from multiple parties, including a group called Guardians of Peace who hacked Sony and halted the release of The Interview for a little bit.
In the end, these various altercations ended up being nothing more than scare tactics. And The Interview, for that matter, ended up being nothing but a severely misguided comedy of errors. Maybe the movie didn’t succeed because it failed to live up to it’s international hype. Maybe it was because it was underscreened. Maybe it was because weed jokes and the murder of Kim Jong-Un just don’t mix. We may never know.
However, a year later, I feel like audiences that were disappointed by Franco and Rogen’s movie are finally able to find satisfaction in a new, 30-minute action-action called Kung Fury.
Kung Fury, a short film that was funded by over 17,000 backers on Kickstarter, details the journey of one cop’s goal to master martial arts in order to go back in time and defeat Adolf Hitler.
Just from the summary of the movie you can tell that the similarities between these two movies are few, but I completely believe that Kung Fury is the surreal, drug-induced satire that The Interview wanted to be. Albeit, the purpose of Kung Fury is to mock movie tropes of the 1980s, the over-the-top-methods in which either movie goes about attempting to murder world leaders are both just as ridiculous as one would expect them to be.
Kung Fury may have a plot just as ridiculous as The Interview, but the liberties Kung Fury takes with its story are much more flexible and, therefore, much more watchable. Kung Fury understands that it’s premise is impossible and, therefore, disregards any real kind of logic that may hinder the story, unlike The Interview, which proposed maybe too much logic and, therefore, spoiled some of the humor of the film.
Kung Fury is 30 minutes of profound and random hilarity from start to finish. While The Interview struggled to find balance between highbrow and lowbrow humor, I absolutely believe Kung Fury fully understands how ridiculous its premise is and runs with it.
I would recommend this movie to anyone who is looking for something that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Kaitlyn McGarvey is a freshman studying journalism. What did you think of The Interview? Email her at km451814@ohio.edu or tweet @McGarveyKaitlyn.
