# Kung Fury Kung Fury is a Swedish short film written and directed by David Sandberg, released free on YouTube on May 28, 2015, that parodies 1980s cop movies with time travel, dinosaurs, and a kung fu cop who punches his way through Nazi Germany to fight Hitler. Funded by a runaway Kickstarter campaign, the 30-minute film racked up 10 million views in its first four days and spawned one of the defining viral video events of 2015. ## Origin David Sandberg, a Swedish visual effects artist and music video director, shot early Kung Fury footage himself before turning to crowdfunding. In December 2013 he launched a Kickstarter campaign, using the material he had already filmed to cut a trailer that would sell the concept to backers[3]. Sandberg had also been posting production stills and updates to Reddit, building a small audience for the project ahead of the campaign[3]. The Kickstarter trailer was uploaded to YouTube, where it drew millions of views and pushed the campaign well past its original $200,000 goal[3]. By the time funding closed, more than 17,000 backers had pledged over $680,000 to finish the film[2]. - **Platform:** Kickstarter (funding) / YouTube (viral spread) - **Creator:** David Sandberg - **Date:** 2015 ## Overview Kung Fury is a 30-minute short film built as a love letter to (and send-up of) 1980s action cinema, jamming kung fu cops, hackers, Vikings, Nazis, arcade robots and time travel into one absurd run time[1]. The title character is a Miami police officer in 1985 who gains supernatural martial arts powers and travels back to World War II to assassinate Adolf Hitler, who has rebranded himself as the "Kung Fuhrer"[2]. The tone leans hard into VHS-era kitsch, complete with tracking lines, synthwave scoring and deliberately overcooked dialogue. Alongside protagonist Kung Fury there is a triceratops partner named Triceracop, a Thor cameo, and a music-video interlude built around David Hasselhoff performing the film's theme song[2]. The whole project came out of Swedish writer-director David Sandberg's own YouTube channel, Laser Unicorns[1]. ## How It Spread After a Cannes Film Festival screening earlier in the month, Kung Fury dropped free on YouTube on May 28, 2015, and hit more than 10 million views within four days[1]. Vanity Fair ran a launch write-up under the headline calling it "the best movie ever," pointing to the Hasselhoff soundtrack cut "True Survivor" as a key hook[2]. The rollout was staged. On April 16, 2015, Laser Unicorns began releasing teaser videos, starting with the "True Survivor" music video featuring Hasselhoff, which pulled in more than 14 million views by June 2015[3]. Reddit was a major amplifier throughout: an /r/movies thread announcing the film's arrival scored 5,342 points at 94% upvoted, and Sandberg later ran an AMA on the same subreddit as "Kung Fury"[3]. Coverage in outlets like Vox and Vanity Fair framed the short as a case study in how a Kickstarter-funded passion project could turn into a full-blown internet event, comparing its pop-culture-stuffed appeal to Adult Swim's "Too Many Cooks"[1][2]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Kung Fury? Kung Fury is a 30-minute Swedish short film released free on YouTube in May 2015 that parodies 1980s action movies with a kung fu cop who time-travels to fight Hitler[1]. ### Where did Kung Fury come from? Writer-director David Sandberg made it through his Laser Unicorns YouTube channel, funding production with a 2013 Kickstarter campaign that raised over $680,000[2][3]. ### What does Kung Fury mean? The name refers to both the film and its protagonist, a Miami cop who gains supernatural kung fu powers and battles Adolf Hitler, rebranded as the "Kung Fuhrer"[1]. ### How do you use Kung Fury? It circulates as a shareable YouTube short and reference point for 80s pastiche, with the Hasselhoff-fronted "True Survivor" music video passing 14 million views as its most-quoted piece[3]. ### Is Kung Fury still popular? It is a classic viral short of 2015, remembered for its Kickstarter run and YouTube launch that drew 10 million views in four days rather than for ongoing new content[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8712471/kung-fury]() 2. [https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/kung-fury-movie]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/kung-fury]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO_DIwuGBnA]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/kung-fury Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library