Local Kung Fu

[GeneChing]

95,000 Rs = $1691 USD. I remember converting traveler’s checks in India and walking out with a fat wad of bills, like too fat to hold in one hand fat, and those were all big bills.

‘Local Kung Fu’: A martial art film made with Rs 95,000
PTI | 02:07 PM,Jul 22,2012

Zafri Mudasser Nofil New Delhi, July 22 (PTI) IIT-Delhi dropout Kenny Basumatary’s basic know-how to choreograph, shoot and edit fights involving actual martial artists encouraged him to make a proper martial arts film with the help of family and friends and a shoe-string budget of Rs 95,000. Indie filmmakers often rue limited funds but Basumatary, who hails from Assam and played the role of an assistant superintendent of police in Dibakar Banerjee’s “Shanghai”, was confident from the beginning about his film “Local Kung Fu”. "I wanted to make a film no one else could have made, preferably a popular entertainer, and I had the resources at hand, so why not. “By the time I’d decided to make ‘Local Kung Fu’, I’d already made about 10-12 short films and music videos, including 5-6 fight videos. So I was confident that we would be able to pull off a full-length feature film, with the help of my family and friends,” Basumatary told PTI. On choosing kung fu as the theme of his film, he says, “India doesn’t have a single proper martial arts film. There are good filmmakers and good martial artists, but no one’s combined the two. I wouldn’t call myself a good filmmaker, but I had enough basic know-how to choreograph, shoot and edit fights involving actual martial artists.” (MORE)

[GeneChing]

More on Local Kung Fu

An odd one - who here might see this first?

Local Kung Fu : A kick-ass film. Literally.
By Amborish Roychoudhury | Friday, July 27th, 2012

It was the early 1980s. My uncle took me to watch this new English film that had just reached Guwahati and making waves already.

Urvashi Cinema Hall at Fancybazar back then, was nothing less than a multiplex by todays standards. Fulmama (umm, affectionate term for maternal uncle) and his friends were pretty excited to watch this action film. Initially, I was underwhelmed. The movie starred this lanky, Chinese fellow who mumbled his dialogues and looked too decent to, you know, fight. A few more minutes, and my jaw dropped this guy didnt seem to have any bones in his body, and he made whupping bad guys look like Sanjeev Kapoor making Maggie 2-minute-noodles (bad example, I know, but you get the drift). Was I hooked! The movie was Enter The Dragon, and the guy was named Bruce Lee.

I wasnt the only one fascinated by martial arts films, or as they were called then Karate films. Bollywood, being a fast learner as always, quickly threw up film after film, in the 70s-80s with heroes doing Karate which basically constituted our protagonist bending forward his torso about 45 degrees, spreading his hands like wings and making poses, accompanied by some appropriate hoo-ha! noises. Over the years, some did it better than others. Our dear Akki did a verrry good job of this posing to his credit, he was trained in Taekwondo and Muay Thai but we could catch precious little of that on screen.

And so, when I heard a few months back that a young first-time filmmaker had made Indias first true-blue Martial Arts-based action film, my first reaction was to smirk and quickly forget all about it. Some days later, Kenny Basumatary posted the trailer of his new film Local Kung Fu on Facebook. I had to check it out, since I knew Kenny as a discerning film-buff who wrote for PassionForCinema.com, a now-defunct hangout of film lovers and aspiring film makers, and also the fact that he hailed from Guwahati, my home-town. I saw the trailer. Getting hit with a brick on the face would have caused a lesser shock. It had some kick-ass action sequences, all of them as true to technique and style as the Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films of yore. And whats more, it managed to be funny, with some hilarious moments. I saw the trailer again. And again. I hated that I couldnt get to see the film right away.

As fate would have it (love that line!), in a few weeks, I was sitting in a suburban studio, watching the film. I couldnt remember the last time I was this engrossed and involved with a movie biting my proverbial nails at some scenes, laughing my heart out at others. The story was rather simple. Charlie is a simple guy whos trying his best to woo his lady-loves parents and sister (Ah, that takes rolling quite a few papads, you must be thinking). But his luck and his tummy keep letting him down. Charlies passion is learning Martial Arts, and he seems quite adept. His would-be father-in-law gets in trouble with some shady characters they rough him up. When they threaten his girl, Charlie must intervene. But theres a problem you see the ring-leader, Dulu, is a crack at Martial Arts, probably a notch better than Charlie! This is where the adventure begins Charlie must fight to protect his honor, his girlfriend, and his bad tummy. Yes, its as crazy as it sounds.

Throughout this film youll meet a host of colorful characters, especially the most vibrant, somewhat cute and motley crew of bad guys youll ever see in todays cinema. Watch out for Bonzo, the no. 1 under-18 Don, you wont forget that one in a while. Dulu, the baddie, is as rotten as they come, but a man of honor nevertheless. Hed rough up innocent people for money, but also disciplines his brothers with a cane when they go astray. Tansen, his aptly-named side-kick, beside practicing kicks and punches, also keeps up his riyaaz of Hindustani Classical, much to Dulus chagrin. Kenny does a commendable job as the equally unsure-of-himself but at-times-****y Charlie.

But soul of the film is the Martial Arts. One gets to see some dizzying action sequences at times it totally seems like people are kicking each other for real. Kenny tells me the style employed in the film is close to Wing Chun, an ancient form of Martial Arts depicted in the 2008 film Ip Man and its sequel, Ip Man 2 (2010). The action is fast-paced, pulsating and real. The Great American Rope Trick, which is behind many a Hollywood flying kick, thankfully hasnt been used here more by choice than by compulsion. Kenny is a big time Martial Arts enthusiast, his passion for it almost equaling his love for cinema, as is evident from the scores of practice and combat videos that hes uploaded on his YouTube Channel.

One might think all this action makes the mood a bit sombre. No sir. Local Kung Fu is full of the kind of scenes which you remember much later, when youre back home doing something else, and laugh like crazy! Theres one chase sequence during the climax that is unique in the history of cinema no ****.

After seeing the film, one finds it quite unbelievable that this quaint, delightful film was made with all of Rs. 95,000. Thats interesting, considering most of the scenes were of sterling production quality, with some decent performances and breath-taking action. More power to Kenny Basumatary and those like him.

If you are in Delhi, you can catch Local Kung Fu this Saturday (July 28), 9:45 AM, at .

[GeneChing]

Sounds cute

I just poached the previous two posts off our Bollywood KF thread.

Kenny Basumatary | Everybody loves kung fu fighting
An Assamese kung fu romcom releases in PVR this week
Sanjukta Sharma
First Published: Mon, Sep 23 2013. 06 18 PM IST

A still from ‘Local Kung Fu’

Kenny Basumatary’s Local Kung Fu looks almost like a Dogme 95 film without intending to—real locations, home video-like candidness, a fluid camera and without any technical gloss. The two Danish directors, Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, created this film-making manifesto in 1995, which made technology and special effects redundant in film-making. It was a canonical development at that time and its stress on story-telling, acting and theme over budgets made many film-makers around the world accept it and practice it. Of course, with the digital revolution, the Dogme aesthetic has almost become routine.

When Basumatary decided to shoot his martial arts film with a budget below Rs.1 crore, he was unfazed by the lack of technology accessible to him. He had been shooting kung fu videos since childhood, and this was like an extension of that practice. The Assamese film has been screened at festivals within India and will be released this week in Assam as well as 12 screens outside of Assam, including Mumbai and Bangalore, as a PVR Director’s Rare release. Durlov Baruah, founder of Kuhipaat Communications and Technology Pvt. Ltd, a brand management and film promotion agency, is promoting the film across India. “Releasing the movie in Assam was a complicated experience. Assamese movies have not been doing well; the number of halls have reduced from around 120 to around 40. Distributors are not confident with the failure of big movies like Jahnu Barua’s Baandhon. So we are meeting all the exhibitors and people with high social quotient to promote this movie.”

Local Kung Fu is a heartwarming and hilarious film. The cast does not have known actors and it has been shot entirely in the outdoors in Guwahati or inside recognizably Assamese households. A love story becomes a pivot for rivalry between two gangs of boys on the streets of a Guwahati neighbourhood. The kung fu action punctuates the slapstick chaos, and through its characters, the film reveals a sense of hopelessness and frustration among the state’s youth.
Baruah says, “There may or may not be a serious martial arts following in terms of boys and girls going out for martial arts classes regularly, but every boy in the North-East enjoys a martial arts movie.”

In this interview, the 32-year-old director, Mumbai-based Basumatary, author of the book Chocolate_Guitar_Momos, musician and an actor (he plays the lead role in Local Kung Fu and acted in the role of a police officer in Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai), talks about his adventures in kung fu and film-making. Edited excerpts:

Why a kung fu movie?

I had to make a film sooner or later. But I was too lazy to go around looking for someone who’d trust me with a few crores. So I decided to make a zero-budget romcom and wrote the script for what eventually became my debut novel
After that I thought of making a martial arts film instead because I already had the main resources at home: An uncle who’s been teaching martial arts for 20 years and his students. We’d already been making small fight videos. I figured if we made six fights and strung them together in an entertaining story, we would have a full feature on our hands. So we set forth.

Is there a serious martial arts/kung fu following in Assam?

I can’t say for now but when I was a teenager, pretty much every other boy tried a few kicks at some point in his life—in small towns especially.

Tell me about the Deoris, they make up 99% of the cast. Are they a family?

Yes, they are my mother’s family. I don’t know how my mother herself escaped being cast (laughs).

How did you work in this film? Did you have a script or storyboard? The acting seems improvised on set.

Yes, we worked with a script. We made changes along the way depending on real-time situations, ideas or gags that people came up with, etc. For eg, the #1 Under 18 Don song is Bonzo’s (an actor in the film) own composition. He sang and played it to me on the phone one day. I laughed long and hard and found a way to put it in the film.

And we rehearsed a lot. Comic timing needs practice. Of course, one also needs to find a balance between rehearsing and letting the actor peak at the right moment.

We didn’t have professional storyboards but after a few days of shooting I started drawing stick figures which only I could understand. They helped our efficiency a lot. For the fights, we made very detailed shot lists, because we wanted the fights to be completely tight, with every punch and kick connecting properly.

Although it is such a slapdash comedy, I found it to be about the hopelessness and frustration of youth. Was that something you had in mind while writing it?
I can’t speak for the youth of Assam. What the film does have is elements of my anger at certain social evils, but let out in a comic, rather than a preachy manner.

Local Kung Fu releases in select PVR theatres on 27 September.

[GeneChing]

more on Local

I’m interested in seeing this now.

Updated: September 25, 2013 20:19 IST
Theres Kung Fu in the air
BHUMIKA K.

Special Arrangement The actors, all Kung Fu students, did all the action, no cables attached.

Get a taste of Kung Fu flavoured with the essence of Assam. Debutant director Kenny Basumatary talks about how his film, Local Kung Fu, is all local and at its special-effects-free best

These are normal podgy guys fighting in their jeans, tracksuits, sweatshirts, hoodies, barefoot, with sports shoes, fighting in courtyards, in grasslands. They execute some swift kicks, and then theres slow motion to add to the impact. There are kicks, punches, long lunges in the air. A big toe pops up on screen and the camera follows the foot to the grumpy man whos shoved up his leg in a Kung Fu pose, all ready to strike. Theres a guy fallen on the ground, beaten, bursting out into a beautiful musical note with his eyes closed. Heres a girl threatening a boy that shell have him kidnapped by her boyfriend and thrown away in the jungles of Singapore!

Anyone whos watched the trailer of Local Kung Fu should have been stirred enough by curiosity to see whats in store. After all, its being pitted as Indias first martial arts comedy. The film, in Assamese and Hindi, is being released with English subtitles. It premiered at Osians-Cinefan Film Festival (the largest festival for Asian and Arab cinema) and had a repeat show on public demand, and also showed at the International Digital Film Festival in Mumbai.

But why choose to label the film local? Pretty much everything in the film is local it was shot in Guwahati, the cast and crew is made up of local people, mostly my friends and family. We also wanted to communicate this is not a big-budget endeavour. Its like local fruits and vegetables, laughs the films writer-director Kenny Basumatary, in a telephonic interview. The average age of the Local Kung Fu team was about 31 years, and some were even in their early 20s, says Kenny. His uncle, (perhaps the only member of the cast in his mid-50s), is a Kung Fu coach in Assam and it was his band of students who star in the movie, along with their guru. Theres a special appearance in the film by Kennys grandfather.

Local Kung Fu was shot over a period of 100 days on a Canon digital camera for Rs. 95,000. I was too lazy to go knocking on producers doors. Moreover, I knew I would have to make the film on my own. It would be too much to expect someone to put about three crore rupees on a first-time director. offers the self-deprecating Kenny. All the action is real, and rehearsed theres no cables suspending the fighters, no special effects to prop them up. For indoor scenes, we had three 200-watt bulbs!

Kenny learnt Kung Fu for two years. You cant make a film without knowing the subject in great detail. All films that are genuine, are those that take you into another world like The Hurt Locker, Rocket Singh. Youll know the nuances. You have to be on the same page. He talks of current trends in Hollywood action films where the camera is moving around so much you cant see anything. You have five cuts in one secondMy gripe with Batman films is that you cant see whos hitting whom! We knew our techniques, we decided we will shoot in a proper way. We were not looking at blowing up cars and buildings, he says of the way he chose to make Local Kung Fu. He rates Haywire and Jack Reacher as good real action films.

Movies like In Search of A Midnight Kiss, El Mariachi, The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project inspired us to make a film along similar lines, says Kenny. Obviously Jackie Chan, and Undisputed 2 and Undisputed 3, were primary influences. The tone of the film is very much Jackie Chan neither completely funny nor completely action. I like entertaining people. I like hearing people laugh. Even my debut novel Chocolate_Guitar_Momos was like that. I was not a popular kid in school so I want to make up for it now, he laughs.

Kennys been in the Hindi film industry for about five years now, after he quit IIT-Delhi midway. I told my family about it over the phone, he pauses. Hes done about 10 to 12 ads, a few roles here and there, the role of a police inspector in Shanghai, and a 15-second role in Phata Poster Nikla Hero. I hope to do work like Danny Denzongpa, he says. He attended a scripting lab in 2008/09 where his script (a different one) made it to the top six and was supposed to be produced; the entire project was shelved. But the fact that my script was selected gave me some encouragement, says the cheery Kenny.

Its not just about being from the north east. If you dont have a film background, if youre not a Khan or a Kapoor, or have the North Indian muscular look, it can be tough, he says of getting an acting break in Bollywood. His parents are both state government employees. Lets see how it works in the field of direction!

The story of Assam, where Kenny hails from, doesnt seem too different from the rest of the country when it comes to cinemas a lot of theatres have closed down. Multiplexes are there in the three of the bigger cities. There are about 40 to 50 Assamese films made every year, and only a handful are good. Jahnu Barua is our best filmmaker. Growing up, we watched pretty much everything Assamese films, rarely! In college it was the usual Hollywood fare, and Hindi films also. Every Friday I would bunk class to watch movies. There are a whole lot of young people who want to be part of the industry in Assam but its not economically viable. We have only about five TV channels. Were not a huge population. And its the same with films.

Local Kung Fu releases though PVR Directors Rare tomorrow.

India’s gets its first martial arts comedy Local Kung Fu
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 24, 2013, 12:44

New Delhi: Jackie Chan once explored comedy within the action genre and won the hearts of millions. Now India is attempting a similar feat, starting off with a humble beginning.

This week, the country will get its first own full-blown martial arts comedy in the form of Kenny Basumatarys Assamese feature film Local Kung Fu which boasts of some fabulously choreographed action sequences amidst rip-roaring humour.

Whats more! This is one of the most inexpensive action films ever made, with a budget less than a lakh of rupees! The films team neither had a great budget nor the need to use trickery-like wires etc to execute their fights. All the fighters of Local Kung Fu are genuine martial artists whove trained for several years.

Kenny Basumatary has not only written and directed the film, but also plays the main protagonist along with other cast comprising Utkal Hazowary, Sangeeta Nair, Bonny Deori, Bibhash Sinha, Ronnie Deori, Johny Deori and AS Deori.

Come September 27 and Local Kung Fu will release in seven prominent cities in the country with English subtitles for audiences outside Assam. The film will be screened by PVR in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Chennai, apart from an independent release in Assam.
First Published: Tuesday, September 24, 2013, 12:44