It’s been more than a year and a half since martial arts and stunt wunderkind Andy Long set a new benchmark with his debut starring lead in director Hoang Phuc Nguyen’s action adventure, Luc Van Tien: KungFu Hustle. The film has already seen a few audiences outside Vietnam where it was release in January 2017 while not a word was mentioned on any movement toward acquisitions and sales that I knew of.
Fast forward to summer 2018 and with as much of an effort as it probably took for Long’s milestone segue into acting following a stellar path paved in independent action cinema and in the membership throes of film legend Jackie Chan. Thus, audiences as of next week in Las Vegas, Nevada will be the first bear witness this month at the Action On Film Megafest where the film will finally make its North American debut with seven nomimations to its credit.
Nguyen stars in the title role inspired by Vietnamese folklore and revamped for a modernized setting, about a kung fu warrior in search of his lost love and the hordes of thugs he’ll have to fight through to get to her. That’s as much as I know of the plot and judging by what Long expressed in our interview back in December 2016 while you can certainly expect a breadth of high caliber action to be shared on the screen featuring the likes of Andy Le, Brian Le and Du Au of Martial Club, and Felix and Lorenz Ruwwe of Young Masters among others.
That Luc Van Tien: KungFu Hustle is finally on deck for its U.S. premiere is a real miracle in a sense. Last when Long and I spoke he had his heart set on tweaking the sound quality a little more and I’ve long since pined for a chance to screen it. Of course it could take me longer since I live in New York City and there are certain rules Long has to abide by in terms of the film’s procession throughout the festival circuit.
In my view, this newest move to AOF should bring Long closer to having some form of U.S. distribution and with any luck, it won’t be some quiet, dimming rollout on VOD or Amazon Prime Video, though the chances of anything more ceremonial seems a bit slim; What it needs is a passionate distributor of these kinds of films and I really feel like Well Go USA would be a perfect home for such a title considering what they already market in the realm of Asian niche titles and especially with the talent on hand in Luc Van Tien: KungFu Hustle. It should be a shoe-in if no other distributors take interest — which they really ought to, but I’m curious as to who pays attention next.
The Action On Film MegaFest stretches ten days beginning on August 16. Visit the official website for more info!
