Four years ago now we found out about an insane sounding short film titled Kung Fury, which was seeking to raise money via a Kickstarter crowdfunded campaign. Nearly 18,000 backers ended up pledging over $630,000 to the project, which was $430,000 more than the filmmakers behind the short were seeking.

The amount raised gives you a great idea of how popular the over-the-top project was, and that popularity carried over to the ridiculously entertaining final product. Now the next step in the journey of Kung Fury, a feature-length sequel, has added a star as Academy Award nominee Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Steve Jobs, Prometheus) has joined the film.

Fassbender joins David Sandberg, who wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the original short, on the cast. Also set to star in the sequel: none other than non-Academy Award nominee David Hasselhoff. If you’ve seen the short, you know why this is.

If you’re unfamiliar with Kung Fury, here’s a description of the short film:

ABOUT:

KUNG FURY is an over-the-top action comedy written and directed by David Sandberg. The movie features: arcade-robots, dinosaurs, nazis, vikings, norse gods, mutants and a super kung fu-cop called Kung Fury, all wrapped up in an ’80s style action packed adventure.

Kung Fury takes place in a variety of exotic locations: 1980s Miami, Asgard and Germany in the 1940s, to name a few. With a limited budget to work with, we had to solve this by shooting most of the scenes against a greenscreen backdrop.

Kung Fury was funded mainly through a Kickstarter campaign, where people from all around the world showed their support for this crazy project. David worked on the film for a more than a year with almost no budget but a strong vision, with the help of friends and family.

And here’s a synopsis for the sequel:

SYNOPSIS:

It’s 1985, the best year ever. Miami is kept safe under the watchful eye of Kung Fury, the greatest damn cop of all time. Kung Fury’s Thundercops are the ultimate police force assembled from across history to defeat the villainous Kung Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. After the tragic death of a Thundercop causes the group to disband, a mysterious villain emerges from the shadows to aid in the Fuhrer’s quest to attain the ultimate weapon. Kung Fury must travel through space and time itself to save his friends, defend the prestigious Miami Kung Fu Academy, and defeat evil once and for all.

An official release date has not yet been set for the sequel, but production is expected to begin sometime this summer.

The original Kung Fury is only about 30 minutes long, and can be watched right here if you’ve never seen it.

[Source: The Tracking Board]

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