Kung Faux is an international action comedy television series and audiovisual art assemblage created by Mic Neumann, an American creator–developer showrunner, conceptual artist and multimedia entrepreneur, who remixes classic kung fu films with popular music and comic book style editing along with video game style visual effects and new storylines featuring voice acting by contemporary art stars, hip hop personalities, and pop culture icons.
History
Kung Faux was first created as an art project turned movie treatment in the late 90's before transforming into a half-hour television series by Kung Faux creator, producer, director and cultural engineer Michael "Mic" Neumann in 1999. Neumann described the creative process as treating original films like a DJ treats records, sampling the melting pot of music and demixing pop culture to assemble new collisions of sounds and palettes. The series incorporates creative elements from classic video games and comic book culture–namely, with superimposed text and supernatural embellishments, edited in a cut-and-paste style reminiscent of hip-hop production techniques, creating coherent audiovisual samples that together tell a cohesive story using overlaid video transitions that add thrilling punctuation to the densely layered musical soundtrack and inspired voice-over dubbing loaded with regional slang and cultural references.
Kung Faux first appeared publicly as a narrative collection of video art film stills derived from the series that exhibited at the original Ace Hotel alongside the works of such artists as Kaws and Shepard Fairey in 1999, while short video clips from the series also streamed on the websites Popdetail.com, Dubtitled.com and Heavy.com as video treatments for a larger proposed sequential art project and feature length film version of the Kung Faux concept, before then repurposing its comprehensive remix formula in 2001 to transform Kung Faux into an episodic format for television that first aired in 2003 as part of the inaugural launch of the Fuse music television channel in the United States, formerly known as MuchMusic USA, and a subsidiary of Rainbow Media's AMC Networks. From there, Mic Neumann continued to repurpose, revision, remix and transform Kung Faux into a distinctive audiovisual artwork and brand that has evolved through various forms and channels to over 150+ countries worldwide.
Reception
"Kung Faux is many things, but first and foremost, it is hilarious. Irreverent modern concerns collided with serious '70s martial art sensibilities", wrote Conor Herbert in a featured article titled "An Ode to Kung Faux – The Show That Married Martial Arts and Hip-Hop". "Kung Faux creator and postmodern revisionist Mic Neumann, has an offering worthy of the postmodernism canon, alongside Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend and Luis Buñuel's Chien Andalou", reported Steve Johnston of The Film Cynics. The author Vincent LoBrutto called Kung Faux "a clever amalgam of kung fu movies and pop culture" in his book titled TV in the USA: A History of Icons, Idols & Ideas. Rashaun Hall of Billboard considered the mix of vintage kung-fu film footage, voice-overs with rappers, comic book style special effects, and a hip-hop soundtrack to be "a high-flying, hilarious send-up of the kung-fu genre." Evan Serpick, editor of Entertainment Weekly said the first two episodes of Kung Faux "are filled with hysterical and clever infusions". The Orlando Sentinels Matthew Mark said "Kung Faux is a work of postmodernism that would make Jacques Derrida's head spin." Muzik editor Conor W. McNicholas included Kung Faux in the magazine's Special Edition "Hot 50" issue, calling it "Comedy Gold" and Beth Accomando, the Arts and Culture reporter for KPBS (TV), said Kung Faux is "Hilarious, Fresh and Inspired".
Releases
Kung Faux series soundtrack music and voice acting roles were performed by such artists as De La Soul, Guru, Masta Ace, Queen Latifah, Biz Markie, Afrika Bambaataa, Eminem, Kaws, Eli Janney, Craig Wedren, Steve Powers, Aida Ruilova, Mark Ronson, Helena Christensen, Crazy Legs, Willi Ninja, Information Society, Elephant Man, Jean Grae, Mr. Len, Lord Sear, Roc Raida, Sadat X, Indo G, Ron Van Clief, Harold Hunter, Dimitri from Paris, Above The Law, MF Doom, Quasimoto, Mix Master Mike, Beastie Boys, Petter, Scribe, P-Money, Curse, Gentleman, Assassin, Fannypack, Grooverider, Stetsasonic, Force MDs, and Naughty by Nature.