Short films are an interesting bunch. I tend not to review short films because there is only so much you can pack into one of these things. A run time of 4-30 minutes doesn’t give you a lot of time to tell a really compelling story. That’s really not my field of expertise. It doesn’t mean I don’t watch them. I do, I just like to be able to talk about these things in depth. Short films generally don’t offer a lot of depth. It’s the nature of the beast. That being said, I have seen quite a few that are surprisingly compelling. Not necessarily in the story department, mind you, but in everything else. Sometimes that’s all that is needed. What I have for you today is a bad-ass short film called Kid Fury. Jino Kang, of Weapon of Choice, plays a mobster that’s looking for a box that hides a mysterious object. One of his students has found it and brought it to him. Unbeknownst to him, but knownst to us, the student was followed by a kid played by Timothy Mah. Demanding that the mobster return the box, the kid takes on the entire school. For a short film like this, that’s all we need.
It really doesn’t take long for the ass-kicking to start. I love it. The fight choreography by Master Kang is truly something to behold. It hits surprisingly hard. The students do their flips and kicks, and it’s spectacular. When it comes to martial arts movies, I prefer the movies where they don’t use wires. Don’t get me wrong, wires have their place in certain sub-genres, but for something like Kid Fury, it would seem way out of place. Thankfully, everything you see here is done for real and without wires. The humor is spot on as well, and it’s provided largely by Master Kang himself. He’s clearly having fun playing a bad guy. His reaction when his students are getting whooped by Timothy Mah is hilarious. Honestly, I wish more bad guys had this kind of smart-ass attitude.
The cinematography for this film is interesting. I really like the whole black-and-white motif. It gives it a little bit of a noir-ish feel. You can see the fight scenes and the moves, which is fantastic. One of the things I thought was cool, was when Master Kang’s character opened the box and it gave off a gold light. Somebody clearly watched Pulp Fiction. It was a very cool throwback. I can’t wait to see more from Timothy Mah. This kid’s got some serious moves. His fight against Master Kang’s character is probably one of the coolest fight scenes I’ve seen in a long time. If there’s one real nitpick I have with Kid Fury, is that it ended. You ever watch something so cool, that when it ends, you want to see more? That’s what I got with this. I wanted more, and apparently it’s the first in a short film series. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. Honestly, I think Jino Kang needs to be taken seriously as a fight choreographer. I think I’m going to watch this again. And again. And again.