As if all that weren't enough to rouse interest from the geek community, now the successful Kickstarter project is getting a boost in the form of this amazing music video for Kung Fury's theme song "True Survivor" by '80s icon David Hasselhoff.
"True Survivor" is the ultimate homage to the decade of excess, featuring Hasselhoff belting out a power anthem that would be right at home during a training montage in Rocky, The Karate Kid, or just about any buddy cop movie from the '80s. The Hoff rocks a wind-blown mullet, fingerless leather gloves, a sweet leather Kung Fury jacket (emblazoned with a Cobra), and performs the driving track in front of one of the most prized automotive machines of the '80s - the Lamborghini Countache.
In addition, the video features classic '80s videography and all the familiar tropes of the MTV era like keytars, smoke, explosions, cheesy transition effects, and dramatic slow-motion. Of course, clips from Kung Fury are interspliced throughout, and it all ends with Hasselhoff and star David Sabdberg riding off into the sunset on a screeching Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The video has quickly gone viral, and comment threads are loaded with shocked people wondering if it's actually Hasselhoff singing "True Survivor," or expressing their disbelief in his vocal talent. Despite the doubt, it is indeed Hasselhoff on the recording, and fans shouldn't be surprised in the least by The Hoff's pipes.
After Knight Rider went off the air in 1986, Hasselhoff found massive success as a pop singer in Germany and Austria in 1989, scoring a #1 hit with "Looking For Freedom." He then went on to play the title role in the Broadway musical Jekyll & Hyde in 2000, and the lead in a London version of Chicago for three months in 2004. And who could possibly forget the tongue-in-cheek music video for his track "Jump In My Car" from 2006, co-starring the black Pontiac Trans-Am with pulsing LED lights in the grill known as K.I.T.T.?
As for Kung Fury itself, writer/director David Sandberg and his Laser Unicorns production team crowdfunded the project through Kickstarter, raising over $630,000 since December 2013. The flick, which also stars Sandberg as the titular kung-fu master/bad boy cop, is an all-out tribute to the over the top martial arts and cop movies that flooded action cinema throughout the 1980s, like Cobra, Gymkata, American Ninja, and others.
Currently, there is no concrete release date in place for Kung Fury, but according to the film's official website, The Laser Unicorns team hopes to have the film ready for screenings by May 22 or 29 of 2015. Until then, we'll all just have this incredible '80s video to hold us over while we wait for our fix of giant norse gods falling from the sky, arcade machines transforming into robots, cops standing on the roofs of lamborghinis shooting up street thugs, and the ultimate martial arts showdown with the Kung-Fuhrer himself.
Stay tuned for more news on Kung-Fury.