Dinosaurs, Nazis and David Hasselhoff: how Kung Fury became a YouTube hit

Kung Fury, a deranged homage to Eighties action movies crowdfunded by a Swedish director called David Sandberg, has been released on YouTube.

The film, billed as an over-the-top time-travel movie, features Sandberg as a kung-fu aficionado and cop known as Kung Fury. 

After his friend is assassinated by kung-fu master and international criminal Adolf Hitler (yes, that one), Kung Fury travels back in time to Nazi Germany to alter history and kill the “Kung Führer”.

The film is an outrageous half-hour mash-up of all things cult and Eighties: buddy cop dramas, arcade machines, brick phones, and a talking car called Hoff9000 – a throwback to the TV show Knight Rider, which ran from 1982-1986. The star of that show, David Hasselhoff, even features in the Hoff9000's interface. Hasselhoff, who enjoyed musical success in the Eighties as well as TV fame, also recorded the film's title track, True Believer. 

For good measure, the movie also features dinosaurs, kung-fu Nazis and a slew of special effects. You can watch the film in full below, but be warned: it contains strong language and gory violence throughout.

Sandberg first uploaded a two-minute trailer for the film in 2013, which has since racked up more than 10 million views.

Sandberg and his team filmed a lot of the content on a shoestring budget, before embarking on a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to complete the post-production phase, as many of the film’s settings had to be built digitally.

With an original target of $200,000 (£131,000), the film to this point has raised over $630,000 (£412,000) from more than 17,000 worldwide backers.

Some backers pledged thousands of dollars, and were rewarded with production credits and roles in the film.

With this initial success, Sandberg and Co have set themselves another goal: if the project raises $1,000,000 (£654,000), the team will approach distributors and work to adapt the film into a feature-length production.