F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b

Yes, you read it right. Local, Kung-Fu, Rs 95,000, martial arts and a comedy! So over to the film’s lead actor, writer and director Kenny Basumatary, who tells us more about it. The trailer of the film is also attached. Have a look and give your feedback in the comments section.

Ten or eleven years ago, I went to Siri Fort Auditorium to watch Paanch. Anurag Kashyap, Kay Kay Menon and Tejaswini Kolhapuri were present, and I could see that Anurag was visibly thrilled about the first public screening of his debut film. Now, in 2012, my debut film, Local Kung Fu, is being premiered at the same place, and to add to all the excitement, in the same category as Anurag’s own Gangs of Wasseypur 2. I’m thrilled to bits!

We shot Local Kung Fu on a budget of Rs 95,000, inclusive of a Canon 550D, a 55-250mm lens, a Rode VideoMic and various shooting and fighting paraphernalia.

I think that for getting somewhere, one needs to reach the Bohot ho gaya *$#&@# point. One needs to be really tired of waiting for things to happen, and then go out and bloody well make ‘em happen. I reached my first Bohot ho gaya point towards the end of the Sankalan Script Lab, when my script Ek Plate Kung Fu might have made it from the top 6 to the top 3 were it not that a nice little film called Chandni Chowk To China came out and made a mess of things. But never mind that.

The next Bohot ho gaya point came when a wannabe producer/hero with negligible fighting skills came to my uncle, who teaches martial arts, wanting him to act in his film. I said okay, that’s it! If this chap can try to make a martial arts film, what on earth’s stopping me! By then we had already made about a dozen shorts, including 5-6 fight videos, and we’d gained a reasonable amount of knowledge and confidence about choreographing, shooting and editing fights.

I made a list of resources: which family members and friends were good actors, which of uncle’s students were good fighters and could get bashed up convincingly as well, which places we could stage our fights in without too much trouble and whose homes we could use as locations. We wove all these into a compact little script. It’s rather surprising now when I look back – that all those ideas and possibilities I’d written down have been distilled into a seemingly simple plot. At the time, I was wondering how on earth we could bind all these strands together.

And one more thing I’ve realized is that we really do try to do too much in our first efforts. The script was 90 pages, in anticipation of a 100-105 minute film, but the addition of a few really good improvisations and the duration of the fights took the initial run time to about 2 hours 10 min. After lots of cutting and whittling and showing friends, I’ve boiled it down to 92 minutes.

When we started out, we were just thinking of an online release. Thanks to the encouragement of friends, we’re now looking at the possibility of a theatrical run as well. Hopefully, things will work out just fine. For now, excitement and nervousness are building up as I head for Osian’s.

(Local Kung Fu is having its World Premiere at Osian’s Cinefan on Saturday 28^th July at 10 AM. Entry is free, but to avoid the last-minute rush, one should register online)

– For more info on the film, visit its Facebook page here.