Martial arts movies aren’t as prevalent as they were during their rise to international fame in the 1970s, but the 2020s have proven the genre is far from dead. From the absurd Best Picture-winning sci-fi action-comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once to the brutal The Raid spiritual successor, The Furious, and gun-fu’s bloody crescendo, John Wick: Chapter 4, filmmakers from across the industry have made this an era of creative and thrilling features honoring and iterating on what came before. We Are Not Alone director Fergal Costello is now looking to deliver his own riotous spin on the genre with Kung Fu Deadly, a comedic supernatural action-adventure starring popular YouTuber and actor Steven He. Ahead of its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, Collider can exclusively share a new image of He fighting through the pain during a deadly battle.
Kung Fu Deadly revolves around two inseparable friends — Danny (He) and Frank (Michael Tient) — trying to get by in Dublin while running their rinky-dink pest control company. Everything changes, however, when they stumble upon a gang of Chinese criminals trying to resurrect a Jiangshi, and the Taoist guardian who’s trying to thwart their evil scheme. Upon meeting, Lien immediately deduces that Danny is meant to be the other guardian fighting alongside her because of his lineage. While Danny has remained completely unaware of this truth and hasn’t spent a moment of his life training for such a duty, he’s now struck at a crossroads, forced to choose between his current blissful tedium and saving the world. Fortunately, he and Frank have plenty of bumbling experience in extermination.
Killing vermin and vanquishing evil beings may be similar in principle, but are far apart in practice. Our exclusive still sees Danny struggling to hone the kung fu skills needed to combat the supernatural threats and the criminals he’ll come across. He’s seen battling Min Chun (Fiona Xie) wielding two sai, holding one of her strikes back with a staff while desperately gripping the other blade with his hand. It’s clear he’s not quite the fighter his fellow guardian is, but he’s not alone, at least. Kung Fu Deadly is, at its heart, billed as a positive story about the power of friendship against the backdrop of a funny martial arts movie made by creatives with serious experience creating stylish action.
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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
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🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
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01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
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02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
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04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
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05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
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07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
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08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
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09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
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10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
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Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
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Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
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John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
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Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
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‘Kung Fu Deadly’ Is Full of Martial Arts Veterans
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Accompanying Costello behind the camera is action director Lee Huang, known for his work designing and coordinating stunts for Netflix’s cult favorite Warrior Nun series, as well as The Matrix: Resurrections and countless other projects. The set was packed with veteran stunt performers as well to ensure that, even if humor and heart were front and center, Kung Fu Deadly would still offer worthwhile action to match. The cast of up-and-coming stars also includes Gemma Chua-Tran, who is part of the cast of the much-anticipated live-action Gundam movie with Sydney Sweeney and Noah Centineo, as Danny’s fellow guardian Lien, alongside A Thousand Blows‘ Jason Tobin and Mortal Kombat II‘s Max Huang. Paul Markey and Paddy McDonald, meanwhile, penned the script.
Kung Fu Deadly is set to world premiere at Fantastic Fest, which will be held at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas from September 17 through 24. Check out our exclusive image above and stay tuned here at Collider for further sneak peeks at some of the most exciting entries heading to the genre festival this year. More information on all the film and episode projects can be found on the official film guide.
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