IIT Dropout Makes Slick Kung Fu Film For A Mere $2,000

In dream town Mumbai, full of struggling filmmakers waiting for that one chance, Kenny stands out. Instead of waiting, he learnt and gave himself a chance making a film that is perhaps India’s best Kung Fu comedy film. What will shock you, is that he has made the film for a paltry Rs. 95,000 (USD2,000).

Meet 29 year old Delhi IIT dropout Kenny Deori Basumatary, writer of the novel ‘Chocolate Guitar Momos’ that is fast rising in the Indian bestsellers list and screenwriter, actor and director of the aptly titled  film ‘Local Kung Fu’.

Kenny is still doing the final post production of the film but he showed IANS a rough cut.

The martial arts in this shoe-string budget film is surprisingly and unbelievably good. It literally has the looks of a film usually 100 times the budget (check out trailer below to believe it for yourself). 

Two men stare menacingly at each other before rushing in, flying through the air and landing each other a kick that throws them scrambling on the ground. Such well executed fight scenes are part of any average Chinese Kung-fu film, or high budget Hollywood flicks. But think of India, and you’ll draw a blank.

“India does not really have real martial arts films, we only have stunt films. There’s a difference. A true martial arts film will look and feel real, like those of Jackie Chan,” says Kenny before adding, “And what this needs is not necessarily big budgets, but good martial artists.”

Martial art films are the hardest to shoot. A 90 minute film ideally requires 15-20 minutes of action. To decently shoot a minute of action takes over a day. To make an hour and a half long action film for 95,000, thus seems impossible.

Kenny tells of his journey. “After a successful but abandoned screen writing apprentice program sponsored by a Mumbai corporate, I decided not to wait any longer for someone else to give me my lucky break. Since I had shot videos previously, I started toying with the idea of a low budget film,” Kenny, who will next be seen acting in Dibakar Banerjee’s ‘Shanghai’ says.  

He heard about the Canon 550D still camera, which was like, he says, “the younger brother of Canon 7D on which Anurag Kashyap was shooting a feature film. I already had locally available talent – my uncle’s Kung Fu students.”

Kenny’s maternal uncle, back in his home state of Assam, is a Kung Fu instructor. For ‘Local Kung Fu’ he used the students from his school who were also his friends since they had learned martial arts together.

Everyone you see in the film, even the deadly looking martial arts fighter seemingly straight out of a Jackie Chan film, were friends and family. “I worked everything out to the last detail on paper and night after night we’d choreograph and practice our action scenes,” Kenny says. It took him over 100 shooting days to make the film. Of the 95,000 budget, Rs. 60,000 went on the camera and lens while the rest went for travel, food and a token payments for the actors.

There have been other super low budget Indian films like the psychological thriller “The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project” made for Rs. 40,000. Yet, an action film requires time, effort, coordination and bigger budget. Hence to see such a good martial arts film that is also funny and made on a shoe-string budget by a debutante seems like an impossible miracle. A look at the trailer available on YouTube will give you a glimpse of how well this impossibility has become real.

Just like his modest film, Kenny is a modest man. “I did what I set out to achieve. I try not to have high hopes, but the very positive reactions of the few people who have seen ‘Local Kung Fu’ has been encouraging,” he says. He hopes to show the film to production houses and see whether a deal can be worked out. If not, he says he’ll put the films for free viewing on YouTube, on Torrents for free download etc. “It didn’t cost me much money, but I don’t underestimate its long-term value either,” he says.

Super low budget but good films like ‘Local Kung Fu’, begs to ask the question: is another cinematic revolution in the making in India, of low budget but well made films where talented people won’t have to wait for that one elusive Bollywood chance? Or is Kenny’s film a rare exception. We’ll know in due course of time.