KUNG-FU MASTER!
1987 | dir: Agnès Varda | 80 min
NEW 2K RESTORATION!
A lovely, bittersweet companion to JANE B. PAR AGNÈS V. from director Agnes Varda and star/muse Jane Birkin, KUNG-FU MASTER has nothing to do with martial arts – the film’s title comes from an arcade video game played obsessively in the film by a teenaged boy, Julien. Birkin delivers one of her finest performances as a lonely 40-year old woman who finds herself shattering taboos by falling in love with the 14-year old Julien – but is it romance, or a desperate attempt to turn back time in the face of middle age?
KUNG-FU MASTER is truly a family affair: Varda’s son with the late director Jacques Demy, Mathieu Demy, plays Julien – and Birkin appears here with her two real-life daughters: Charlotte Gainsbourg (from Lars von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA) and Lou Doillon, her child with well-known filmmaker Jacques Doillon. Briefly released in the late 1980s in the U.S. and long unavailable here, KUNG-FU MASTER has been beautifully restored from the original 35mm camera negative. “It’s a film in which all the younger actors are the children of the director and lead actress” says Varda. “It was like a picnic, you know?”
IN THEATERS
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Sept 3-4, 9-20, & 26-27, 2015 | Time & Space Limited | Hudson, NY | get ’em |
Sept 21, 2015 | Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar | Austin, TX | get ’em |
Sept 25, 26, & 28, 2015 | Northwest Film Center | Portland, OR | get ’em |
Oct 9, 2015 | Avon Theatre Film Center | Stamford, CT | get ’em |
Oct 10, 2015 | Wexner Center for the Arts | Columbus, OH | get ’em |
Oct 16-22, 2015 | Lincoln Plaza Cinemas | New York, NY | get ’em |
Oct 17-18, 2015 | Texas Theater | Dallas, TX | get ’em |
Oct 19, 2015 | The Nickelodeon | Columbia, SC | get ’em |
Nov 2-6, 2015 | Northwest Film Forum | Seattle, WA | get ’em |
Nov 13-19, 2015 | Royal Movie Theater | Los Angeles, CA | get ’em |
Nov 13, 2015 | PhilaMOCA | Philadelphia, PA | get ’em |
Nov 14, 2015 | Cinematheque, University of Wisconsin | Madison, WI | get ’em |
Jan 31 & Feb 5, 2016 | Film Society Lincoln Center | New York, NY | get ’em |
Feb 20 & 23, 2016 | Chicago Filmmakers | Chicago, IL | get ’em |