On Kung Fu Cult Cinema

As I sit here chugging coffee and listening to Geto Boys, naturally my mind starts to drift toward thoughts of Kung Fu Cult Cinema. Not the genre specifically, but the website of olde that covered everything related to Asian flicks, however remote. It’s where I got my start writing and, like many things born and raised online, it’s now floating in a ghoulish shipyard with other similarly abandoned ephemera.

KFCC’s front page circa 2007
I wouldn’t necessarily say the collective level of writing on KFCC was “excellent”—mine certainly wasn’t—but the site fostered a strong sense of community over the course of its existence, such that even when I was long separated from the actual work, I was bummed when it slammed down its virtual shutters for good. I did a lot of work on that site, and it also gave me my first significant taste of “getting free shit,” which can be a strong motivator when you’re a young, broke college student.

What makes KFCC more than just a footnote in my so-far relatively brief and kind of weird career as a writer is the frankly astounding amount of my life—both in terms of work and friendships—that have their origin rooted there. It’s a veritable rogues gallery I’m tellin’ ya*, and that’s just scratching the surface of people who have had a great effect on my life in some way since meeting them via KFCC.

There’s also the not insignificant fact that, well, the entirety of my work since has come as a result of writing for free about this stuff on that very site. It seems like an eternity ago now, but I once took the opportunity to interview this dude some of you may know about both PULP and this little book he wrote, Tokyoscope. Because of this bold meeting of the minds Patrick has been my editor-slash-wise-but-unfortunately-not-bearded-mentor in some capacity since ~2004.

Unfortunately one can only access KFCC now via waybackmachine, which is far from ideal. In fact, it’s downright pointless. However, in the interest of “keeping the dream alive,” I’m going to dig up and post some of my reviews on this blog; not because they’re great writing samples, but because the movies themselves are awesome. I also hold the power to slightly alter them in subtle ways so as not to make myself look like a huge idiot. Stay tuned.

*if I didn’t link you here, it’s probably because I don’t know what the hell site you have anymore, if any!