Unarmed But Dangerous [2009]

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Phil Hobden: ‘Kung Fu Flid’ is very much a unique action film. What initially attracted you to the project? XL: When Frank Harper threw a hammer at Beau Baptiste - it was an amazing unplanned moment. It really freaked the art department as it nearly hit an antique silver platter, that they persuaded someone to lend us - apparently it was worth a fair bit.

To reach its aims, the study relies on qualitative methods that guarantee the necessary openness for irritations from the field and allow for conceptual modifications that render theoretically guided drafts of categories more adequate in view of the data. Qualitative content analysis combined with elements of discourse analysis has been chosen as the primary method. On the foundation of the understanding generated by this method, a non-positivistic sequence analysis that sheds light on the dynamics of political communication was conducted. The details of the methods and their methodological justification are described in the next section. The latter type would be exemplified by something like Charlie Band’s The Creeps(sorry to keep giving short actor examples, they’re just obvious ones that I know about). Phil Fondacaro is never, let’s face it, going to play Dracula. So what does he get to play in The Creeps? A very short Dracula. By the same token Mat Fraser, that bloke off that telly show who has those weird little arms, is clearly never going to play an action hero. Having said all that, the film does have some good points. The (adult) cast all acquit themselves well. Fraser is very good indeed although the stand-out performance is Dan Poole as the sadistic Gregor. Dusan Kmac’s cinematography is fine, as is Ismini Xekalaki’s production design. Fight directors Pete Morgan ( A Day of Violence) and Tony de Gale stage some realistically bloody and brutal fights. But none of that is enough to save this disappointing curiosity. These considerations can be condensed to the following assumptions. 1) Political communication in general is guided by the distinction of friend and enemy. 2) In populist communication this distinction appears as the difference of the people and allegedly corrupt elites, including news media. 3) Angst enhances social cohesion among the audiences of populist speakers either directly or mediated by fear. 4) Populist communication is more likely to produce a type of fear that populists benefit from when it depicts the elite as a diffuse category composed of various interlinked enemies. The news media are very likely to report and comment on such transgressions of norms, which provides Trump with additional attention. Clips of Trump’s behavior are repeatedly shown on television and shared on the Internet. News media may criticize what Trump does, but this does not determine how different audiences perceive and evaluate his actions, since media content is necessarily polysemic ( Barker 2001). The process of meaning making takes place on the listeners’ side ( Schmitz, 1994, Schmitz, 1998) and depends, among other things, on their characteristics, the reception context, and simultaneous and subsequent interactions. Some audiences may find a confirmation of Trump’s narrative that the media is “brutalizing” him when they see he is repeatedly criticized. Consequently, news media unwillingly provide Trump with a podium and facilitate his victimization. Provocations act as valuable tools of populist communication. Parallels to the criticism from the Democratic party may blur boundaries between journalists and Democrats in the eye of the beholder. Shared outrage about Trump’s use of “Kung flu,”“China virus,” etc. may lead some audiences to merge China, the “fake news,” and the “far-left” Democrats into one single category of enmity that threatens one’s standard of living, social prestige, and recognition.

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TS: The whole film in pre-production and when we were filming was funny and I did think to myself all the way through the process “I can’t believe that we are creating a film as off the wall as this!” The performance of fear as a medium of sociation is not so obvious although even Hobbes (1998) considers fear the means of state formation. Hobbes begins his “Leviathan” with an empiricist treatise on affects. Hobbes assumes that all humans share the same sensory equipment as well as related action tendencies. From this viewpoint, conflict arises because humans desire the same objects. This premise leads Hobbes to his conception of the state of nature in which homo homini lupus est. Hobbes’ state of nature subjects humans to a condition of perpetual fear of other humans. As a consequence, they use a considerable amount of their resources to protect themselves from each other. To Hobbes, perpetual fear combined with rational choice led humans to confer their innate, natural rights to a sovereign that governs human intercourse.

The current discordance and barriers of US political communication is symptomatic for the contemporary emotional climate of public communication in general. Seemingly unspectacular events provoke enormous public indignation. There is rising tension between the increasingly prominent imperative to be sensitized or “woke” regarding moral transgressions, particularly in language use and the resistance against it that considers this imperative the outcome of a “cancel culture.” The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.624643/full#supplementary-material Footnotes Terry Stone: I met Xavier Leret and Mat Fraser about 2 years ago and although when we first discussed the film I thought it was a totally insane concept and it took me 2 years to get my head around it, the more we discussed it the more I thought this would make an outrageous and ballsy film and I like to take risks and not just do what everyone else is doing. Now we are planning 2 more films to create the world's first Flid trilogy.Following Montesquieu, Simmel (1908) underscores that fear holds together states, i.e., enhances social cohesion. Although Simmel uses the German term “fürchten,” he does not refer to a tangible, present object the emotion is directed to but rather to a diffuse threat. In German, the latter is considered an antecedent of “Angst” rather than “Furcht” which is related to a concrete threat. Making an Independent film is often about standing out from the crowd. The best Indie films, films like ‘Pi’, ‘Clerks’, ‘Cube’ or ‘El Mariachi’ had that little something that no one else did. terms set in italics indicate that they are employed as a catachresis for a word of another language or speech community.

RK drafted the manuscript, designed the study and participated in each of its phases, and participated in the review and revision of the manuscript, and has approved the final manuscript to be published. Conflict of InterestIn that respect, it’s difficult to see how Kung Fu Flid can do anything except disappoint. It singularly fails to live up to its marketing yet it doesn’t actually go far enough to confound expectations. OOPS I nearly forgot. It's got Faye from Steps in too! Apart from showing more cleavage than a Hugh Hefner special, and accidentally dowsing herself in acid (Ouch) she doesn't demonstrate any talent for thespianism at all. No wonder, when the offer came for her old band to reunite, she accepted even before the question had been asked. So it seems only fair I should end with some topical gags now... This movie is such a Tragedy, Words Are Not Enough. You'll Be Sorry if you see it... It's Better Best Forgotten. Truth be told, this is not a great film. It’s a plot-by-numbers, which sees the thugs of English mob boss Barry (Harper) burst into the wrong apartment. By the time they leave, Barry’s son has been shot in the balls by Jimmie Lovett (Harper), the actual resident; Jimmie’s wife, Lu (Watkins) also has a gunshot wound; and the thugs have run off with their daughter, Lola. To skip a bit in the story – not least because the explanation offered is shaky on a number of points – Jimmie goes after his daughter, while Barry goes after Jimmie.