International Festival Premiere | In Competition
Taiwan, 2026, 127’, Mandarin, Taiwanese
Directed by: Giddens Ko
Screenplay: Giddens Ko
Cinematography (color): Chou Yi-hsien
Editing: Chen Chun-hung
Production Design: Dato Wang
Music: Chris Hou
Producers: Lu Wei-chun, Giddens Ko
Cast: Kai Ko (Yuen), Berant Zhu (Yi), Gingle Wang (Jing), Leon Dai (Huang Jun), Liu Kuan-ting (Lan Jin), Yen Yi-wen (Madam Speaker), Tseng Wan-ting (Jing’s mom), Kao Ying-hsuan (Goat), Esther Huang (Flower Cat)
Date of First Release in Territory: February 13th, 2026
Instead of comic books, generations of youths in the Chinese-speaking world grew up reading wuxia novels by writers such as Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng and Gu Long. Mixing history with martial arts, fantasy and melodrama, these gripping tales of chivalry, patriotism, romance and the constant battle to attain supreme power could beat any American superhero comic.
One of those die-hard fans is Giddens Ko, the novelist-turned-filmmaker best known for blending his rich imagination with genre-pushing ideas and irreverent humour. In 2001, Ko released his novel
Kung Fu online
as his love letter to the wuxia genre. When he became a filmmaker, Ko was so eager to adapt
Kung Fu into a film that in 2013 he invested NT$4 million (US$125,000) of his own money to make a teaser trailer, announcing it as the follow-up to his 2011 blockbuster
You Are the Apple of My Eye.
Budgetary and technological restraints meant that Ko could not fulfil that promise until 2025, when he finally made
Kung Fu as his fifth feature film with a NT$300 million (US$9.38 million) budget – incredibly high for a small market like Taiwan. As the title suggests,
Kung Fu has wuxia blood coursing through its veins, but the story starts out as a typical comic book origin story: Teenagers Yuen (longtime Giddens collaborator Kai Ko) and Yi (Berant Zhu) are losers who are kicked around by everyone in their lives. When they help a hobo named Huang Jun (Leon Dai) one night, Huang returns the favour by offering to teach them superpower-esque martial arts in the name of upholding justice and righteousness. After Huang proves his power by blowing a hole in the wall of Yuen’s room, the two teens take up the offer. The boys’ classmate Jing (Gingle Wang) even joins in, and a small martial arts clan is formed.
At this point,
Kung Fu would have been perfectly adequate as a wuxia film disguised as a fun comic book-esque superhero film, especially when Yuen and Yi become vigilantes to take down a drug trafficking operation run by a corrupt legislator. Ko has a ton of fun referencing his favourite wuxia literature, Hong Kong wuxia films and TV series (cheesy levitating swords included), and even Pili, the Taiwanese puppetry troupe that specialises in making Taiwanese-language wuxia TV series. Channeling the spirit of Stephen Chow’s films, Ko mixes broad slapstick humour with fantastical action spectacle (impressively rendered with computer graphics) and intense emotional beats that include brutal violence delivered by a villain who can slice people into pieces with his fingers.
However, Ko takes a dark third-act twist that subverts the genre and questions the entire concept of superpowers. The twist is not easy to swallow for those expecting an escapist comic book film, but it cleverly puts everything that came before – including a tongue-in-cheek flashback that even includes the human-sized condor from TV adaptations of Jin Yong’s
The Return of the Condor Heroes – into perspective. Ko elevates
Kung Fu from mere pastiche, creating an ode to his favourite genre that is also unmistakably a Giddens story with ambitious and unexpected ideas.
After making four films of different types, Ko now shows that he has matured considerably as a filmmaker with
Kung Fu, juggling different genres, tonal shifts and action with confidence. It seems like a blessing in disguise that Ko waited a decade to make
Kung Fu, because he has now proven that he can be both an imaginative storyteller and a cinematic showman.
Giddens Ko
Since releasing his first novel online in 2000, Giddens Ko has been one of the most successful Taiwanese novelists of his generation. After making his directorial debut with a segment of omnibus film L-O-V-E (2009), he adapted his semi-autobiographical novel into You Are the Apple of My Eye (2011), which earned four Golden Horse nominations. All five of his feature films are adaptations of his literary work.
FILMOGRAPHY
2011 – You Are the Apple of My Eye
2017 – Mon Mon Mon MONSTERS
2021 – Till We Meet Again
2023 – Miss Shampoo
2026 – Kung Fu