When German / Japanese / Ghanaian co-production African Kung Fu Nazis was released in 2021, Starburst described it as “90 minutes of bizarre, offbeat, goofy, low-budget madness”. The film’s success in Japan lead to fans calling for a sequel, and writer / director / actor Sebastian Stein has quickly obliged. Hitler might have been defeated at the end of the first film, but he’s back for more insanity in African Kung Fu Nazis II, and this time he’s a robot – check out the brand new trailer below, and read on for a preview of our AKFNII interview that will appear in the next print issue of Starburst!
Starburst caught up with Adolf himself for a longer feature that will appear in print in Issue 488, but here’s a sneak preview of what to expect when #488 arrives in late November.
Starburst: Where did the idea for African Kung Fu Nazis come from?
Sebastian Stein: When I was 20 I did a super-amateur movie called “The German Techno DJ Adolf Hitler”, and it was kind of underground, super stupid, Hitler in a bra and stuff and dancing naked and whatever to crappy techno music…
…When I have a hangover I usually go on very long walks. I was on one of those walks and I remembered an article about a guy who randomly appeared in a Nigerian movie, and I thought “man, I wish I could do something like that”. I don’t know why, but kung fu also came into my head, and then I thought “African kung fu Nazis, hahaha, stupid title”. I was just walking around, kind of hung over, laughing to myself and then it dawned on me, nobody’s going to do that movie, you have to do that movie. I was jobless at that point anyway and I thought yeah, why not?
Was AFKNII easier to make than Part 1?
In part 1, most of the CGI was done by Ninja-Man, and part 2 was the same story. But at some point it got really slow, so I said “what’s the problem Ninja-Man?” and he said the power was cutting out all the time… I went to Ninja’s house and we edited together, and I postponed my flight more and more because I wanted to finish the movie… Then the hard drive broke… And then I had to go home before we were finished…
There were lots of pop culture references and homages in AKFN1. Did you include similar things in Part 2?
Almost every sentence is from somewhere, it’s just changed a little bit. And everything has a meaning. There’s so much stuff in there. People who know, they know. Even if you don’t catch up on it, it’s still fine, but people who do catch up on it will think “ohh what the fuck, did they really do that?! I don’t know man, maybe they did!”
When can people expect to see AKFNII?
There’s currently a second crowdfunding campaign, but only in Japan because the main fans are there. We’ll have a pre-premiere, so we’re going to sell the pre-premiere tickets on that crowdfunding, and it’s going to be on October 27th, shortly after my birthday. And we’re going to have five showings in two days – three showings in Tokyo and two showings in Osaka a week after.
We’re looking for a distributor in the UK… For Part II we already have an existing fan base and the title alone with the right marketing will always be a winner. Love it or hate it, if you hear something like “African Kun Fu Nazis”, you will get curious and want to know what the hell this is!
African Kung Fu Nazis (Part 1) can be rented or bought on Youtube, Google TV, Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Stay tuned for further news on Part 2’s release!
