GKIDS Pick Up North American Rights To MFKZ (AKA Mutafukaz)
MFKZ is a collaboration between France's Ankama and Japan's Studio 4°C. Based on a French comic series by Guillaume "Run" Renard, it's co-directed by Renard and Shoujirou Nishimi. The original comics mashed up influences from Western (particularly American) and Eastern sources, so it's a natural fit for an international production like this.
Long time readers will probably recognize this is the film that has previously screened under the title of Mutafukaz and has been on our radar since the first teaser appeared, more than three years ago.
GKIDS have acquired the North American rights to the film, and will lease it in select theaters this October. It will screen both in the original French-language version and with a brand new English dub.
It features Angelino, a deadbeat living in Dark Meat City, who acquires mysterious powers following a scooter accident.
Genre-mashup MFKZ is the love-child of French comic artist Guillaume "Run" Renard and ultra-hip Japanese animation house Studio 4°C, creators of Tekkonkinkreet, Genius Party and Mind Game. The Tekkonkinkreet dream team of Shoujirou Nishimi and art director Shinji Kimura reunite to bring to life a dark but stunningly animated sci-fi vision that mixes anime, film noir, Lucha Libre, and gang culture in an orgy of first-person shooter mayhem. The film centers on young Angelino and his skull-and-flame pal Vinny, who live in a seedy tenement in an LA-inspired dystopian metropolis - a burnt-out, gang and cockroach-ridden neo-urban hell that makes Blade Runner's LA seem like The Brady Bunch. Following a scooter accident Angelino starts experiencing migraines and strange hallucinations, as well as fits of rage-inspired superpowers, as he slowly awakens to the truth of his origins: he is half human and half Macho, a supernatural alien race that is bent on taking over the planet.
A website has been launched where you can sign up for updates. Specific release details will be announced at a later date.
