Hoax?


I declare shenanigans as I have a strong scent of BS that this is real. Some of the dialogue is too good and funny to be true. As is the character development and reveals which have a whiff of script writing about it.

Either way, if it is real or a mockumentary, it is still quite entertaining stuff.

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i'm about to download on torrent. it looks legit

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That's the best time to decide, before you have illegally downloaded it. You could also have shared your opinion of the movie, and what you liked about it, on your OP.

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It's real as far as I can tell. Watch it with the directors commentary & it gives the film credibility. The people who helped him make Blood Fight (The big swinger & the guy that did the music) are on it & only help to make me think that this was actually real. Check out the commentary & the deleted scenes for a funny story about witches.

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I definitely got a sense that it was faked too. The only person who seems real or even remotely sane is Linda. But hey fact is stranger than fiction, right? Unfortunately this could be 100% real.

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It seems to be verified real http://dorkshelf.com/2014/11/07/interview-matthew-bauckman-jaret-belliveau/. I thought it was on my viewing just now, wasn't until I hit IMDB that I even had to consider it was fake. Elliot reminded me too much of someone close that I know, I could read all the tells far earlier than the reveal. Felt so terrible for Linda, knowing what course the documentary was likely to take. Though I never expected it to escalate as much as it did (neither did the documentarians, per that interview), I can see the reasons why.

Holy hell did this film surprise though, even if this was some elaborate hoax....bravo.

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<SPOILERS>

The structure of this film reminds me of The Prestige, it works on multiple levels, and clearly some people don't make it past the first.

There are clues throughout the film, that distract your mind off what is really happening:
Clearly Elliot is full of *beep* from the start, his martial arts stance, the way he carries himself, kicks, are not those of someone who is much cop at kickboxing, let alone a champion. This is pretty obvious.

However, there are also jokes that display the comedy that the film really is:
You don't expend so much energy in making a film, and use a £100 digital camera to shoot it. The tripod looked pretty good, making the camera on top an amusing contrast :)
A 1/5 Japanese - heh, jokes hidden in plane sight.
The jumping out the window gag. Runs around and jumps out again. Like a Warner Bros cartoon of old.
Elliot ends up in Outer Mongolia - that is some 1970's kungfu flick ending right there :)

Perhaps the most obvious fakery are the excessive multiple camera angles and setups, not something you would expect from a unstaged documentary. It is unfortunate that this aspect was flawed, because the general acting is very believable. So more restrained editing could have helped this.

To the directors (and writers!) credit, they seem to be maintaining the pretence in interviews, and according to another poster on here also on the DVD commentary.

I watched this with my brother, and the bouncing back and forth of ideas probably helped clarify it in my mind, after 30 mins it was pretty clear what we were watching.

So, good fun, and a decent exercise in critical thinking.

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