Streets of Myth

A live action web-series set in an alternate-universe, contemporary England where every neighbourhood is a fiefdom and every wrong look can end in blood.

WHY READ WHEN YOU COULD WATCH? SEE OUR PROOF-OF-CONCEPT SHORT FILM HERE!

At first glance, the Birmingham in Streets of Myth looks a lot like ours. The buildings look about right. The clothes are the same. The kids listen to hip-hop and hard rock. Birmingham's neighbourhoods are roughly the same too: Aston, Digbeth, Nechells, The Jewellery Quarter & more.

But instead of a city, they are a loose collection of gangs and petty rivalries, tied together and policed by the weakened and corrupt forces of The Crown. These gangs aren't quite like our gangs though. They don't have guns.

They have swords, spears and the ancient martial traditions of the Far East. Each neighbourhood has their own power structure, their own laws and their own fighting style.

The Streets of Myth are a place that lies at the intersection of DJ's and dim-maks, kings and graffiti, B-boys and bloodied swords.

 

It is defeat that you must learn to prepare for...

Han: We are all ready to win, just as we are born knowing only life. It is defeat that you must learn to prepare for.

Williams: I don’t waste my time with it. When it comes, I won’t even notice.

Han: Oh? How so?

Williams: I’ll be too busy looking gooood.
— Enter the Dragon

As you probably know...

...the Streets of Myth suffered defeat at the hands of Kickstarter in April and since then there's been a major slow down in activity, both from us and from you.

We've made some statements, predictions and casual remarks about upcoming Streets of Myth projects and, to be fair, we haven't delivered on that yet. I imagine you're all rolling your eyes now every time something shows up in your Facebook vaguely promising something totally new and awesome from us... I know that would be my reaction at this point.

But I stand by the vaguely positive things I've been muttering to myself and occasionally putting online:

Defeated doesn't mean dead.

If you are reading this right now it means you probably like kung-fu movies and if we've learned anything from those movies it's this:

Everyone gets beat sometime. The hero is the one who gets back up, trains harder and wins later.

We're moving slower than we want, sure, but we're not sleeping over here. I feel a responsibility to keep pushing forward on this project and, in the spare time that I have, I am.

I feel like it's not good enough though. I feel like I'm letting the Streets down a little bit, and I'd like to apologise for that.

The truth is, I have been working on a new script since about May. And I finished that script maybe a month ago. It's a ten page script for a Streets of Myth short film that I felt would have a more realistic budget for a new Kickstarter campaign. I sent that script to a few trusted collaborators. They have unanimously, and I think correctly, panned it. That's my confession I guess: It took me five months to write something a bit shit. It's not ALL shit, but I definitely need to rethink it and rewrite it before I put anything official out in to the world.

So it's back to the drawing board I guess. Back to the blank page and blinking cursor staring back at me, saying, "Give me your best shot, punk".

I don't know how long any of this is going to take. I don't know how many of you still give a shit. I don't know if this will EVER work.

But here's the thing: I don't care. I really really don't give a fuck if it takes another 50 years to make one film. I'm still going to do it.

I'm just going to have to train harder...

POLL: What's our next BRUM-FU screening?

Our October edition of Brum-Fu is coming up and we're trying to pick a film. We have been unable to settle the question with our fists, so we're leaving it up to you.

Which mythic star of China shall we get to next? We've already covered Gordon Liu, Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Jimmy Wang Yu. Now we're going to feast upon the awesome ass-kickery of...

Bruce Lee, Jet Li or Stephen Chow!

(Next month we'll do a ladies only edition: Cheng Pei-Pei, Angela Mao and Michelle Yeoh)

Anyway, each of them have a ton of amazing films to choose from, but we're going to narrow it down to...

fist of fury vs the japanese school.JPG


POLL: What do you want to see at BRUM-FU 3?

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD.

Brum-Fu has already screened films from directors Lau-Kar Leung & Yuen Woo-Ping and stars Gordon Liu & Jackie Chan. For July's Brum-Fu screening, we're moving on to Jackie's "big brother" Sammo Hung.

This time around, I'm giving you the final say as to what we screen. Your choices, in trailer form, are:

The Odd Couple. The best fight choreography of the three (and also, like EVER), particularly the weapons fights.

Director: Lau Kar Wing

The Prodigal Son. The overall best film of the three in that the story and characters are almost as compelling as the action. Widely considered one of the best, if not THE best, "traditional" kung-fu movie.

Sammo Hung's second great film about the art of Wing Chun. Starring Yuen Biao, the late great Lam Ching-Ying, Frankie Chan, Sammo Hung... directed by Sammo Hung

And finally The Magnificent Butcher. The most controversial and divisive of the bunch, but also the first collaboration of Sammo and Yuen Woo-Ping.

The Magnificent Butcher (1979) original trailer Director: Yuen Woo Ping Starring: Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Kwan Tak Hing, Lee Hoi Sang, Fung Hak On

 

So, what will it be folks?? Pick below!

 

UPDATE: Voting is closed. The Prodigal Son won in a landslide.

 

Brum-Fu Continues with a FREE SCREENING of Drunken Master!

All Peolpe of Myth local to Birmingham should make their way to Cherry Reds (88-90 John Bright Steeet, B1 1BN) on Sunday, June 8 at 2:00pm. That way, you can enjoy the fine cuisine and drinks of one of the city's most exciting new eateries while also gluing your eyeballs to one of Jackie Chan's early masterpieces. 

On top of that, you'll get to hear about the future of the Streets of Myth right from the cast and crew and even chime in with your own thoughts on what we should produce next.

Stay tuned as Cherry Reds & the Team of Myth want to make this a regular occurrence, probably once a month...

See you there!

 

Some mythic photos from our Action Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago, we put out the call to martial artists, trickers, dancers, etc. in the West Midlands to come and get free portraits of themselves doing what they do best.

We've started to put a few of these photos onto our Facebook page.

You can see two pics of Hailey Hutton here:

And two pics of Andrew Durnford here: