We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hungyu Kuo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hungyu, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Hungyu Henry Kuo formed a film production company, Angels Near Death LLC, in 2024 because he has always been passionate about filmmaking. He will soon debut his feature film, Angels Near Death, in Hollywood. Nothing is more meaningful than improving the world by doing something he loves. For over one hundred years, films have educated people, entertained the crowd, and driven social changes. Moreover, films have helped him escape from bitter reality, altered his thinking, and given him a unique outlet to express himself. If the medium of film had never existed, Kuo would not have become who he is now.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hungyu Henry Kuo, born in Taoyuan, Taiwan, spent his formative years in Kaohsiung. While studying Linguistics and English literature at the National Kaohsiung Normal University, he created short films and plays, including “Overact,” a musical that debuted at Kaohsiung Cultural Center in 2019. Following his acceptance to the New York Film Academy, Kuo moved to Burbank, California, in 2022. There, he wrote, directed, and produced two short films, “Resurrection” and “Turn,” symbolizing the beginning of his professional career in filmmaking. In 2024, Kuo plans to bring his directorial debut, “Angels Near Death,” to life and change the world.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

We all need to die a few times to live a good life. We are often destroyed by ourselves, our friends, lovers, families, or the universe but reborn from the light at the end of darkness. Yes, movies have saved us. Hungyu Henry Kuo’s film Angels Near Death aims to bridge the gap between reality and dreams and encourage you to live your life to the fullest. His thirst for making the movie is to catch you like an angel when you fall off the brink of despair.

Angels Near Death is a love letter to movies and a suicide note to the current film industry. Once upon a time, Hollywood told great stories that grew with me. However, remakes, shoddy horror movies, and filmmakers who have no shame exploiting women, LGBTQ+, African Americans, and Asians to win awards are now all over the place. To bring the dark ages to an end, Kuo has decided to make Angels Near Death to inspire people with its originality, entertain the crowd with daily absurdity, and warm you with a big hug when he still has the chance.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Angels Near Death tells stories of fools living in “La La Land.” They laugh, cry, and fear life like you and I. With a nonlinear narrative like “Pulp Fiction,” we establish the complexity of interpersonal relationships between six eccentric characters and celebrate the unexpected in our daily routines. To construct a world constantly shifting between the living world and the afterlife, we follow the steps of surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. His work, “The Holy Mountain,” is the most prominent reference for building our illusions.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hungyuhenrykuo.com/angels-near-death-english
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelsneardeathfilm/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelsneardeath
• Other: https://seedandspark.com/fund/angels-near-death#story

Image Credits

Hungyu Kuo, Yijia Sun, Ian Chen