It’s a common reaction to the words “air guitar competition”: WHY?!

But David Jung, the 2003 air guitar world champion, says to watch “Air Guitar Nation” and it’ll all make sense.

Sort of.   

Directed by Alexandra Lipsitz, the documentary follows Jung and his competitors through intense rounds of invisible instrument glory at the U.S. Air Guitar Championships and, ultimately, the World Air Guitar Championships in Finland. Think “Spinal Tap” meets ”Zoolander.” And yet, this is no parody.

What is air guitar? You might’ve played it as a teen in your bedroom, while cranking up AC/DC on your stereo. Air guitarists don’t need strings, plugs or, well, guitars to perform like rock stars.    

 “It’s airness,” says Jung, a.k.a. C-Diddy, when asked what it takes to win. “And I can’t really explain that.”

These days, Jung, 35, is strumming to a different tune. He’s hung up his signature Hello Kitty breastplate and tucked away those dragon-print spandex pants. Although he’s retired from the art form (or competitive sport or whatever it is), the ex-New Yorker still carries the same unabashed sense of humor and thirst for fame. (“What? I didn’t make the cover of KoreAm? Let me guess. I got booted for that Daniel Dae Kim guy,” he grumbles.)

We chatted with the actor and screenwriter, who has a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about the documentary, his “Asian fury,” and what he’s got in the works.

 

 

 

Do you think “Air Guitar Nation,” which opens this month in New York and Los Angeles, allows audiences to see the real you?

For the documentary, one very deliberate decision I made was to let David Jung be more visible. I was in this strange mélange of circumstances: an air guitar competition in a very remote Scandinavian country. Before going to Finland, I was kind of playing along with the joke. When I got to Finland, the joke was kind of on me. And people started to empathize with me. The audience is taken on this ride. We’re all taken on this bizarre trip.

 

 

Your parents were featured quite a bit in the documentary. Did they need some coaxing or were they pretty comfortable with it?   

It took some time for them to trust Alex[andra]. They were kind of nervous. Having cameras around can be very unnerving if you haven’t dealt with them. But when we got to the championships in Finland, they were so excited. That’s when the whole Korean thing kicked in. They were really worried that I was going to lose. They were like, “You will not shame our family.” In short, they were trying to say, “Try not to be too much of an asshole.”

 

 

In the documentary, you mention that you’re bringing “Asian fury” to the competition. What does that mean?