S. Worthen | Weblog

For years now, theengineer has been mentioning Kung Fu Fridays at the Royal, the second-run movie theater on College. He goes often, for there's more fun involved than just the movie: there're previews for Hong Kong action flicks that may or may not ever make it to North American, and there are drawings for random free movie-related stuff. C. had plans to go see the original Exorcist movie with irvinl and friends, and since I really don't like horror and suspense, I opted for a kung fu comedy instead.

After dinner at Urban Thai, where we ran into irvinl's housemate and passed on our greetings to her and C., we picked up movie tickets and a free raffle ticket apiece and went to find seats. Soon afterwards, some of the Serial Diner crowd joined us. The previews were all Steven Chow ones, the director of the movie we were about to see and, more importantly, Shaolin Soccer. (If you have not yet seen Shaolin Soccer: go see it! It's the happiest movie I've ever seen.)

Then there were six raffle drawings, most of which involved odd bobbleheads. I, however, was lucky, and didn't win a bobblehead - I won the "grand prize" of a copy of the movie we were about to see and a poster for Shaolin Soccer! I've never won anything in a raffle before, and this was a bonus one, free with movie ticket. I give theengineer credit for my win: he generously let me walk into the theater before him, thus giving me the winning ticket and him one off of it - he's been going for years and has never won anything.

The movie itself, Royal Tramp, was a parodic comedy, a kung fu comedy of errors. It was silly, mediocre as a movie, but fun enough that quality was secondary. There were plot twists and turns, human gymnastics, flight and fights and lavish costumes. The ending failed to resolve all the plotlines - clearly a sequel is called for. And best of all, there was no suspense.

If you're interested in seeing it, I have a copy.