Live High, Die Nasty

The Dynasty, as some of you may know, is the venue of choice for the Movie Night bunch for films deemed... questionablein terms of quality.

With the exception (at  my insistence) of I Corrupt All Cops, all Wong Jing films are viewed at The Dynasty.

Any and all Alex Fong/Stephy movies as well.

Sex and Chopsticks was a no-brainer. Part 1 and2.

Opening night.

Bothnights.

My dad keeps sheep at his house in New Hampshire. He also has two donkeys. To protect the sheep from coyotes. They'regreat . But even both of them together don't hold a candle to Winnie Leung's ass.Disclaimer: You don't want people saying (strenuously positive) things about your ass, don't have it projected 15 feet high on a screen in a movie called Sex and Chopsticks. But thank you very, very much for doing itIt's all love...We watched Dragonball: Evolution at the Dynasty.

You get the idea.Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the place and go whenever I can.The Dynasty is great.The movies are only HK$45. You can talk back to the movie and no one cares.

You can bring your own beer and fish skins.

You can probably bring your own fish, but we usually eatbefore the movie, not during.

Hell, you can smokein there. I've seen it numerous times, but the place is so big and empty you don't even smell it.

Of course, people talk on the phone too.

But then againthey 're not the ones screaming obscenities atDragonball , so fair is fair.

I've heard countless phone conversations in there, and more than a few of them go like this:

"Hello?... Nothin', watchin' a movie... No, it sucks... Dinner?... Yeah, why not... [to friends] F@#$ this movie, let's go eat..."

And they get up and leave.

We used to wonder how the place could stay open. It's huge, it's off the beaten path, and it's usually empty.

Each  theatre (there's two) holds around 900 people. At most, I've only seen it 10% full.Usually, there's less than 30 people in there. Sometimes there's no more than 12, counting us (7 people) andthe ushers.

How the heck can it hang on so long?

I've heard (from several people) that it's a collection point for 'protection' money in the area.

It makes absolute sense:

You collect, let's say HK$20,000 a day from the, uh, 'perverse economy.'

Which is good money for protecting people.

From yourself.

But that's dirtymoney. How do we explain it's existence?

No problem.

At $45 a ticket, $20,000 translates to 444 people a day who could watch the films you're screening.You could do twice that much with one screening in one theatre.There's at least 5 screenings a day all told. It's a cash business. Anonymous people show up, buy tickets, and 90 minutes later disappear forever.

At the end of the day, there's a pile of money and (theoretically) a couple thousand happy moviegoers somewhere out there (except the people who watched Ocean Flame, but I digress...) who you can't prove (or disprove) were there. And they're not coming back any time soon to answer questions.Unless its the old guys watching the 10:00 AM Category III movies;they'll be back tomorrow. But they'd probably decline being questioned... The theatre has the potential to pull in over HK$400,000 a day as explainablemoney with virtually nothing to show for it.

"That's why I have this money, officer..."

Presto change-o. 

This money is so fresh and clean... it's like it's been... laundered.

We've lately taken to calling the place the Die Nasty.

Not because of the setting, but because of the movies it shows.

It's where, except for a scheduling problem, we would have seen that Taiwanese slasher flick with the former Japanese AV star who could star in a pornographic remake of a children's fable called Hump Her Dumper.

So the nastypart was basically self-evident, but we didn't realize we were being prescient about death! I got an email from Kevin "The Golden Rock" Ma today about a bit of local news:【本報訊】一名懷疑索 K少年，昨午被發現昏倒旺角豪華戲院大堂，由職員協助報警，將他送院治理，警方調查事件原因。

在戲院暈倒少年 18歲姓胡，昨下午 5時，胡獨自進入旺角道 4號的豪華戲院。現場消息指，當時胡步履蹣跚，鼻孔沾有粉末，他行近 1號窗口位，似打算購買戲票，但扶着欄邊未及言語即不支倒地。##口吐白沫

職員見狀上前援手，拍打他但未有反應， 於是報警求助。警方接報到場，發現姓胡少年半昏迷，口吐白沫，救護員檢查見他有呼吸脈搏，懷疑他曾索 K，因受藥物影響以致神志不清。警方搜查他身上物品，並沒有撿獲違禁品，警方將案件列有人暈倒處理，事主被送廣華醫院治理。警方跟進調查事件。 From: http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/template/apple/artmain.php?issid=20090707&secid=4104&artid=12960776 Kevin (or 'K-Jai' as I now will call him...) provided a synopsis for me since the only Chinese I can read is "exit" and "shoot down airplanes":"An 18-year old named Wu collapsed at the lobby of the Dynasty Theater around 5pm on the 6th. He arrived at the theater, stumbling, with powder on his nose. As he walked up to box office #1, he collapsed on the ground. Police were called; when they arrived, he was spewing foam and was disoriented, but they didn't find any illegal substance on him. They suspect that he snorted ketamine. He was taken to the hospital." I give young Mr. Wu credit; anyone who getsthat f@#$ed up before sundown has drive.

  These photos tell the world how caring and sensitive the local papparazzi are. Pictures like this are illegalin the US.I like how his phone is still by his hand.never would have happened.Don't ask how I know that, just take my word for it.I've drunk alot of cough syrup at the Dynasty.It doesn't say what movie he was going to see, but he had a choice of Transformers 2, Invitation Only, and Short of Love, all of which are currently showing.

Although I haven't seen it (I have to wait for those monkeys to come flying out of my @ss), I'd like to hope he was going to see Transformers 2.

I've seen the other two, and I personally would probably enjoy Transformersthe most out of the three if I were high as a giraffe ass.

If he's lucky, young Mr. Wu has had the sh*t scared out of him and he'll leave that ignorant garbage alone for, oh, the rest of his nearly tossed-away life.

As I noted in my blog about returning to my hometown, I've watched a significant number of my friends get hurt, f@#$ed, and killed by drugs.  Nobody needs that crap, and there's (almost) nothing funny about it.

Would it be unforgivably wrong of me to want to re-create this photo using myself and a bottle of cough syrup the next time we're there?Hey, I did say 'almost.'