Monday 30 November 2009

2012

This weekend I’ve been to the cinema in China for the first time. I’ve been to the cinema in Taiwan, and there I was almost the only one in the cinema and I was definitely the only one laughing at the jokes of the movie.


However last Friday the cinema was packed with people just like every other place in China seems to be. (Although here in Xiamen we are very lucky to have a few empty spots.) We were lucky to have a Chinese friend buying the tickets a few hours in advance for an even cheaper price, cause I’m quite sure that if we would have had to buy the tickets at the cinema, they would have been sold out. A second advantage was, that buying the tickets this way was about half the price of buying them straight from the ticket office at the cinema.


The movie we watched was 2012, which is for the people who never heard of it, a disaster movie, like “The day after tomorrow”. Since this was the only thing I knew about the movie before watching, and that I really didn't like The day after tomorrow, my expectations were very low.


Probably because of my low expectations and because I haven’t seen an action movie like this in long time I liked it a lot. The special effects were over the top and there was even room for some humor at times. Of course it was a very unrealistic movie, in one scene they escaped from an earthquake in L.A. by flying through 3 collapsing buildings. But it looked very spectacular. Though I have to admit that I would probably not like the movie if I didn’t see it in the cinema. The cinema itself was quite big with comfortable chairs and even a lot of leg space. The screen was very big and the sound was very loud, which was exactly how it should be for this movie.


Another thing which was interesting, is that China played an important role in this movie. Yes, the scriptwriters in Hollywood really looked into the developments around the world. So the end of the world is discovered by an Indian scientist in India, and the solution of this problem lies in China, in Tibet to be precise (Which makes me wonder if I saw a censored version of the movie.) Under the excuse of building a dam, the Chinese have build a massive spaceship in Tibet, which is like the Arc of Noah in the movie. However the heroes of the story remain Americans. The American president for example didn’t join the Arc because he wanted to stand by the American people until the end, needless to say that we didn’t got to see a Chinese president showing the same empathy with his people. Apart from that I’m pretty sure that Obama wouldn’t have done the same thing in reality.


The movie also tried to show the difference between the rich and poor in today’s world by having a big role for a Russian billionaire who bought himself into the Arc of Noah, while the Indian scientist, who discovered it all, is not even picked up at all. The other rich people who bought themselves in seemed to be Arabians (Muslims). The Europeans had a very limited role (just like in reality?)


All in all it was nice to go to a Chinese cinema and to see a real Hollywood action movie. I will probably go again. Finally, I will fly back to Holland the 29th of January, and will stay for almost 3 weeks in Holland.