Squirk's Overseas Experience

The tales of one Kiwi returning to Mother Britain and exploring the Big Wide World... without being eaten by a shark.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Danish Goodness

Remember the Danish gangster films from the Incredible Film Festival a while back? In English they were In China They Eat Dogs and its prequel, Old Men in New Cars. These films were in a similar vein to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; apparently many people thought that they were unnecessarily violent. Bollocks. They were necessarily violent.

Well, I think that's what I think. I haven't actually seen the films for years; it was hard finding DVD copies that had English subtitles, and I gave up.

Now a Dane I know (well, she's a half Danish and half Swedish) has sparked my interest in Scandinavian screen once more.

There is a cult thriller/horror mini-series called Riget that is set in a Copenhagen hospital and has been described as ER meets Twin Peaks. It has been released in English as a five-hour movie called The Kingdom, but it doesn't stop there: it seems Stephen King liked it and lent his name to an American adaptation, Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital.

Sadly, the DVD for the Danish work seems to be something of a rarity, and I'd really much prefer to see the original.

I need some film friends over here so that they can care, too.

3 Comments:

  • At 8:52 am AEST, Blogger Joel said…

    Heh, funnily enough I download a bunch of Riget a couple of years ago after hearing "good things" about it. Problem was that I didn't have the subtitles so I didn't watch them, but I'll go have a look to see if I can find some.

     
  • At 6:37 am AEST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Yeah, I've heard The Kingdom is really good. You're right in that it's hard to get: the VHS version is some special ultra-long-play tape that doesnt work in all recorders, the DVD version requires a Tomb Raider-style expedition to find, and nobody ripped it because its so dang long.

     
  • At 12:43 pm AEST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Not only did King use the name, he used much of the story and then added his own stuff, like him getting hit and squished by the van that fateful day...

    The original show's writer/director Lars Von Trier, came over to america and served as executive producer.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home