Prince Charles Cinema – Page 5 – The Duke Mitchell Film Club

All this week we’ve been looking at classic Asian Action and martial arts screenings that have taken place in London, all in the build up to our own Shaw Brothers Tribute this Monday night. Today for our final entry we’re hitting you with two great events in one. First up it’s the Jigoku All Night Kung Fu event from back in 2002, at the much missed The Other Cinema.

This all-nighter was put on as part of the Weird World Cinema Season, which ran from 23^rd to 31^st May 2002 at The Other Cinema. It’s possible this season was set up to tie in with the Mondo Macabro TV show with ran on Channel 4 around the same time but I can’t be sure about that. I didn’t make it along to the all-nighter, which is a shame, but I always loved their selection of films for the night: Demon Strike, Enter The Fat Dragon, Hells Wind’s Staff and Born Invincible.

But what I did see at the festival was the 1967 Spaghetti Western Bandidos, directed by Massimo Dallamano. Now I say I saw this, but I’ll be honest and say it ranks the worst cinema viewing experience I’ve ever had. The print was the worst condition I’ve ever seen anything in, I don’t mind scratches, splices or a red print, but this had everything in the worst shape I’ve ever seen. The sound was drowned out by a huge hiss, the picture was scratched beyond anything I’ve ever seen before, but the worst part was that The Other Cinema didn’t have the correct anamorphic lense for the projector, so the entire film was screened in the wrong ratio.

10 out of 10 for finding the print and programming it, but there comes a time when you just have to say a print has passed its screen life and retire it. I went out of the screening to ask if they could change the lense, only to find someone else already out there asking the same thing! Still any cinema experience is fun and at least I ended up with a great worst screening experience. I hope the kung fu all-nighter went off better, I do wish I could have made it along to that one. I think the Jigoku event was a one-off, I never saw anything from them again and I’ve never found out who actually put it all together, but it was a great idea and one of those things I’d always wish I watched more at, as long as the prints had been better though.

Now the Korean Film Festival is a very successful season that runs here in London every year, it’s really grown over the years and manages to secure big names stars and a great selection of new Korean films. What we’re going to look at though is one very specific things about it, the fact that for a couple of years all their films used to be FREE ENTRY!

Yes when the festival was at The Prince Charles Cinema they used to let everyone in free, which of course lead a massive turn out, with huge queues stretching all the way back into Leicester Square, all of which made actually getting a very challenging experience. But it was worth, just to see the incredible Taegukgi (aka Brotherhood) on the big screen with a completely packed house! After a couple of years the festival reverted back to regular tickets, but the utterly fantastic idea of having all films playing for free really was a great way to get a real buzz going around the festival, we probably won’t see anyone else doing that again for a really long time!

With our Shaw Brothers Tribute only one week away we’re dedicating this week to posts about classic martial arts film screenings in London, from special guest events, to film festivals and even back to the 1970s for some vintage double-bill screenings.

Today we’re taking a look at a very special event: The Day Jet Li Visited The Prince Charles Cinema – yes Sunday 13^th October 1996 was the day Jet set foot on the stage at the Prince Charles and it’s a day that’s been stuck in my memory ever since, simply because I was lucky enough to be there.

The day was put on by the kings of kung fu screenings at the time: Eastern Heroes. Having lost their spiritual home The Scala a few years before, they’d now moved location to the Prince Charles and it was there that the 3 film event kicked off at the early time of 10.30 with a screening of the then very new Jet actioner Dr Wai. My actual memories of the films aren’t that clear, what I more remember about the day was the incredible atmosphere, whistles were handed out to everyone in the queue, the house was packed and everyone was so up for a good time. The films played great, especially the second film of the day, the absolute classic Fist Of Legend which caused everyone to the cinema to go into fits of wild screaming and whistle blowing.

Then before the third and final film of the day, Black Mask, it was time for Jet to take the stage, the place went wild, he was preceded by a dragon dance, the atmosphere was electric and it felt like the cinema itself was going to explode, people were going wild. But don’t just take my word for it, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube right here:

Now as to why this event was so special to me was what happened next, there was a prize draw to win one of three Jet Li film posters, which you could collect from the stage, meet Jet and he’d sign the poster for you. As you can imagine everyone in the cinema wanted to win, everyone that is except me, not that I didn’t think it was a great idea I just don’t really collect signed items, I was hoping someone who really wanted one would win. So when it came down to the third and final prize draw can you guess who won? Yes it was me! So I managed to fight my way to the stage, met Jet, he misunderstood how to spell my name and had to cross it out on the poster. Now I had an original Golden Harvest theatrical one sheet for Fist Of Legend, signed by Jet, which even I suddenly realised was actually very cool. Everyone else seemed to think so as well, people started offering me money for it right away!

After that Jet left the stage to much applause and then it was time for Black Mask. It was a fantastic day: it you look closely you can see my leg while I’m onstage in the video, I still have the poster, it’s a little bit battered but still in ok shape, though my ticket has long gone.

Tomorrow on the blog we’ll be looking at the guys behind this event: Eastern Heroes, who practically owned martial arts screenings in London through the 1990s!