Mahjong at the movies?

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Sun May 06, 2012 6:28 pm

So a lot has changed in two years. The Wikipedia page I mentioned is gone and the new forum supports kanji but doesn't recognise the old emoticon codes!

Although it's only a brief appearance, it was nice to see a mahjong set today in the 2007 Spanish film La habitación de Fermat (in English: Fermat's Room). It's a thriller about four mathematicians who are trapped in a room and forced to solve problems in order to survive. There are some interesting plot twists but the featured puzzles would be trivial/familiar for real mathematicians and there are some other plot holes. One of the puzzles involves a long binary sequence and one guy uses the convenient mahjong set to decode it.
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Although I'm yet to see it, I know that George's mom plays mahjong in an episode of Seinfeld too - I must add that one to my rentals list.

Does anyone know of any other film/TV appearances of mahjong not yet mentioned here...?

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Sun May 06, 2012 6:33 pm

Aha, luckily the mahjong movie list was copied to the mahjong wiki before the original was deleted!

http://mahjong.wikidot.com/list-of-movies

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Moah » Tue May 08, 2012 4:39 pm

Barticle wrote:Aha, luckily the mahjong movie list was copied to the mahjong wiki before the original was deleted!

http://mahjong.wikidot.com/list-of-movies
Are any of these worth watching?

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Esh » Wed May 09, 2012 1:14 am

Depends. If you want something really silly, light hearted, and kinda (and by kinda I mean nothing but) cheesy, then look at any of the chinese movies. They're a fun watch, but don't take them seriously.

If you want something a little more serious and maybe intense, try finding anything in Japanese. Actually, here's a good comparison:

Saki = Chinese movies
Akagi = Japanese Movies

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Mon May 14, 2012 8:31 pm

I like that comparison. :)
Barticle wrote:[...]George's mom plays mahjong in an episode of Seinfeld
This is from 'The Handicap Spot' (late season 4 episode). Playing American-style with annual league cards, tile racks, points chips and communal discard pool.
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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Moah » Mon May 14, 2012 9:21 pm

There's also "shin janki" although I'm not sure if it's a series of movies, or a plain tv series.
Anyway it's about Sakurai Shoichi, a legendary rep player who supposedly never lost as a rep player.

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Sat May 19, 2012 12:33 am

Just remembered the keyword search on IMDB, e.g. http://www.imdb.com/keyword/mahjong/

Plenty of hits there, although many will be brief appearances of the game. Famous western titles listed include Driving Miss Daisy, Big Trouble in Little China and Cocoon.

I love stacking keywords...

http://www.imdb.com/keyword/mahjong/ (131 hits)
http://www.imdb.com/keyword/mahjong/singing/ (10 hits)
http://www.imdb.com/keyword/mahjong/nudity/singing/ (4 hits)

You can invent your own random genres. :)

http://www.imdb.com/keyword/bicycle/chr ... o/suicide/
http://www.imdb.com/keyword/cigar-smoki ... -the-face/
Last edited by Shirluban on Sat May 19, 2012 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Missing url tags.

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Sat May 19, 2012 11:09 am

Thanks Shirl. I deticked the auto URL parsing as it was abbreviating the longer addresses like this...

http://www.imdb.com/keyword/cigar-smoki ... -the-face/

...which lessened the comedic impact. :)

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Ogi » Sat May 26, 2012 12:57 pm

Netflix has all 3 Kung Fu Mahjong movies available for streaming, two of then have the older couple from Kung Fu hustle in them.
also I know you were not interested in Anime, however ever Saki is available for streaming at crunchyroll.com along with the new series Saki:Episode of Side A.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P6U3LRMFAY

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Ignatius » Sat May 26, 2012 8:13 pm

I like anime, and I like mahjong anime. I love Akagi, Legendary Gambler Tetsuya, The Legend of Koizumi OVA. And I like Saki and it´s spinoff. I think the best is Akagi. But Saki, it´s true that it´s light mahjong, but because of that is more accesible. I think is the best portal to show what mahjong is to audiences that never heard of it. Because is a charming and colorful anime. The kind of anime to watch while away the time, when you have nothing to do. About Saki´s spinoff I think it has just a little of mahjong, so I think is worse than Saki. characters are less "catchy" to me.

If I have to show what mahjong is, using anime, I would use first Saki (if they like lighthearted anime), and then Akagi to hook people to play mahjong.
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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Sun Aug 12, 2012 11:27 am

Another random find - this is the opening shot from the Hong Kong gangster movie Election. (2005)
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The womenfolk are playing while the men discuss business in the next room.

Mahjong isn't mentioned again after the first couple of minutes, although one of the characters is called Uncle 'Double East'. :)
Last edited by Barticle on Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Sun Dec 23, 2012 1:57 pm

Misleading movie title is misleading. :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Reacher_(film)
Last edited by Shirluban on Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Misleading URL parsing is misleading.

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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Mon Oct 28, 2013 2:49 pm

A disturbance interrupts a mahjong game at the Chinese restaurant in the forest (in Cronenberg's 1999 movie eXistenZ).
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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Mon Oct 28, 2013 5:44 pm

A brief glimpse of mahjong in the background at a casino (in the 2004 Hong Kong movie 2046).
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Re: Mahjong at the movies?

Post by Barticle » Mon Oct 28, 2013 11:24 pm

Mahjong features prominently in Chinatown from the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

http://vimeo.com/12597407 (full 12-minute film)
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Last edited by Barticle on Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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