Our Wednesday Movie

Catching movies on a Wednesday is not an easy task for most working people. Due to the bad city traffic and the rush to eat dinner as well as queuing for the movie tickets, it was a real challenge for us, especially since our offices are so far away from home (more than 1 hour’s drive). Moreover, Sze had to come pick me up from my house and then… more traffic jam on the way to the cineplex…

Nonetheless, we made it to Berjaya Times Square (BTS) for our Wednesday movie recently... So why Wednesday? Well, it’s because the cinemas have a special rate on every Wednesday. Since we have never really taken advantage of this movie day offer, we decided to have a go for it. We wanted to watch the movie 300 but the online reservation never works when you need it. Anyway, we arrived at the BTS cineplex an hour before showtime. Unfortunately, only some front row seats were available. So we decided to come back in 15 minutes time when the uncollected ticket reservations would be released.

In the meantime, we went to Kenny Roger’s Roasters (next to the cineplex) to order our dinner. While waiting for the food, Sze went to the movie counter again to buy the released tickets. He came back empty handed and said, “All the released tickets are gone. There are only 3 seats left on the 1st row.” Huh? How did the uncollected tickets get sold so quickly? Ok, never mind, since we have already ordered our dinner, we’ll just have to “experience the extra legroom” sitting on the very 1st row. So Sze went to the movie counter once more but he came back empty handed again…??? “There’s only 1 seat left,” he said. Is 300 so popular that even at the tailend of its showing, the 1st row seating is sold out on a weekday? Humph… we have no choice now but to see an alternative movie. So Sze went again to the movie counter… this time, he came back with tickets for Mr. Bean’s Holiday. He he, maybe the evening won’t turn out to be so bad after all.

We ate our dinner quickly and finished just in time for the movie. As we made our way to the cineplex entrance, a voice called out, “Mr. Sze, Mr. Sze!” It was Pui Yi, Sze’s student. She told us that the cineplex for the Mr. Bean show had broken down. She had also bought tickets for the same movie but had to change hers to another show. So we went to the movie counter to check. The ticket sellers seemed confused at first but they later confirmed the break down. There was no offer of a ticket refund and we could only exchange our tickets for another show. Our first two choices were 300 and Mr. Bean’s Holiday, and we did not want to settle for a third choice movie or hang around the mall till a midnight show, so we exchanged our tickets for 300 on Friday and topped up more than 50% to the ticket price (from the special Wednesday rate to the normal rate). We had rushed here all for nothing and then, we would be made to rush here again another day and on top of that, pay extra for that inconvenience… what a rip-off!

Come Friday, we rushed through the whole process again and this time, we got to see the movie. I didn’t read the synopsis and got somewhat excited when it started as it looked like a medieval legend type of movie. I have always liked movies like King Arthur, Troy, Alexander the Great, etc, so this would be another one of those medieval legend movies that I enjoy so much.

(Warning: Show spoiler ahead for those who will be watching it for the 1st time on DVD later.) The story was great. I’ve never heard of the Greek and Persian wars before due to my lack of knowledge in European-Middle Eastern history. I enjoyed the show till the ending which I thought did not have a proper closure and raised an unanswered question - what happened in that next battle led by Dilios? Did they finally achieve a decisive victory, or did the Persians outnumber them again?

I did some research and this is what I found out… 300 is a story based on the Battle of Thermopylae in 5th century BC. The last scene in the movie showed an alliance of 10,000 Spartans and 30,000 Greeks from other city-states a year later, facing the Persian army. This was to be the beginning of the Battle of Plataea, which would end the series of Greco-Persian wars during that time. The result was a decisive Greek victory over the Persians. Many years later, the Persian Empire would eventually be invaded and conquered by Alexander the Great.

I also wondered what happened to the little boy who was King Leonidas’ son in the movie. His name was Pleistarchus and he succeeded his father as the King of Sparta. However, his cousin, Pleistoanax, would act as the Regent during the early part of his reign as he had not come of age yet.

It has been a few weeks since we saw 300. We’ll be going to watch Mr. Bean this Wednesday, but definitely not at BTS. Hope we’ll have better luck this time ;)