Me and a friend went shopping recently, and discovered that the awesome CeX has upgraded to a big, double floored store in one of the malls. The store is always packed, even at 11am on a wednesday.. yeh i know. Anyway we went to go check it out, and found ourselves some excellent bargains like half life for £2, what an amazing £2 it was too. We then headed upstairs to check out the immense DVD bargains, which included cheap prices of brand new special edition dark knight (presumeably stolen off the back of a truck?) and shelves upon shelves of other discounted dvds. Seriously, where the fuck does all this stock come from??? I guess these guys are either shady gits or were good mates with the folks at woolworths. Probably both.
Anyway we came to the bargain shelf. Most dvds in the store were priced around £3 average, but these were a special class, the shit no one wanted, and they were priced at.. 10p. Ten motherfucking pee!!! wow. Sadly though there was still nothing there worth my 10p. So it was a miss. Then, we looked a little further to the left, and to our horror/ joy, you could go one further. That's right people.. there were dvds on sale for 5p.
The box art was naff, probably an MS paint job. The picture was 2 cartoon cowboys, presumeably, a comedy double act. At least that's what we thought, until we read the back, and discovered it wasn't a comedy, but a comdey. It featured 5 episodes, including 'peral diving perils' thus marking the level of quality you should expect for your 5p.
But when i looked even further left, something special (in the non sarcastic sense) did catch my eye. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes the cover alone is worth it - well for 5p. It's hard for me to explain exactly why i fell in love with this image. It comes from another age, that was in awe of space and approached it with childlike naivety and imagination. It reminds me of 2001 space odyssey. His suit, it looks like reptillian skin, the elaborate gun, and this robot, moving along some kind of track? What was going on in this strange, drugged out world elsewhere in the galaxy? I was utterly compelled. It was one of the most strange looking dvds in the shop, and this was after checking out a horror film about a girl with teeth in her vagina.
(I apologise for not taking it out of the plastic cover, I, y'know.. I have things to do in my life)
'Get it!' urges James. 'I mean, its 5p!' very true, it certainly is. So i picked it up and along with my first installment of gordon freemaness, i went and queued for HALF A FRICKIN HOUR at the till.
I appreciate many of you will, quite rightly, have problems believing the 5p thing. im annoyed at myself for tearing off the sticker, but not to worry, i have the receipt!
After having the box on the floor by my bed for a week or so, where i have been admiring the image, i finally thought.. ive paid five whole pence for this dvd, i should certainly get round to watching it pretty soon! Being in a mood for pretty much anything right then i decided to give it ago. I honestly had no idea what to expect. Would it be live action? animation? even, i dunno, jackanory? I couldnt wait!
I had a quick flick through the dvd before i watched from the beginning, just to get an idea of what to get ready for. turns out its some horridly cheap, 80's anime! Intrigued, i googled it immediately. i found a review, in which he/she explains that it's actually a sci-fi retelling of Monkey: journey to the west! how does everything in my life join up like this?? It's hilariously wierd!
Notice on the back of the box it says: 'The image on the sleeve may not necessarily correspond with the film' ...You're damn right the image doesn't have ANYTHING to do with film!! in fact i dont think it was even drawn in the same decade.. where the hell did it come from?? and why did anyone imagine it was relevant??
I'd love to sit down and give a proper review, but this person beat me to it and did a much, much better job than i ever could, So please, go read his excellent page instead of my shit. His is the vhs version, which he explains was found in a bargain bin or something. He also explains the "productions" history- we now know why it's a knock off piece of crap. Apparently the channel 4 news would pop up at some point as well, which i was really looking forward to, but unfortunately it turns out my version didn't include this feature :( Still for five pence, you get what you pay for. He was good enough to review that as well though, so it was nice to know what i was missing.
Among my own favourite highlights, was realising that the blue guy wasnt meant to be a droid despite the voice acting (so i just imagined some bored guy in a room whenever he spoke. it made it more bearable), hearing the genuine use of 'fiddlesticks!' for the first time in 10 years, and the amazing line: 'We'll defeat him with our superior reasoning powers!!' oh and also (as the above reviewer explains) the middle of the episode, i.e. the cheap join between two completely seperate episodes, fucked up my dvd player for a couple of seconds.. hence one of the characters that decided to stay on his home planet magically reappeared on the ship again. Whether this was explained in those missing seconds or if it just kinda happened i'll never know- niether answer surprises me really.
Anyway, why are you still reading this? i gave you the link to the good review! i'm off to write more lengthy blogs, k..
