The Ring Thing
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Ring Thing |
 | |
| Country of production | Switzerland |
| original language | Swiss German |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 (main film), 12 (DVD release) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mark Schippert |
| script |
André Küttel Christoph Silver Dominik Kaiser Thorsten Wettcke |
| production |
Dominik Kaiser Kristian Widmer Condor Films |
| music |
Diego Baldenweg Adrian Frutiger |
| camera | Peter Steuger |
| occupation | |
| |
The Ring Thing is a Swiss feature film from 2004. The film, produced without government funding, is a low-budget production and parodies the Lord of the Rings film trilogy .
The Ring Thing had its world premiere on December 14, 2004 in the Pathé cinema center near Zurich. It was released in theaters in Switzerland in mid-December 2004 and in Germany in summer 2005.
action
The Swiss banker Fredi fell in love with the bitchy Heidi. Fredi bought an engagement ring for his marriage proposal. While he is practicing his application in an airplane toilet, the floor of the airplane suddenly breaks through and Fredi falls to the ground with the toilet and the ring and wakes up in a strange mountain world. There he is mistaken for the hobbit Friedo and learns from the old Almgandhi that Lord Sauraus has stolen his ring, with whose help he wants to bake the world with fondue. Fredi and Almgandhi set off together with the telehobbie Pupsi, the nymphomaniac elf Grmpfli, the former ring owner Schleimli and the warrior Rackaroll on their way to defeat Sauraus. Eventually it turns out that Pupsi is actually a villain and has betrayed the heroes to Sauraus, because he told him he was his father. At the end, Fredi gets the ring and everything has a happy ending: Grmpfli and Schleimli get married, Fredi leaves the bitchy Heidi to his arch-rival Sauraus and lives (assuming there is no sequel to the film) happily as Friedo in the strange Swiss mountains.
Production notes
The external shots for the film were shot by the executive producer Condor Films for almost four weeks, mainly in the lower Rhine Valley. Other outdoor locations were the Caumasee near Flims and the Seleger Moor near Rifferswil / ZH. The castle scenes were filmed in Munot Castle in Schaffhausen . Originally, the producers planned to let the actor of Winnetou Pierre Brice appear in a guest role as Indian chief in the film. After reading the script, Brice canceled his promised involvement. He feared that he would have to expose the film character Winnetou , which he had made a legend, to the ridicule of the young audience. The role of Indian chief was then deleted from the script without replacement. Instead, a new scene with the Emperor of China was added to the film.
The title song of the film "Lueg mi Aaa" (Swiss dialect for "Look at me") was composed by the siblings Nora Baldenweg, Diego Baldenweg and Lionel Vincent Baldenweg. The music video for the song was recorded by the band "The Alfornos feat Heidi P" in Studio Bellerive with the original actors.
Reviews
The film was downright panned by film journalists in Switzerland. The film character Pupsi in particular was heavily criticized. After insisting on an exclusive pre-screening, the Swiss news magazine Facts wrote: “Probably the worst Swiss film of all time!” Shortly after the film was released in Switzerland , a legal action was filed with the national film sponsor, the Federal Office of Culture (which did not support the film) because of racism. This is because Prince Rackaroll used the word "Mongo" in a dialogue in the film. The lawsuit had to be dropped because it was irrelevant.
The use of long-forgotten old-fashioned words from the Swiss dialect, such as the expression "gorilla blue ass", which the authors deliberately used, met with a great response from the young audience. After the start of DVD sales, the film quickly achieved cult status among Swiss schoolchildren. Many parents complained to the outlets that their children kept talking like the characters in the movie.
In contrast to the theatrical release, the DVD release in Germany was mostly accompanied by very positive specialist reviews: "Fans of the Peter Jackson trilogy (...) will certainly get their money's worth", "The film produced with a minimal budget is up to the Details lovingly designed ". "A screamingly hilarious Swiss version of Middle-Earth, where it teems with absurd dialogues, idiotic characters and mind-boggling phrases", "Has nothing to do with Swiss reticence", "A snotty comedy that fires one gag after the other ".
Ticket sales
The film, awarded by the Disney subsidiary Buena Vista International , achieved over 65,000 cinema admissions in Switzerland within a few weeks, making it the second most successful feature film of the year. The film was also among the top 20 in the Swiss DVD charts for weeks.
World Sales
The Ring Thing was acquired by Senator Film for an exploitation in Germany / Austria before its theatrical release in Switzerland and was dubbed at great expense. Also appeared black copies of the film on DVD on in different countries of the former Eastern Bloc.
Web links
- The Ring Thing in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b film review by Bruno Amstutz. cineman.ch, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on July 5, 2020 .
- ↑ movie review at molodezhnaja.ch
- ↑ Film review by René Malgo on filmstarts.de
- ↑ Blick: Swiss Hollywood parody sued (link out of date)
- ^ Outnow.ch:Interview with dialogue author André Küttel
- ↑ Observer: Swearing like in the film (link out of date, leads to an error page) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Film review on: DigitalDVD ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Film review on Movie Maze
- ^ Kinocharts Procinema Switzerland
- ↑ Swiss DVD Charts
