Category Archives: Billiards Movies

The Billiards movies category is about movies that prominently feature billiards or that have plots focusing on billiards.

Coming Soon: Mr Doom

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Every few months, I’ll commence my ritual of scrubbing IMDB for billiards movies using every possible permutation, combination, and amalgamation of keywords to hopefully uncover a new film. Usually, these fishing expeditions turn up cinematic chum: a short film with a few thousand views, maybe a #fakebilliardsmovie. 

Mr Doom.v2But, every so often, I strike what appears to be cinematic gold, which is exactly what happened this past February when my online sleuthing turned up the English billiards film Mr Doom. Directed by Leif Johnson, this dramedy, which currently is in post-production, hooked me with its poster art (credit to BRUTAL Posters) and its synopsis: “Jack and Charlie are an unlikely pair on a dangerous path to self destruction in a world of their own design. Both struggling to keep up a bygone lifestyle that revolves around a green felt table with six pockets and sixteen balls.” The official trailer for Mr Doom confirmed my instinct. 

I rolled the dice and reached out to Mr. Johnson, who was more than happy to talk about his forthcoming film. Below are excerpts from our online interview this past April. When the movie becomes available to watch, I will post my official review.

Jason Moss (me): What is the origin of Mr Doom? 

Leif Johnson: I feel like I’ve been researching this film all my life. Not necessarily the game of pool itself, but the characters I’ve met growing up. I come from a working-class family, in a grim town in the north of England, and when writing Mr Doom, I was thinking of all the real life characters that have stuck with me since childhood. The larger-than-life local legends, usually found in their local pub. No job or career to speak of but somehow had a healthy wad of folding money in their pocket. They always had a hustle going on…I was fascinated by these pub orators as they always had a story to tell, usually unsuitable for young ears…I loved it. The film’s title is a nod to The Color of Money when Vincent Lauria is asked what’s in the case and he replies “Doom.”

Jason: What’s the movie about?

Leif: Mr Doom is a dark comedy that follow the exploits of two men: one a professional hustler and the other a professional f**k-up. Both living on the fringes of society, day to day, bar to bar, hustle to hustle. Godlike with a pool cue in their hands but a total disaster in every other area of their lives. We follow this unlikely pair on a dangerous path of self-destruction, in a world of their own design, with the hope of making easy money.

Jason: What challenges did you encounter making the film?

Mr DoomLeif: We shot the film in 16 very long days. We also shot on one of the hottest days of the year in a café with no air conditioning, which was a challenge. Having a small crew taking on multiple roles and general logistics is always a nightmare on any shoot, but the team was incredible and did a remarkable job. I produced as well as directed this film, but I’ll not take on both those roles again. Producing is a big ol’ job, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for a good producer.

Jason: Did any directors or movies inspire you in the making of Mr Doom?

Leif: Indeed. When pitching Mr Doom, I wanted the main narrative to have a very British Shane Meadows type feel. The way we shot the scenes, the big characters and the snappy dialogue all have a gritty Brit film edge. But when we get to the tables and we’re in the game, we shift to more dynamically shot energetic sequences like an Edgar Wright movie. 

Jason: For billiards movie fans, how much billiards should we expect?

Leif: There’s quite a bit. The games are fast, and we don’t dwell too much on the games because we have characters and a story to tell. But we do play a couple of different games, and the way we shot the actual games, such as by using probe lenses, is very dynamic. 

Jason: How did you ensure the accuracy of the billiards playing?

Leif: First, the actors spent months getting to grips with the game to look like they at least knew what they were doing. They then had to learn how to look like they were pretending like they didn’t. The guys at the pool hall where we shot a lot of the film made sure we didn’t slip up and that the games made sense. It was an education, and I was brought back to when I played pool a lot as a teenager. I’ve not played it that much as an adult. That said, it never leaves you. So, I fell in love with it all over again.

Jason: When can audiences hope to see the film? 

Leif: That I don’t know quite yet. The film is doing festivals over the coming months, but we’re keen to get it distributed soon. You’ll be the first to know mate.

You can follow Mr. Johnson on Twitter to stay current on the release of Mr Doom.

Wanted: Chinese Billiards Movies

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In what Ronnie O’Sullivan described as the “greatest comeback in the history of the Sheffield venue,” Luca Betel beat Si Jiahui 17-15 last week in the semi-finals of the World Snooker Championship. The Crucible match was all the more extraordinary because Jiahui, who was ranked 80th at the beginning of the month, is just 20 years old. The Chinese wunderkind’s history-blazing path is a story of national pride (unlike the 10 Chinese snooker players who got banned in January from the tournament because they were charged with match-fixing).  

Jiahui’s meteoric journey echoes the increasing popularity of billiards/snooker in the PRC. The sport emerged in China in the 1980s. At the turn of the century, China hosted its first international snooker tournament. The early aughts witnessed the arrival of Ding “Enter the Dragon” Junhui, who became the world’s top player in 2014. Other stars followed, such as Pan Xiaoting, Liang Wenbo, and Yan Bingtao.

Today, over 120 million people play and practice billiards in China. There are 1500 snooker clubs in Shanghai; another 1200 are in Beijing. At the World Snooker College, the only subject taught is snooker, with every student hoping to be the next Ding Junhui (or maybe now Si Jiahui).

Not surprisingly, the swelling popularity of billiards has extended from the baize to the silver screen. In fact, prior to 2010, I’m not aware of a single Chinese billiards film. But, since that time, I’ve discovered eight Chinese billiards movies.1,2  

The problem is that, with the exception of A Magic Stick (2016), they cannot be found, at least not by yours truly, or they can be found, but have no subtitles, making them incomprehensible to me. Talk about a billiards movie gap in my corpus! I officially deem these Chinese billiards movies WANTED, and I beseech any reader to help me find them. Please note some of the titles below may be approximate translations from the original Mandarin.

Color Disorder - Chinese billiards movieColor Disorder (2010)

Color Disorder (or Color Barrier, perhaps) is a Chinese film about Chai Lu, a naturally gifted billiards player who lacks drive and ambition. At some point, he meets Chang Jianguo, who sees Chai Lu’s true potential. He takes Chai Lu under his wing and prepares him for the National Amateur Billiards “Golden Stone Competition.” While Chai Lu is suspicious at first, at the behest of his girlfriend Meng Rui, he ultimately grows to trust Chang Jianguo and his disciplined billiards teaching style. 

Billiards Baby (2013)

Directed by Xie Yihang, this billiards short film is about Zhang Chao and Si Yu, who met one summer as kids and became good friends and lovers as adults. They live in Beijing, where Si Yu relies on the billiards skills she learned from her grandfather. 

Midnight Pool Room (2016)

Just 11 minutes, the macabre Midnight Pool Room is about Huang and Liu, who hate the wealthy, so they launch some kind of sinister snooker game to retaliate and make the rich taste the shame they deserve. Sounds like The Menu meets The Hustler. I’m in!

 

Billiard Girl - Chinese billiards movieBilliard Girl (2018)

In 2018, Xiao Liu directed the 95-minute youth film Billiard Girl. This Chinese billiards movie focuses on Ling Chun (YiYi Deng, who won a Best Actress Lily Award award for the role), a high school student who lives with her stepmother. Ling Chun has always felt unsatisfied with her life, until one day she plays billiards and everything changes. More than a couple reviewers criticized the lack of billiards realism. Maybe they were reacting to the blindfolded shot I saw in an online clip? The complete movie is available to watch online, but there are no English subtitles, unfortunately.

Sasha.v2Sasha (2018)

Continuing 2018’s focus on young female billiards players is Chunze Dong’s rom-com Sasha. The movie tells the story of Zhao Shasha, a small-town hotel family’s daughter, who is a billiards genius. She flees to Beijing with Liu Hongyang, a simple, everyday, kind of homely man who dotes on her.  At some point, she gets smitten by a hunky gent named Abu, forcing our teen billiards goddess to choose between Mr. Funny, Loyal and Ugly and Mr. Tall, Rich and Handsome. A Chinese trailer of the film is available to watch here.

Metal Billiard - Chinese Billiards MovieMetal Billiards (2019)

Among this septet of missing Chinese billiards movies, my list-topper is Bai Xinyu’s 2019 billiards drama Metal Billiards (or Alloy Billiards). The film focuses on Lu Yan, an industrial design student, who creates a robotic arm to give more freedom and mobility to its user. Though he fancies himself a real-world Tony Stark, the invention is dismissed by various companies, and Lu Yan graduates unemployed. At this time, he also receives news that his father is hospitalized, having been injured over a large gambling debt. Lu Yan realizes that his robotic arm provides him a great advantage in billiards, specifically in determining the perfect angles and physics at which to make shots. With his robotic appendage, he can avenge his father and demonstrate that his time as an otaku was not for naught. 

While the Metal Billiards trailer is no longer on YouTube, there are some extended clips available to watch on Chinese sites. These clips show that, irrespective of the plot, the movie has a hip design aesthetic and traffics in comically memorable billiards opponents, including a green-mohawked guy tattooed top to bottom, a pair of buxom vixens in French maid outfits, an obese woman with hair curlers who carries a pig’s head on a rope (?!), and some gargantuan yeti whose cue stick is appended with a sinister metal chain. Only ones missing from this Iron Man rogue gallery is Obadiah Stane with a cue stick and, of course, the Mandarin.

Billiards King of Northeast China - Chinese billiards movieBilliards King of Northeast China (2023)

Just released in April, Billiards King of Northeast China (also possibly known as Northeast Champion or Northeast Ball King) is a rom-com from director Yin Bo. The film is about a rural billiards prodigy named Zhou Dafa who solves a kidnapping crisis, gets introduced to a business kingpin, falls in love, and then faces another crisis when the kingpin asks him to throw a billiards championship match or risk harm to his mother. Supposedly, Scottish snooker pro Stephen Hendry, who appeared in the 2017 TV documentary Enter the Dragon: China’s Snooker Star  (about Ding Jinhui), makes a cameo in the film.

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  1. Of course, some of this jump is attributable to the skyrocketing output of China’s movie studios. In 2000, China released just 91 films; by 2018, the number was 902 (source: ChinaPower). 
  2. This excludes movies made in Taiwan (e.g., Second Chance) or Hong Kong (e.g., Legend of the Dragon; The King of Snooker). I am focusing solely on the PRC.

Perfect Break

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Back in 2016, I spoke to producer Len Evans about his forthcoming snooker movie Perfect Break, which was wrapping up post-production. (The movie was released in 2020.) Mr. Evans had promised a “low-budget, family film” that would generate a lot of laughs, showcase great snooker playing, and feature world snooker champion Jimmy White and famed snooker commentator John Virgo in key roles.

Perfect BreakThat promise proved paper-thin. Perfect Break is a perfect bust.

The setup had potential. Bobby Stevens (Joe Rainbow), an unknown snooker player, makes it to the finals at the Crucible. Performing a whitewash, Bobby is one point away from defeating his number one ranked opponent, Ray “Cannon” Carter, when he suddenly falls apart and ultimately suffers a humiliating loss. His girlfriend leaves him, the media suspects foul play, and Bobby disappears behind a luchador mask, relegated to performing trick shots at local clubs and community centers. 

But, after that five-minute opener, the movie quickly spirals into looniness. Bobby takes a job as a resident masked snooker player at the Marine Cliffs Entertainment Center. This nondescript venue seems to be a holiday park for mobile homes. It features an offensively stereotyped homosexual security guard, who inquires about Bobby’s “pole” and whistles “toodle-oo” to unlucky patrons. The snooker table is in a room that can barely squeeze ten people. Running around Marine Cliffs is the proprietor Kate (Tia Demir) and her daughter, Sophie (Ella Tweed) a budding matchmaker who is determined to pair Bobby and her mom.

Meanwhile, in the snookerverse, Ray is determined to track down Bobby for a rematch, as he still suspects the original match may have been thrown. He hatches a cockamamie plan to get Bobby invited to the exclusive Jimmy White Invitational Snooker Tournament. This event features eight of the world’s top-ranked players, with unoriginal names like Mark “Magician” Ward (sorry, Efren Reyes) and Joe “Hitman” Waye (sorry, Michael Holt). Inexplicably, the Tournament occurs in some beat-up club room, where the players use cheap wooden cues, and which houses an audience of maybe 20 bored onlookers, including children.

Perfect Break.v2 1[SPOILER ALERT] Bobby accepts the invite, especially after he learns that he was hypnotized by his ex-girlfriend to throw his infamous match. A little whisper-magic later and the spell is broken. Bring on the nine-frame rematch and a chance for another 147 perfect break.

Perfect Break suffers from a perfect mix of wooden dialogue, an idiotic plot, unconvincing settings, an over-reliance on random music, and terrible production. The snooker graphics look like they were done in PowerPoint.  Mr. White and Mr. Virgo, who supposedly were on set, seem like they got Photoshopped into the movie. There is a black-and-white snooker training montage for no reason. There are random color filters applied to scenes and amateur special effects to simulate something as mundane as waking up. Sound issues and muffled voices plague every outdoor scene.

The snooker-playing was equally disappointing, most obviously because there’s surprisingly little snooker on screen. I’m not counting the unimaginative trick shots. Nor am I counting some of the background potting done by Phil Burness, who is the film’s “snooker consultant.” 

I’m talking about actual snooker. Unfortunately, the Crucible match occurs off-screen. The Jimmy White Invitational matches are edited such that most of the time the viewer is looking directly at the player lining up a shot, rather than watching the player make the shot. Pots are disconnected from strokes. The few shots we see wide-screen are super basic, making me wonder what kind of bargain the producers got on Mr. Burness’ fees. As for Mr. White and Mr. Virgo, they’re ballyhooed involvement amounts to less than three minutes of stilted dialogue, literally done as talking heads. 

If you’re looking for the perfect break to your day, you’re not going to find it with Perfect Break.

Hazel and Gary

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In 1855, when Napoleon III wanted to thank Russia for the coronation of Tsar Alexander II, he sent them an ornate billiards table as a gift.

BeiberAt the age of 52, having completed the writing of Great Expectations three years earlier, Charles Dickens requested delivery of a Thurston snooker table to his estate as a gift in time for Christmas.

Fast-forward 150 years, and celebrities are still giving/getting pool tables as gifts, such as when Justin Bieber turned 18 and shared that the best birthday gift he received was an amazing, purple pool table. Or, when Kristen Stewart celebrated the 27th birthday of her then-boyfriend Robert Pattison by buying him a custom-made snooker table. 

In television and film, this trend also rings true; pool table gift-giving has been a periodic source of amusement, from The Honeymooners (“Opportunity Knocks”) to The Brady Bunch (“The Hustler”). To this micro-genre, I now submit the likely unfamiliar Hazel episode, “Hazel’s Free Enterprise,” and Gary Unmarried episode, “Gary Gets His Stuff Back.”

Hazel

Premiering in 1961, Hazel was an American sitcom about a spunky, take-charge, live-in maid named Hazel Burke (played by Shirley Booth, who received two Emmy awards for the portrayal) and her employers, the Baxters.  

In March 1966, toward the end of the series’ five-season run, CBS aired the episode “Hazel’s Free Enterprise.” Hazel’s employer, Barbara Baxter, is determined to surprise her husband Steve with a pool table for his birthday. She locates a table, normally priced at $900, that is selling for $250. Unwilling to pass up such a bargain, she puts down $50, which is all the money she has. That leaves Barbara, and the ever-resourceful Hazel, needing a plan to raise the remaining $200. Their solution is to launch Aunt Hazel’s Chili Sauce at a popular grocery chain. Much culinary confusion ensues, but – spoiler alert – they do raise the money and surprise the wondrously happy hubby with the table.

HazelThe husband, along with next door neighbor Fred Williams, can’t wait to play a friendly game of pool, with stakes of ten cents per pocketed ball. While Barbara admits she doesn’t “know a thing about pool,” Hazel accepts the gentlemen’s invitation to join the game. They then lay heavy into the mansplaining, demonstrating to Hazel how to aim and chalk a cue, while also whispering they’ve found a real “pigeon” in Hazel.  But Hazel is no patsy. She then asks the kids to fetch her cue stick and, after quickly pocketing a couple of balls, tells the sheepish men, “Heard of Minnesota Fats? We’ll I’m known as Hazel the Blitz.” 

Of course, the trope of men underestimating women in billiards is about as common as the trope of gift-giving billiards tables. Other series that rolled out a similar storyline include All in the Family (“Archie is Cursed,” 1973) and Love, American Style (“Love and the Hustler,” 1969).

The full episode is available to watch for free on DailyMotion.

Gary Unmarried

Saturday Night Live alum Jay Mohr, long past the glory days of Jerry Maguire, Picture Perfect, and Suicide Kings, fronted the little-watched CBS sitcom Gary Unmarried from 2008 to 2010. The series focused on the life of Gary Brooks (Mohr) and begins three months after he and his ex-wife, Allison Brooks (Paula Marshall), officially divorce. Their acrimonious relationship is intermittently salvaged by affectionate makeup sessions and reminiscing of occasional good times.

At the center of the first-season, 2008 episode, “Gary Gets His Stuff Back,” is a pool table, which Gary gave to his ex-wife Allison as a paper anniversary gift, though he insists it was never really hers. He refers to the table as his “basement wife.” He professes, “This is my pool table…she’s perfect, I love her.” And, he laments, “[Allison] doesn’t deserve that table, she doesn’t respect the game, she calls the rack that triangle thing.”

When Allison refuses to cede the table, Gary initially threatens to blackmail her with the release of racy photos, and then attempts to burglarize her house and steal the table. Both plans fail miserably, though there is a silver lining, as both characters divulge that the true reason they want the table is because of all the good memories associated with it. In the end, Gary concedes and tells his ex, “You keep the table. It’s worth it to me to know you have something in the house that reminds you of me in a good way.” 

No pool tables were harmed in the filming of this episode, and sadly, no billiards was actually played.

The episode is available to watch on YouTube.

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For those who are considering gifting a billiards table, or any billiard accessories, I encourage you to shop at PoolDawg, which has generously sponsored this blog for many years. Their new 2023 catalog comes out in a few weeks. Get ahead of the pack and sign up for their free catalog today.

Pakners

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Two types of people are likely to love the 2003 Philippine billiards movie Pakners. 

The first group are those who deify Efren Reyes, one of the stars of the film. And by “deify,” I don’t mean the aficionados who worship his billiards genius; I mean those who truly worship him, who “see him as one of their own, a man who has pulled himself up from poverty to become world-famous.”1

The second group are those who love Philippine cinema. They appreciate the historic importance of Mr. Reyes, in his cinematic debut, and Fernando Poe Jr., the King of Philippine film, headlining a movie together. They appreciate the bonhomie of their Pinoy heroes, almost folkloric on the screen. They appreciate the familiar neighborhood characters, settings, and sounds.2

For those of us not fitting either grouping, Pakners is likely to be a painful viewing experience, except for the ending at the San Miguel Beer 9-Ball Invitational Doubles Challenge, where both Mr. Reyes and Mr. Poe showcase some spectacular pool.

But, I’ll rewind, as some additional background may be helpful here, especially if the two co-stars’ names are unfamiliar.

Let’s start with “The Magician” Efren “Bata” Reyes, widely considered to be the G.O.A.T. of billiards. The Babe Ruth of the Baize. The Pelé of Pool.  The Tiger Woods with the Táku. His story of humble upbringings and meteoric billiards feats has been told countless times. (A good starting point is the documentary Probe Profile on Efren Reyes.) So much of his likability stems not just from his mind-boggling talent, but his modesty, humility, and generosity, all magnified by his famous toothless grin and his everyday attire.

Mr. Poe is likely less well-known to non-Filipinos, but “Da King” is a national icon, having appeared in 300 films between 1955 and 2003. He often portrays a champion of the poor and downtrodden, an on-screen Robin Hood. His movies have earned him five FAMAS Awards, a record that led to his induction into the FAMAS Hall of Fame in 1988.

Pakners, therefore, represents the pairing of two kings of their crafts. (It was also the last film Mr. Poe made before his run for presidency and then death later in 2004.) For many, seeing the two icons together on the same screen was exhilarating and groundbreaking.  The movie didn’t require great plot or dialogue or direction to wow its built-in fan base.

But, for the rest of us, it did, and regrettably, Pakners comes up very short.

Manuel Diyamunga (Efren Reyes) is an innocent baker and a fish-out-of-water, who is conned out of his savings when he travels to the big city. Fortunately, he is befriended by Nanding Escalante (Fernando Poe Jr), a soft-spoken jeepney driver. The duo realize they have a shared affinity for billiards and seize upon the sport as a way both for Manuel to recover his losses and Nanding to avenge an earlier humiliation he suffered that shut down his billiards career.

Along the way, the gents do some singing and some jabbing (not sure which is more amusing: Mr. Reyes warbling a tune or throwing some rat-a-tat punches), and they find some lady loves, but mainly they play some pool. Sure, there are some bad guys on the periphery, but they’re as effective as Keystone Kops. 

Fast-forward past the terrible sound effects and lame fight sequences and Pakners culminates with the aforementioned San Miguel doubles tournament. The pair face the US opponents of Jackson and McGrady (perhaps, a reference to Keith McCready, who was Tom Cruise’s nemesis in The Color of Money). Finally, there is some beautiful billiards, including a couple of the impossible shots that we forever associate with Mr. Reyes. It’s a splendid reward, but it’s hardly worth the watch.

  1. “The Magician,” The Atlantic, March, 2005.
  2. “A Romp in the ‘Hood,” PhilStar Global, June 2003.
  3. The sponsorship by San Miguel, one of the largest conglomerates in the Philippines, is not insignificant. In 1998, Mr. Poe notably did his first product endorsement ever with San Miguel. Years later, Mr. Reyes did his first commercial for San Miguel. The corporation was also a big supporter of Pakners.

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A final note: my viewing experience was unquestionably compromised by Veed, the translating and subtitling software I used to convert the original Filipino version of Pakners I found online to something I could watch.  However, when the software spits out subtitles, such as, “…your turtle who is having a hard time here at home kiss BoiBoiBoy water for…” then it’s probably time to take up Duolingo.

Number One

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There are many reasons to praise Bob Geldof: founder/organizer of Band Aid and Live Aid; co-writer of the charity song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”; lead singer of the Boomtown Rats; recipient of the Man of Peace award.

Starring in Number One is not one of those reasons.

Made initially for television, but released theatrically in England in 1984, Number One is a British snooker movie that is most often referenced for its star-studded cast, including Mr. Geldof as Harry “Flash” Gordon, a down-on-his-luck Irishman who begrudgingly pursues professional snooker as a means to turn around his life.

Other well-known cast members include two-time BAFTA TV Award nominee Alison Steadman, two-time Emmy nominee Alfred Molina, and two-time BAFTA Film Award nominee Ray Winstone. Also appearing are rocker Ian Dury, director Tony Scott (True Romance, Top Gun), and a host of snooker personalities, including commentator Ted Lowe, referee John Williams, and professional player Patsy Houlihan.

Rewind to the early ‘80s in the UK, and it’s not hard to imagine why there would be excitement around a snooker movie.  The BBC had been broadcasting Pot Black, a snooker tournament series, since 1969. The 1970s and 1980s produced some of the sport’s most iconic personalities, including Steve Davis, Ray Reardon, Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, “The Whirlwind” Jimmy White, “The Comeback Kid” Dennis Taylor, and Cliff “The Grinder” Thorburn. Their matches – and rivalries – were legendary, turning these individuals into national superstars and making snooker the number one televised sport in the UK (even more popular than football). It’s no wonder this golden era was the subsequent focus of the BBC documentary When Snooker Ruled the World, the TV series Gods of Snooker, and the movie The Rack Pack.

Number One taps into this snooker zeitgeist by focusing on “Flash” Gordon, whose wayward lifestyle has left him in trouble with a pair of crooked cops and in debt to some toughies. He’s a few days away from eviction, having recently had his car repossessed. Stealing from the prostitute next door only buys him so much time, especially when he blows the money in a poker game.  

Out of options, but blessed with natural snooker talent, Flash concedes to let the bookie Billy Evans, accompanied by his henchman Mike the Throat, manage him. This includes getting Flash into the professional snooker association and ultimately on the slate to compete in the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible. Billy cleans up Flash nicely, but he cannot change Flash’s penchant for cursing, heckling opponents, throwing cues, picking fights, and even, getting tossed in jail.

Flash’s antics, his cat-and-mouse relationship with the cops, and his contentious interactions with his manager culminate at the Crucible, where he – somehow, don’t ask me how – makes it to finals to play his nemesis Brad Brookie. I won’t give away the ending, but it certainly gives poor old Ted Lowe an ulcer, even if the spectators and fans love it.

Number One not only sought to capitalize on snooker fever, but also to mine it for inspiration, primarily by (loosely) basing Mr. Geldof’s character on the colorful, fast-shooting, trouble-attracting, real-life, Irish-born, bad boy Alex Higgins, whose off-the-table behavior was front page tabloid fodder.1 Furthermore, the Flash-Brookie competition was based on the early ‘80s rivalry between Mr. Higgins and Ray Reardon.2 (Mr. Higgins won the world title for a second time in 1982 after beating Mr. Reardon 18–15, with a 135 total clearance in the final frame.)

Unfortunately, Number One, much like its American billiards movie cousin The Baltimore Bullet, has all the right ingredients, but is a mess of a movie. The first half of the film moves at a glacial pace, pummeling the one-dimensional point  that Flash is a bit of a cad, liar, hustler and cheat, all rolled into one rather unlikable and untameable guy. The second half is more interesting, but is also preposterous. Flash’s meteoric ascent to the top snooker spot is risible. There’s no reason to believe he has such skills. Most of the film’s characters are paper-thin; much of the aforementioned talent is wasted; and the movie’s chauvinism reduces the only two women to background screamers or sexpots.

Apparently, the film was screened in Sheffield (where the Crucible is located) the night before the 1984 World Championship and attended by snooker journalists. They allegedly thought it was so bad that they laughed throughout and were too embarrassed to approach Mr. Geldof afterwards.3

Number One is available for DVD purchase.  It is not currently available to stream.

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  1. Interestingly, Mr. Higgins’ most scandalous and career-damaging act came a year after the release of Number One, when he headbutted a WPBSA official after being asked to take a drugs test.
  2. This was not the only Ray Reardon rivalry to reach the silver screen. Several years later, in 1987, the snooker musical Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire focused on Mr. Reardon’s rivalry with Jimmy White. Coincidentally, both Phil Daniels (who played Billy the Kid, who is based on Mr. White) and Alun Armstrong (who played the green baize vampire Maxwell Randall, who is based on Mr. Reardon aka “Dracula”) appear in supporting roles in Number One.
  3. Snooker Scene Blog: Playing Alex (July 28, 2010).

Toolsidas Junior

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Netflix Founder and Co-CEO Reed Hastings is bullish on the Indian market. At the end of 2019, he shared the company’s intent to invest $400 million in Indian content. Whether Netflix’s current financial setbacks will slow that investment is uncertain, but already the company has launched more than 90 original Indian titles. 

One of those titles, released this past May, is Toolsidas Junior, a snooker movie written and directed by Mridul Mahendra, and arguably the first full-length billiards movie to come out of Bollywood. It’s a feel-good, feels-long film about 13-year-old Midi (Varun Buddhadev), who seeks to avenge his father’s sixth and most recent loss at the 1994 Calcutta Sports Club Snooker Championship. 

Watching his father Toolsidas (Rajeev Kapoor) get humiliated by the “unbeatable” Jimmy Tandon (Dalip Tahil) stings all the more when Midi realizes that Jimmy intentionally preyed on his father’s dipsomania by plying him with liquor during a break in the match.

Unfortunately, it takes more than half the movie for that early epiphany to translate into action. After his initial attempts to learn snooker at an exclusive club hit a wall because his “feet don’t reach the floor” and he’ll “tear the (baize/felt) table,” Midi finds an available table at the Wellington YMC in the seedy, impoverished other side of town. 

There, he befriends Mohammad Salaam Bhia (Sanjay Dutt), the laconic ex-national snooker champion, whose daily snooker routine consists of alternating between hour-long naps and practices, while intimidated onlookers marvel in the background. 

Salaam Bhia finds Midi’s determination endearing, triggering an 11-month training routine, which consists of offering Midi cryptic aphorisms (e.g., “to see clearly, must befriend the darkness”) and juvenile appellations (e.g., the six colored balls are named Jaundice, Pinky, Blackie, Chocolate, Parrot, and Billoo) and admonitions (e.g., “the left hand is not used just to clean your butt”). Pop cultural references also play a role in Salaam Bhia’s regimen. Various forms of cue ball spin are analogized to the fighting styles of famous Indian action stars. For example, to hit topspin, think of Amitabh Bachchan, who always follows through on his punch.

For viewers who lament the paucity of snooker films over the past twenty years (Perfect Break, The Rack Pack, and Break notwithstanding), Toolsidas Junior will likely offer little consolation. The opening scene, with its meticulous attention to brushing, chalking, and ironing the baize before the match begins, suggests the film will devote lavish attention to billiards. But, while snooker is essential to the plot, the sport itself gets proportionally less on-camera time than one would expect. 

This is true even for the predictable ending at the 1995 championship, when Midi plays under the moniker Toolsidas Junior. The snooker sequences just don’t dazzle, though it’s difficult to begrudge the film, given it’s impossible not to root for the young cherubic underdog. 

Interestingly, Toolsidas Junior opens by saying the film is “inspired by true events,” though the closing credits clarify the film is at least semi-autobiographical for the director.  In an interview, Mr. Mahendra shared, “Snooker has been a very pivotal part of my life, especially because of the memories it beholds with my father. Toolsidas Junior depicts one of the most cherished parts of my life. I fought hard to bring my father glory back then and I wanted to do the same by making Toolsidas Junior.”

Alas, this odic film carries with it a sad epilogue. Mr. Mahendra had arranged a special screening of Toolsidas Junior for his real father and Rajiv Kapoor, who returned to acting after three decades to play Toolsidas. However, both men – the real father and the on-screen one – passed away in the same year before the film’s release.

Hard Luck Love Song

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Avril Lavigne recently revealed that she is planning to turn her 2002 globe-spanning, Grammy-nominated, pop-punk anthem “Sk8er Boi” into a feature film.1

Hard Luck Love SongI’m no advisor to the stars, but she might want to reconsider that creative gamble. The landscape of ‘songs made into movies’ is largely a cinematic wasteland. Sure, the film Yellow Submarine was genius, Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy did decently, and Arthur Penn earned an Oscar nomination for directing Alice’s Restaurant, even if the film was a box office flop. But, outliers aside, the 80+ films in the genre represent a hodgepodge of ‘never heard of it’ and ‘wished I hadn’t watched it.’

Unfortunately, the 2020 billiards movie Hard Luck Love Song only adds to the genre’s detritus. 

Helmed by first-time director Justin Corsbie, Hard Luck Love Song is based on the 2006 folk song “Just Like Old Times” by American songwriter Todd Snider. Told in the first person, the song is the story of a pool hustler and a hooker, who having not seen one another in years, get reconnected when he sees an ad for her services in the weekly Scene. Little of the hustler’s backstory is revealed, except that he “won a tournament last week in Oklahoma City” and “hustled half of this town tonight.”

In Mr. Corsbie’s film, Jesse (Michael Dorman) is a struggling country music singer/songwriter, who is finally able to put a little cash in his pocket after overtly hustling some California locals in pool. Warned, but feeling confident, he registers for a tournament on the wrong side of town, which pits him against the heavily tattooed neighborhood chieftain Rollo (an unrecognizable Dermot Mulroney). Rather than settling for just the tournament’s pot, Jesse hustles Rollo for an additional $2000 and then narrowly escapes.

Back in his motel room and flush with cash, the movie now picks up where the song starts:

There’s a Coke machine glowin’ through the parking lot

Call it a room with a view

Best night of pool that I ever shot

I made a lot of money too

Enter Carla (Sophia Bush), the aforementioned prostitute. Jesse and Carla have real chemistry, and for a hot moment, the song/movie really works. But, after their rendezvous is interrupted by a police officer, who learns these crazy kids went to high school together in 1982, the song ends, and so does any coherence in the movie. 

Hard Luck Love SongA third act introduces Eric Roberts as an avuncular bar proprietor and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA as a former boyfriend, but basically it’s a bunch of insipid dialogue that leads to a completely preposterous fight scene, in which Rollo proves pool hustling is no way to make a living.

There is also no further pool-playing, which makes me question the classification of Hard Luck Love Song as a billiards movie, but given the lackluster pool scenes in the film’s first act, it’s probably just as well.  Seriously, I’ve seen Kelly Bundy more convincingly portray pool hustling in Married… with Children than what passes for billiards in this movie.  There are no styled shots, no set-ups, not even the de rigueur trick shot. When Rollo remarks that he’s never seen someone run a table like Jesse has, it makes you wonder what version of Skittle Pool he’s been playing.2

For a better (albeit hardly great) billiards movie originating from a song, check out The Baron and the Kid, based on Johnny Cash’s 1980 song, “The Baron.” While predictable and paper-thin, the film takes its billiards seriously (thanks, in no small part, to the technical advising of Mike Massey).  

Hard Luck Love Song is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

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1. Avril Lavigne Teases ‘Sk8er Boi’ Movie That Will Take Hit Song ‘to the Next Level’

2. According to Dr. Dave Alciatore, the pros break and run in 8-ball between 20-50% of the time. Seems mighty peculiar our friend Rollo had never seen a run.

Billiards, Korean Style

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Almost 7000 miles away, the billiards market is booming in Korea, as recently reported by the Seoul Daily News.  About 16 percent of the population enjoys playing the sport, especially various versions of carom billiards, such as three-cushion, pocketball and sagu.1

Sang Lee, who moved from Korea to New York at the age of 33, was dubbed the “Michael Jordan of three-cushion billiards” in the ‘90s, winning 12  consecutive United States Billiard Association National Three-Cushion Championships as well as the Three-Cushion World Cup-Champion in 1993.

Other Korean players, while not yet household names, have ascended in the ranks, including “Little Devil Girl” Kim Ga-young, Kim Haeng-jik,  Jae-Ho Cho, Cha Yu-ram, and Cambodian-born Sruong Pheavy.2 Kim Kyung-roul was another up-and-coming master, until he tragically died falling out of his apartment window at the age of 34.

Given the sport’s increasing popularity and rising young stars, it’s not surprising to see a wide array of Korean movies and television shows, ranging from cartoons to reality shows to dramas, featuring billiards. Most I’ve watched; one continues to elude my grasp; all present a panoply of billiards viewing, both good and bad.

Cue

The earliest example I’ve discovered of billiards on celluloid in Korea is the 1996 drama Cue.  Incredibly little is known about the film, except that it focused on “personal and professional jealousies in the high-stakes world of competitive pool, in which a female player seeks to become champion after the long-reigning champ is defeated.” Cue is not even listed on the IMDB filmography for the movie’s lead actor Lee Deok-Hwa. If you have any information on this movie, please share with me.

Bernard – “Billiards”

Known as Backkom in its native South Korea, the South Korean-Spanish-France computer animated television Bernard series centers on a curious polar bear named Bernard, whose bumbling slapstick antics typically result in the bear being knocked unconscious or being severely injured by the end of an episode.

In the “Billiards” episode, which aired sometime between 2006 and 2012, Bernard competes in a game of nine-ball against his lizard pal Zack.  Bernard has a strong break and some modicum of talent, but he’s no match for his lacertilian opponent. His attempts to sabotage Zack’s game appear to work until Bernard slips on a discarded ball, banging his head on the side table, and falling unconscious. The episode is available to watch here.

High Kick 3: Revenge of the Short Legged – “Episode 40”

The South Korean sitcom, High Kick 3, aired from September 2011 to March 2012. In those seven months, there were 123 episodes, including “Episode 40,” in which Kang Seung Yun declares himself an unbeatable “pool genius,” a “pool god…born with a pool stick in his hand.” Unconvinced, Dr. Yoon Gye Sang, a “master of studying,” challenges Seung Yun, proffering that anyone can play pool based on understanding the science and reading the books. He avers, “A smart person who understands the equation can possibly do better with less practice.”

Their classmates choose sides and place bets, with the loser owing the winner a chicken dinner. As it turns out, Seung Yun shoots a mean game of three-cushion billiards.  Dr. Yoon, not so much.  After blabbering calculations about the average number of shots required and commenting on the “tripod grip” for maximum effect, he scratches on the first shot, and it’s all downhill from there. Episode 40 is available to watch here.

Long Inside Angle Shot

In 2014, the New York Asian Film Festival, widely revered for its showings of many first-and-only screenings of Eastern Asian and Southeast Asian cinema, premiered Long Inside Angle Shot from Korea’s Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival.

Released in 2012, the film focuses on a middle-aged woman who seemingly does nothing but watch sagu, a variant of four-ball billiards, on the television. Initially believing she does not even understand the sport, her son Tae-bong realizes this is more than a passive hobby of hers when she reveals to him she has drained his bank account to purchase a new billiards hall.  The impetus for the idea was a dream she had in which a Buddhist monk played billiards with a wooden cane.

Unfortunately, the dream didn’t include customers, and tensions mount with the pair’s increasing poverty. But, Tae-bong’s disbelief and rage is put in check after his mother challenges him to a game of sagu, and he appreciates that her TV-watching intensity is matched by her incredible billiards acumen. She not only makes a beautiful masse shot, but also the titular long inside angle shot.

The movie is available to watch below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eTJCQr_NaQ

 

Drama Stage – “Not Played”

Lasting four seasons, Drama Stage was a South Korean weekly television program that featured ten one-act dramas per season. The first season included the 2018 episode “Not Played” about a woman in her 60s (Won Mi Kyung) who, having spent her life caring for children and housekeeping, accidentally stumbles across a part-time job at a billiard hall and discovers her talent for the sport. 

Initially apprehensive, she begins to secretly practice three-cushion billiards in the after hours, and watches tournament footage to improve her fundamentals.  When the hall’s proprietor learns of her innate skills, he trains her and encourages her to go all-in. Soon, she is competing against local sharks and, to the dismay of her husband, considering entering a tournament. 

I give a lot of originality points to the premise of this episode. Not a lot of billiards shows feature women; none star sexagenerians, though ironically the sagu-playing mother of Long Inside Angle Shot was probably pretty close in age. “Not Played” also avoids all the standard tropes of hustling, barrooms, trick shots, down-and-out players, and chooses instead to focus on an individual who discovers a newfound passion late in her life. 

Unfortunately, YouTube’s closed caption auto-translate subtitles were pretty muddled, so most of the dialogue was lost in translation. You can watch the full episode below.

Sixball

My favorite billiards film to come out of South Korea is Sixball, which was released in May 2020. This feature-length film from director Chae Ki-jun focuses on Sung-hoon (Lee Dae-han), a one-time aspiring professional billiards player whose dreams were shattered (and hand was broken) after getting cheated in a game of sixball by the gangster Mr. Yong (Hong Dal-pyo). As Sung-hoon is eventually lured back to billiards by his friend, who promises him the opportunity to make easy money betting in doubles billiards, he also finds himself with the perfect revenge opportunity, if he can survive his ultimate billiards match. 

While the plot is formulaic, Sixball works because it energetically doubles-down on certain high-octane elements, such as elegant straight rail carom billiards matches, a menacing and villainous adversary, layers of voyeurism and fetishism of women, and a riveting climactic match with one jaw-dropper of a shot.  You can read my full review here.

L.O.Λ.E STORY: INSIDE OUT – “Ready, Cue! Pocket Billiard”

Rounding out the septet is L.O.Λ.E STORY: INSIDE OUT, a new variety web series that portrays a more humble side to JR, Aron, Baekho, Minhyun, and Ren, the five members of the South Korean boy band NU’EST. 

The fifth webisode is “Ready, Cue! Pocket Billiard,” which aired in June 2021. It already has 85,000 views and more than 8,000 likes, but I found it beyond painful to watch (though I recognize I’m hardly the target demographic). In Ready, Cue!… the five musicians meet in a billiards hall. Initially they attempt to play carom billiards, but quickly give up and switch tables to play eight-ball.  However, each of the players is worse than the next, so there is an insufferable litany of misses, scratches, miscues, often replayed with sound effects. There is a twist toward the end as Minhyun starts making his shots, making the others question if he was hustling them. But, I was more concerned with how many more minutes of this series I needed to endure. You can watch the full episode here.

  1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049761/south-korea-billiards-participation-rate-by-age/
  2. Of course, the world’s most well-known Korean player is likely “The Black Widow” Jeanette Lee. However, she was born in Brooklyn, New York.

Siete mesas de billar francés

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The Goya Awards are Spain’s main national film awards. They are considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars. So imagine my excitement upon learning that Grace Querejeta’s 2007 film Siete mesas de billar francés (translated as Seven French Billiards Tables) received 10 Goya nominations, including two wins for Best Leading Actress (Maribel Verdú) and Best Supporting Actress (Amparo Baró).

To put that in perspective, there are 53 movies that have earned at least 10 Oscar nominations. That pantheon includes Lawrence of Arabia, The Sting, Network, Star Wars, and Braveheart, to name a handful with exactly 10 nominations. Pretty impressive company.

Among billiards movies, only two have walked the red carpet: The Hustler (nine nominations, including two wins) and twenty-five years later The Color of Money (four nominations, including one win).

This movie should have been cinematic oro. What a disappointment.

Siete mesas de billar francés feels like a telenovela, with a bunch of broken relationships and budding romances fighting for viewer attention. The movie begins with Angela (Verdú) and her son Guille traveling to the big city to see the boy’s grandfather. Upon arriving, they not only learn he has passed, but that his billiard hall, 7 Siete Mesas, with seven French tables (i.e., carom billiards tables) is now in decrepit condition and that the grandfather had a number of outstanding debts. For Angela, the bad news keeps coming, as she subsequently is confronted by the police to learn that her husband has both disappeared and has a secret second family.

Faced with a panorama of bad news, Angela decides to stay in the big city and restore the billiard hall to its former glory. This includes re-assembling the hall’s one-time billiard team — now a bunch of gruff, ornery oldsters – to compete in the upcoming tournament with a chance of winning the prize money.

Tempers flare and tensions rise, but given the movie’s melodramatic predictability, the players are able to put aside old history and reconnect. There’s even a place on team Siete Mesas for the dead father’s crotchety girlfriend. Eventually, it’s Angela who must reconcile her past and truly come to terms with her father’s death (but not before ripping a number of portraits of him off the wall and shattering them on the floor – oh my!).

Billiards enthusiasts will be equally disappointed, as Siete mesas de billar francés talks about the sport much more than it shows it. Certainly, the title sequence left me hopeful, as black-and-white photos of carom billiards players in their prime faded in and out. This was nostalgia for the game of yesteryear. But, aside from some occasional three-cushion shots, which always impress me for their perfect manipulation of the balls, the present-day game never materialized. Even the upcoming tournament never actually starts, though there is a bit of surprise as to who rounds out the team when one of the players steals the winnings and goes on the lam.

Siete mesas de billar francés is mildly entertaining, and Ms. Verdú is powerful in the lead, though not as much fun to watch as she was in Y tu mamá también or Pan’s Labyrinth. But, given its accolades, this film ultimately felt like a table scratch.

Siete mesas de billar francés is available to watch on Amazon Prime.