Even though my tastes trend toward
charred meats and Bruce Willis flicks, I don't know from rugby. As it has been explained to me, the sport involves tackling, biting, mud, toothlessness and collegial beer intake. If that's the case, I
don't know how it hasn't long since captured my fancy, much less lapped medium-contact pursuits like hockey or Black Friday shopping here in the U. S. of effin' A.
But while it's
Tebow-and-Lin-marry-Kardashians-level news in much of the rest of the free world, this weekend's 2012 Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens tournament
hadn't blipped on my leisure-time radar, at least not until I was forwarded a "film" (read: slightly longer ad) produced by HSBC for the occasion. It lacks proportion and subtlety, and recasts rugby
as an urban deathsport - all good things in my book. Join me, will you, on my voyage of discovery.
The clip, "Serious
Play," opens on a Hong Kong street, where be-vested dudes in cowboy hats are running around willy-nilly, as if really late for work. Turns out that they're engaged in a high-stakes game of Keep Away, one in which bonus points are awarded for slo-mo jumping and annihilation of vegetable carts. They're encountered by another bunch of
dudes, all dressed like members of Blue Man Group's green-bodysuited auxiliary unit. And they're shifty and manic, and set on stealing the Cowboys' HSBC-branded rugby ball. (Question: Is it called a
"rugby ball," or is there some sport-specific term for it that I'll get ripped for not knowing, like "tossy-orb"?) One poor Cowboy gets tackled by a car. This is so much cooler than golf.
Then
the camera randomly flashes on a black dude drinking coffee, a weird artistic choice amid the chaos. While my
first thought is that this may be an attempt to shoehorn in a message of racial inclusiveness - because god forbid anyone should think HSBC doesn't boast a veritable pan-ethnic rainbow of a customer
base - it appears that the random dude is George Gregan, a rugby-player-guy of some repute. That's one for the insiders. Anyway.
The Green Man Group encounters a bunch of jumbo-size elves, who have abandoned their toy-making stalls in the interest of confusing and/or terrorizing passersby. They also want the HSBC
ball… as does another street gang, this one clad in white pantsuits with disco collars. This crew promptly butts heads, literally, with a bunch of extras from the movie 300. Bodies are crunched and flung with abandon. Then a bunch of luchadores show up and crash through tables, as is their wont.
At this point, I have it scored thusly: Green Man Group 28,
Elves 20, Cowboys 18, Disco Dancefighters 18, Luchadores 12, Extras From 300 8. I penalized the Disco Dancefighters 2 points due to the illegal width of their collars.
Now there are Vikings
and either U.S. founding fathers or kabuki actors with slicked-back Shogun ponytails. I can't tell, because the video cuts so quickly between scenes and combatants that it becomes a blur after a
while. And just like that, we're in a restaurant, where the Green Men are ignoring the dickens out of the "no ball-playing or table-walking-on" sign on the wall. It goes on like this for a while.
Eventually we circle back to the Extras from 300, who have the tossy-orb in hand when the clip ends. I guess that means they won?
In conclusion, I don't have the slightest idea as to what's
happening in this clip, nor whom it's happening to. But there's no grand goal here, from an HSBC branding perspective or any other. Just enjoy it for what it is: shiny, meticulously choreographed and
set to the strains of a politely rollicking song by the Black Keys, who have replaced The Pixies as the go-to band for coolness-by-association.
"Serious
Play" more than capably conveys excitement for the tourney ahead, and that's plenty. One could find far duller ways to spend 90 seconds of one's free time.