Laughing

I went to see Bride and Prejudice again last night. It was a big group event that had been planned for weeks and I was too embarrassed to admit to the organisers that I had already seen the film. Particularly so because they had bought everyone's tickets.

I enjoyed the movie again but I found the difference in audience behaviour just as fascinating. In Mong Kok last Friday night, the teenaged crowd laughed loudest at the slapstick. Last night we were in the classy Pacific Place cinema complex on Hong Kong side. I noticed that there was a lot of laughter whenever people detected a cleverly adapted feature of the novel.

My own laughter was a problem. I started to giggle uncontrollably when I knew there was a funny scene coming up ('Mary's' version of Sri Devi's cobra dance was hilarious!). I was trying my best to suppress this because it was a sure sign that I had viewed the film previously. In addition to this, I began to laugh whenever the guy behind uttered 'crazy' in Cantonese. This also had to be suppressed. Why do I always get one of these behind me when I go to the cinema in HK?