By: Mandy J Watson on 28 July 2010 Category: Screen > Shorts > Reviews

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What do you get when you mash up Jane Austen's Regency-era characters and sensibilities with Fight Club? Well the first rule of fight club is that one never mentions fight club. (But the answer is blood on your lace and scrapes on your knees, of course.)

I know this has already done the rounds on the Internet but in light of the fact that the Cape Town Book Fair is this weekend and we're focussing on books and book-related matters for the next few days, I thought we should highlight it here just for a bit of fun.

Jane Austen's Fight Club is a short movie in the style of a faux movie trailer for the "2011 release" of "Jane Austen's Fight Club". It was put together by a group of friends and uploaded to YouTube on Friday, and it has since gone viral. Unusually for a YouTube video there are few negative comments, bar the odd observation about the quality of the accents and whether or not the Tomoyasu Hotei track that's used at one point is appropriate. (As far as I'm concerned it's always appropriate.) Too many people with nothing to do but nitpick....

In Jane Austen's Fight Club our heroines, bored life becoming "an endless surrender to propriety" (lots of sewing and waiting for the right man, with the right breeding and a suitable inheritance, to come along), decide to shake things up and express some of their repressed tension in the form of a fight club. Lines from the movie (or book, if you prefer) Fight Club are quoted, which, out of context of the original, are hilarious and yet still manage to be apt for the scenes in which they appear. Fight club, meanwhile, invigorates the women, who find a new lease on life and a new sense of self purpose, freedom, and inner strength. We are always told that violence is not the answer but in this case it could very well lead to a societal shakeup and a feminist revolution. (Yes, with blood.)

For a non-professional production the quality is very good and while certain jokes may fall flat - I felt that the intentional anachronisms in places detracted from the humour, rather than adding to it - the overall effort is great. As absurd as the entire idea sounds you come away desperately wishing that someone would make this movie.

 Watch Online

 YouTube: Jane Austen's Fight Club

brainwavez.org Opinion

Rating: 7/10

Rewatchability: 7/10

In One Word: Unrestrained

Key Facts: Jane Austen's Fight Club

Year: 2010 (23 July 2010)

Running Time: 03:22

Genres: Action, Comedy, Historical Fiction, Parody

Credits: YouTube: TwoTurntablesNMic

On The Internet

Jane Austen's Fight Club: YouTube

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