The King of Kong

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Directed: Seth Gordon

Synopsis: One guy has held the Donkey Kong world record for 20 years, but a middle school science teacher thinks he has the stuff to beat him.

This documentary has all the elements of a major motion picture. It has the set up between the two rivals–one cocky about something that happened in 1982 and one who has been close to winning many things in life, but always fell short of the prize. It has the comedy of how into video game records some people can be and the heartbreak of one guy beating a record, but not being able to be declared the best. There is also a final twist that you would not expect since it is real life and not a big Hollywood movie with a Hollywood happy ending.

I could not believe the guy that held the record for the past 20 years. I would have expected him to be a bit cocky, but also thought that he would have matured over the years. His attitude was amazing and deluded. I really felt for the science teacher, but at times, also felt bad for his family that he would ignore in order to play the game. The best part of the movie was his son begging his dad to quit playing the game while he was trying to video tape his top record to submit it to the guys that keep track of the top records for Donkey Kong. The entire conversation is on the tape.

I never realized Donkey Kong was such a hard game. I might have gotten to the second screen once, but I took that as I sucked at the game, not that it was super hard. That doesn’t mean that I don’t suck at the game, but I didn’t realize others struggled with it even if they were good at video games. I saw levels of the game in the movie that I didn’t even know existed. Also, seeing the end of the video games made back in the day where they would just crash since they didn’t expect people to get to the end was awesome.

Finally, even though the son might have the best part of the movie, the daughter of the science teacher had the best line. While going to a gaming tournament, she commented, “Work is for people that don’t play video games.” So true, so true.

Rating: A

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