Director punches critics

2006-09-24 18:20

Vancouver, British Columbia - Tired of criticism of his films, controversial German film director Uwe Boll trounced four of his critics in a Vancouver boxing ring.

The director of the recently released vampire flick BloodRayne, based on a video game and starring Kristanna Loken and Ben Kingsley, issued a fight challenge to his critics several months ago. Fifteen responded.

"I now like the critics," Boll told a news conference after the fights on Saturday. "Everybody who was in the ring showed balls. Nobody dived.

"If they write about my movies without even seeing the movies then it's really annoying. If you make a movie like House of the Dead, a zombie movie, what are they expecting? Schindler's List?"

First in the ring with the director - now dubbed "Raging" Boll - was Richard Kyanka of Lee's Summit, Missouri, webmaster of www.somethingawful.com. He entered the ring clad in Stars and Stripes shorts.

"You are harbouring a terrorist," he said of Boll to the Canadian crowd of about 600. "You are all guilty." A grim-faced Boll then won the fight in a first-round knockout.

Jeff Sneider of Los Angeles, a journalist with Ain't It Cool News, went down in a technical knockout in the first round after Sneider's trainer threw in the towel.

He said Boll, 41, had told him it was just a joke, a public relations stunt.

"Then he started beating the crap out of my head," he said. "I think he's a jerk. This might be PR but I don't want to keep getting punched in the head."

Chris Alexander of Toronto, Ontario, a horror-move journalist with Rue Morgue radio and magazine, also went down in a knockout.

But, while on the receiving end of a series of blows to the head, Alexander took Boll aback when a stream of blood spewed from his mouth. It turned out Alexander had taken a page from Boll's filmmaking book; the blood was fake.

"When he got me in the side of the head, I was like a human pinball," Alexander said. "I had the fake blood in reserve. I spat it out. I freaked him out exactly like I wanted to do, it was poetry. It was my Jedi mind trick to try and disorient him."

He said he got in a punch for each of Boll's bad films. "I think I got him once in the face for Alone in the Dark and I got maybe one or two for BloodRayne." he said.

"I have absolutely no ... regrets. .. This is the weirdest pop culture bizarre journalism stunt I've ever been involved in."

- AP