When you are one of the coolest consoles of all time, it is inevitable that you'll end up in a movie sooner or later. So did the Sega Saturn, when a Hong Kong movie called
"Black Mask" was released in 1996; Saturn's peak year. In the midst of the movie the name giving Black Mask (Jet Li) is forced to kidnap one of his co-workers (Karen Mok) in order to get her out of trouble. Of course his real identity is a secret to her, so she's anything but thankful that he recently saved her. Thus, she's screaming, biting and scratching with her fingernails. How can you calm an innocent woman, who's behaving like that? Only with a Sega Saturn of course. So Black Mask decides to put her gently (aka throwing her) onto a chair infront of the TV and let her play some Sega Saturn. What's funny about the scene is, that she's even enjoying it. You can see her for some seconds, how she's playing like crazy (with her hands cuffed on the back). Also very interesting is the fact, that the scene only lasts for a mere minute, but within that time she is playing 3 different games. Virtua Fighter, Darius Gaiden and what looks to be some Capcom brawler (X-Men Children Of The Atom, I think). Either she has some kind of
Hotel Saturn, or the filmmakers (Tsui Hark) didn't really know, how a console works. The facts, that she uses some sort of foot pedal (wtf?) to play Darius Gaiden and that the audible sound effects sound like the very first pong consoles, are only supporting that assumption. But then, it's a great scene nonetheless.
(click for an outrageous big size)The movie itself is really watchable too, If I might add! A great Hong Kong action fest starring Jet Li and Lau Ching-Wan, who both are acclaimed actors in Hong Kong and one of the first comic to movie adaptions. I can only recommend the
Hong Kong DVD, since western releases often have laughable dubs or even changed soundtracks (again, wtf?). And it's cheaper anyways.
Whilst browsing YouTube for random Sega Saturn videos I found this little video. User "Mangatron8Zonaretro" uploaded an excerpt from the Anime series "You're Under Arrest!" and it shows how some character from the show repairs / mods a Sega Saturn. Too bad there are no subtitles available and it's a mystery to me, what the girl is saying, whilst looking at the moon. Probably something like "Damn, that Sega Saturn sure is a great console!" It's nothing too extraordinary and the scene is quite short, yet every Sega Saturn appearance is welcome.
