His Action Figures Are Bigger than Yours

Forget your vintage 12-inch Luke Skywalker action figure from the late 70's, the other day while walking through the Tai Koo Shing mall in Hong Kong I came across a collection of really huge 'figs.

Apparently, Hong Kong film star Louis Koo is an SF fanboy. And not only does he not care if anyone knows, he's proud of it and quite willing to share his passion. Koo has had life-sized (in some cases slightly larger than life-sized) reproductions of his favourite SF characters created for his private collection, and he's loaned-out some of these mega 'figs to the mall to display for the viewing pleasure of his fellow geeks and other members of the public.

Many of the action figures are Star Wars-related: there are several Yodas, Darth Vader and Darth Maul loom in the display cases, R2 and Threepio are on the scene, and there are others. Koo has also comissioned a number of superheroes, including a couple of Spiderman 'figs, Batman, and Ironman. And let's not forget the variety of bug heads from the installments of the Alien franchise, along with a bust of the Predator and a few of that hunter's masks. Then there were the Lord of the Rings prop reproductions. In addition to the full-sized 'figs under glass, there were also a pair of huge display cases filled with ship replicas (my favourites were the Star Destroyer and the Rebel blockade runner, although it was pretty awesome that one of his Millenium Falcon models included an autograph from Harrison Ford) and closer to normal-sized action figures and statues. And the list goes on.

It was great to see the public turnout too. Obviously, many who stopped to look were just curious passers-by going about their shopping. But there were a fair number of people who were clearly fanboys & fangirls - not because they looked like any hackneyed nerd stereotypes, but because they were the ones taking photos, they were the ones chatting enthusiastically with each other about the displays, and they had the same enthusiastic light in their eyes that I did as we took it all in. We may not have been speaking the same language, but all of us geeks were saying the same thing: this is so cool.