Rat race betting scene 75

But what Hongkong Land did instead was devise an event that satirized and even subverted Hong Kong's work-centric world of employees eating "al desko" in cubicle farms, their eyes panda-like from sleep deprivation, where free time is more "workend" than weekend. Hongkong Land Ltd. The company began formulating its strategy when it decided the event should tap into the uniquely ultra-competitive work culture of Hong Kong. Just how competitive is it? Its citizens are the marathon runners of the work world, toiling an average of more than 2, hours per year, according to the United Nations' International Labour Organization.

In fact, Hong Kong's workaholic norm is almost 21 percent above Americans' slacker-like 1, annual hours of labor. So how do you encourage event attendance among a demographic for whom interfering with their work is like getting between a hungry Doberman and his food bowl? Hongkong Land's solution to that peculiar problem possessed the genius of sheer simplicity: Challenge them to compete against each other like Spartacus in the Coliseum.

The company decided to transform the event into a competitive fundraising effort for the Hong Kong-located mental-health charity Mindset. It was irresistible bait, even for an audience that takes work as seriously as the Ten Commandments. It was also a shrewd move by a company that grasped the power of philanthropy. The Cone Cause Evolution Study, compiled by the Boston-based consulting firm Cone LLC, found that 83 percent of people want more of the products or services they use to benefit causes, while 85 percent form a more positive image of a company when it supports a cause they care about.

Even more impressive was the study's finding that 80 percent of people are likely to switch brands from one that doesn't support a cause to one that does. Thus, not only would Hongkong Land's charitable challenge likely boost event attendance; it could also reward the company with a philanthropic - and ultimately profitable - image.

What's more, it would generate a genus of publicity few traditional events could match. On Your Marks. With the general strategy of the event determined, Hongkong Land now needed to define its style. Given the strategy's emphasis on work and competition, tenets that are as natural to the company and Hong Kong as they are to NCAA March Madness basketball teams, Hongkong Land realized that a Rat Race might be the perfect concept for the event.

Racers zigzagged through the Job Maze, a byfoot maze featuring sponsor logos and cheese-like graphics. First recorded in , the term "rat race" described hundreds of vermin frantically crawling and climbing over each other in a meaningless effort to escape from a maze built for the amusement of others. By the s, the term had come to mean modern man's pointless existence as office drones laboring ceaselessly for the profit of others.

Then in , the first Rat Race event appeared in New York. Called the Wall Street Rat Race, contestants in workday wear of suits and skirts tore through a 2. Since then, these rodent-themed competitions have become a popular fixture in Tokyo; Toronto; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Like Hong Kong, these cities are all renowned for their financial and real-estate industries, and equally extolled for their worker-ant ethic.

In each, business executives or at least generally white-collar workers, often dressed in their best Brooks Brothers attire, raise money for charity by scrambling through a series of physical hindrances arrayed over an outdoor obstacle course. Situated near the cathedrals of commerce like the New York Stock Exchange, the races mock these institutions like a drunken heckler at a comedy club. Dubbing its version the Central Rat Race, the company announced it would launch the event in October of Keeping with the insurgent humor of other Rat Races, this one would satirize the challenges Hong Kong's executives confront with a series of tongue-in-cheek obstacles themed on climbing the corporate ladder.

Befitting the Hong Kong's "Anything you can do, we can do better" attitude, Hongkong Land also found ingenious ways to expand the concept of the Rat Race and embed its brand as deep as the Marianas Trench into the event's very structure. The third leg of the race, called the Corporate Ladder, required participants to scale a set of escalators with various job titles printed on each step. But there was another, more subtle layer underneath that of competing for charity.

Mindset's raison d'etre - mental health - echoed the angst over exercise, teamwork, and work-life balance that saturated the airwaves, filled newspapers, and deluged blogs in Hong Kong. Work there consumed lives with the rapaciousness of a wolf pack on a deer. The Rat Race gave those who took part a way of admitting, though with levity and lightness, that overwork can be as fatal as the fang of a rattlesnake.

Aided by Oval Design Ltd. Each of the race's eight legs would have massive visual markers, such as foot-tall inflatable cubes and high-density foam mats shaded the orange-yellow color of aged cheddar cheese. Cleverly, the company also found a way to permeate the event with its brand by having the contestants sprint through its own properties during various legs of the competition. To make that part a logistical reality, however, it would have to apply to the government for special permits, as well as hold the event on a Sunday, to minimize the havoc the Rat Race would cause in the normally congested CBD.

Hongkong Land also coordinated with a number of government departments to use all or part of several streets in the race. Relay teams of eight individuals would compete against each other by passing a "baton" - actually, a yellow briefcase that Hongkong Land provided - to other team members as they sped through the different legs of the race. Adding to the visual appeal, competitors would wear a mix of business- and rat-related costume wear, from three-piece suits to Mickey Mouse-style gloves.

In a masterstroke of playing to its audience's dog-eat-dog instincts, Hongkong Land didn't raise the funds for the charity: It made individuals and teams who wanted to take part in the race raise a minimum amount specified for Mindset.

After handing off the briefcase, participants placed "bomb-deactivating cards" into a timer that "defused" the cardboard bombs strapped to the racers of the fourth leg. Mixing press conferences along with television and newspaper advertisements to promote the event, the company drew attendees from around 40 Hong Kong companies - including corporate heavyweights such as Citigroup Inc.

That first year, more than people turned out for the inaugural Central Rat Race. Like jolly court jesters who mocked the strict formality and suffocating social order of corporation-like dynasties from ancient China to Merry Olde England, the races became a good-natured way to remind attendees that nobody on their deathbed ever thought "I wish I had worked more hours. Equally as competitive as any of the event's attendees, the company created its own metric for success: the number of attendees, and amount of money raised for Mindset.

Increases in both might suggest Hongkong Land had come to occupy a branded niche in the hearts and minds of the Hong Kong business community. Get Set. In just those few years, it had become a venerable local tradition with business executives and nongovernmental organization NGO representatives participating as a matter of competitive status and civic goodwill.

With the event's continuing success and growing cachet in Hong Kong, the company would have had every reason to keep the Central Rat Race static, like a board game whose rules and structure are preserved in a kind of procedural amber. Instead, every year Hongkong Land rolled the dice on the tried-and-true formula with the aplomb of Nick the Greek betting his house, introducing new twists to keep the event from becoming as stale as last year's stock prices - and to provide more challenges to pique rivalrous attendees' interest.

During leg five, dubbed Finding Cheese, racers scrambled to locate pieces of foam cheese in a large bin of colorful plastic balls as quickly as possible. It evolved the props from small items to giant inflatable and foam structures such as cubes, slides, and even a fishing pool to make a visual spectacle that looked more like Six Flags Hong Kong than a standard corporate event.

It also expanded the event with different competitions, such as the Big Rat Race for senior executives a shorter course with just two legs for these older honchos , and the Junior Rat Race also shorter for children aged five to eight years old. In keeping with the fundraising format implemented for the Rat Race, racers in each of those shorter courses also needed to raise a minimum amount to participate in the event.

Over the years, the company developed a number of awards for participants, bestowing accolades such as the Fat Rat Award for the team that raised the most funds, and the Big Rat Cup for the speediest senior executive. Hongkong Land also opened up the event by adding a race just for representatives from NGOs. Moreover, the company occasionally changed various legs of the race to prevent it from becoming stagnant and predictable.

For example, in , it altered one leg so that runners had to shine shoes - "shoe shining" is a Chinese euphemism for shamelessly sucking up to one's superiors - before passing the footwear on to their teammates. In , with the financial tsunami of the Great Recession still battering the world's financial shores, Hongkong Land themed all eight legs after the economic storm, forcing racers to work through seven sections representing a gloomy present to an eighth and final one representing a bright future.

Each change helped expand the event into a multihour extravaganza that consumed much of Hong Kong's attention the way the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade occupies New York's. It's a fun little romp. They learn from the casino's owner, Donald P.

As they frantically set out to reach the cash first, by any legal, illegal, morally ambiguous, funny, and frantic means available to them, various others catch wind of the adventure and join them on the quest. Little do they know that they're really just racing as part of a larger gambling enterprise for the entertainment of several of the casino's high rollers.

Rat Race strings together some honest laughs as the characters face obstacles of their making, spurred on by uncontrolled avarice, that put them in comically dangerous situations that usually play on the same motif: the groups invariably run into vehicle trouble and find themselves stalled somewhere along the way. The movie grows a bit tiresome through the middle stretch as just about every group finds itself stranded on the side of the road when a bus or truck or car goes down.

There are some truly random and bizarre happenings along the way, though. Enrico finds himself paired up with a medical delivery driver Wayne Knight who is transporting a heart to New Mexico. The Pear family winds up driving Hitler's personal vehicle. Owen finagles his way into driving a bus full of Lucille Ball impersonators.

Vera and her daughter Merrill Lanei Chapman cross a woman who sells squirrels Kathy Bates and wind up stealing a vehicle built to break the sound barrier, and Nick pairs up with helicopter pilot Tracy Amy Smart who uses the opportunity to use the chopper as a weapon against her unfaithful boyfriend.

It's all so random that it winds up working. Most of the time. The repetitive structure grates a bit but the cast's enthusiasm and the film's ceaselessly forward momentum, even when characters are stranded on the side of the road, are enough to keep things gleefully exciting and agreeably enticing. There's not a stiff performance in the film. The cast seems more than happy to be on the journey. Each of them brings an infectious personality to the screen, defined by that singular focus but shaped and reworked through the course of the film by the shifting personal and family dynamics in play.

While this is not Zucker's best work, it's one of his most approachable films and one that is not quick to grow old on repeat viewings. It looks good, generally, retaining a light grain structure and enjoying good, firm details, but the work here is a far cry from some of the finest catalogue releases Paramount has released of late. If nothing else it's balanced and capable, not at all home to severe processing. Fine details are left intact, and the filmic veneer has not been removed, either.

Essential textures are very well defined, including basics like faces and clothes and extend to various locations, from dense casino floors to wide open natural terrain in the arid landscapes between Vegas and Silver City. Colors are fine, offering enough depth and vitality to satisfy. Contrast holds in a neutral position, allowing brighter primaries to pop and earthy backgrounds to hold steady.

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But easily as funny as the original. Blaine speaks incoherently due to a recent tongue piercing. Vera Whoopi Goldberg and Merrill Lanei Chapman : Merrill is the long-lost daughter of Vera and the two have just met for the first time, when Merril is an adult and trying to launch her own business. Possibly the stand in for the crazy dentist from the original movie. At first he doesn't even care about the race, suspecting it to be some kind of scam, until the Cody Brothers sabotage the airport.

Eventually he recruits Tracy, a hot-headed helicopter pilot, as transportation and Love Interest. The latter might be a parody on the semi-amateur pilot from the original movie. Perhaps the Funny Foreigner stand-in for Terry-Thomas' character from the original film. Methods of travel used by the contestants include many types of cars, vans and trailers - including Adolf Hitler's Mercedes Benz and a courier van transporting a human heart - a taxi, a helicopter, a train, a tour bus bound for an I Love Lucy convention, a tour bus bound for a mental institution, a Monster Truck, a Hot Air Balloon, a rocket car, a horse, and when all else fails, your own two feet.

Affably Evil : Donald Sinclair is really quite charming when he's not treating other people like toys. She and her mother-in-law, Naomi, return from Moab after losing their husbands. Still a young woman, Ruth wants to be married again, especially because of the security and sufficiency that a husband would bring to her and Naomi. She happens to glean in the field of Boaz, and he generously helps her, giving her special privileges and a great deal of grain. Being a responsible mother-in-law, Naomi designs a scheme to get Boaz to marry Ruth.

She instructs Ruth in what to do, and the young woman follows them precisely. Boaz is a good man, and perhaps, too, very predictable. He does exactly what Naomi had figured he would do. He responds to Ruth's request to "take your maidservant under your wing" Ruth in this way: "And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you request, for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman. Now it is true that I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I.

But if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you, as the LORD lives! Lie down until morning. Also he said, "Bring the shawl that is on you and hold it. Then she went into the city. When she came to her mother-in-law,. Then [Naomi] said, "Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out; for the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day.

Certainly "excitement" just begins to describe the emotions going through a bride-to-be's mind. Ruth was probably in turns ecstatic, nervous, relieved, and uncertain. Remember that she was a Moabitess in Israel. She had likely considered her chances of finding a husband to be slim to none.

Nor should we discount the fact that Boaz had given her six ephahs of barley. We fail to realize just how generous a gift this was. If nothing else, it meant that she and Naomi would not go hungry for quite a while, as six ephahs equates to three bushels or liters of grain—it was a wonder that she could carry so much home!

It also amounted to a small bit of wealth because not only could they eat it, they could also sell it. Even so, the barley was probably not the primary reason for her excitement. All atwitter, she spilled out her story to Naomi, tripping over her words in her giddiness, pacing the floor, grabbing her mother-in-law's hands and hugging her, imagining everything that could go wrong, and despairing that it would.

And Naomi, being older and wiser—and surely tired from a long night of waiting—says, "Ruth, just sit still and see how all this turns out. Boaz, here, is redeeming Ruth, just as Christ redeems us from the death penalty that falls on us when we sin.