News comes to me of The First Dragons Den UK Film Festival on Saturday 24th Feb at the AMC cinema at Five Ways.

"We decided to pool our resources and offer the fans a chance to sample some of the best martial arts films from around the world, the way nature intended, on the silver screen. For one whole day you will be able indulge in a mixture of old school martial arts classics and the best modern independent action movies, including two exclusive UK premieres!"

Here's the schedule:

13.15 - 15.00 : Invincible Armour
15.15 - 17.00 : Kampfansage - Der letzte Schüler
17.15 - 18.45 : Mystery of Chess Boxing
18.45 - 19.45 : BREAK
19.45 - 21.30 : Contour

I'm assuming BREAK is in fact a break and not a film, though you can never be sure. Personally Mystery of Chess Boxing has me intrigued. According to Wikipedia chess boxing involves "a match between two opponents consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess sessions, starting with a four-minute chess round followed by two minutes of boxing and so on. Between rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear." Regrettably the film "does not feature chessboxing as understood in this article". Aww.

More seriously, this is a great thing to see, making use of those massive multiplexes for some serious niche action. If you like a bit of kung fu do go support this.

Dragons Den on MySpace, link via Film Birmingham