The Ring Thing

The Ring Thing is a 2004 Swiss feature film. Produced without state film funding, it is a low-budget production and parodies the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The Ring Thing had its world premiere on 14 December 2004 at the Pathé cinema centre near Zurich. Theatrical release in Switzerland was mid-December 2004 and in Germany summer 2005. Plot The Swiss banker Fredi has fallen in love with the irascible Heidi. For his marriage proposal, Fredi has bought an engagement ring. While he is practising his proposal on an aeroplane toilet, the floor of the plane suddenly breaks through and Fredi falls to earth together with the toilet and the ring and wakes up in a strange mountain world. There he is mistaken for the hobbit Friedo and learns from old Almgandhi that Lord Sauraus has stolen his ring, with the help of which he wants to fondue the world. Fredi and Almgandhi then set out together with the telehobbie Pupsi, the nymphomaniac elf Grümpfli, the former ring owner Schleimli and the warrior Rackaroll to defeat Sauraus. Eventually it comes out that Pupsi is really a villain and betrayed the heroes to Sauraus because he told him he was his father. In the end Fredi gets the ring and everything has a happy ending: Grümpfli and Schleimli get married, Fredi leaves Heidi to his arch-rival Sauraus and lives on happily (assuming there is no sequel to the film) as Friedo in the strange Swiss mountain world.