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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Kill Bill - Tarantino's Latest

  
  

Page: 123(4)5

 
 
Gary Lactus
13:47 / 23.10.03
I do think it's interesting that all of Lucy Liu's acting (aside from her boardroom decapitation rant) is done by a bad cartoon

BAD CARTOON?!?

And right there, you lose me.....
 
 
The resistable rise of Reidcourchie
14:16 / 23.10.03
I saw this last night and I'm not sure what to make of it. It seems that Tarantino has decided against using his talent for dialogue to replace it with cliches. Pastiche is fine but surely he should add something to the genre rather than just a rehash? Even the much maligned Wachowski brothers managed more than that.

I think I find the violence towards women somewhat disturbing, with everything from the jarring and pointlessly inappropriate sounding use of the word bitch, to the constant and vicious beatings that women take in the film, to the coma rape played for laughs scene. I also have real problems with the paedophile line.

Despite the exploititive nature of the character I did find Gogo sinister and scary. Maybe I'm missing something, I kind of want to give the film another go, I've liked most of Tarantino's work bar Jackie Brown and NBK (admittedly not his fault) and I really thought I would like this but I wasn't that impressed.

As an aside has anyone noticed a general trend to the sort of 70's/80's ultrviolent Death Wish/Dirty Harry/Cobra exploitiveness in the cinema at the moment? We seem to be reliving the 80's in so many ways and not surprisingly paramilitary chic is in at the moment.
 
 
The resistable rise of Reidcourchie
15:00 / 23.10.03
S
P
O
I
L
E
R

But only for Bad Boys 2, though perhaps it's common knowledge, I don't know I don't read reviews anymore.

Saying that though Bad Boys II had the most surprising twist I've seen in a long time, I just wasn't expecting them to invade Cuba.
 
 
at the scarwash
17:52 / 23.10.03
The. Animation. Was. Bad. Horrible sense of color, character design from a cheesy videogame box, awful lines. This "sketchy" look that's supposed to denotate intensity? Just plain bad. Really. Bad stuff.
 
 
mondo a-go-go
17:58 / 23.10.03
Okay, this is totally a kookymojo thing to notice, but I think it must have been there for some reason:

When Sophie Fatale is driving her car in Tokyo, there's a close-up on her foot as it floors the gas-pedal, and she's wearing open-toed shoes. So, you can see her toes, and I think she's wearing Chanel Rouge Noir on her toenails.

It seems like all the shots in the film were framed very deliberately, and that none of them were used without reason. Maybe this was a foreshadowing of Miss Fatale's future circumstance. Though I think it was also a visual gag that goes back to Uma Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction. She was the one who made Rouge Noir the popular nail polish colour that it became, and which ushered in the trend for vampish colours again. It did! Really! I remembe there was an article on it in The Face! Or maybe it was Marie Claire. But there was definitely a big thing about Rouge Noir, because it was a new colour -- I seem to recall that it was the first time black and red had been successfully mixed together to create the new nail polish colour...

Okay, I'm totally going to shut up now.

Except to say, seeing this at a drive-in with smuggled booze totally rocks. \m/
 
 
CameronStewart
19:08 / 23.10.03
>>>The. Animation. Was. Bad. Horrible sense of color, character design from a cheesy videogame box, awful lines. This "sketchy" look that's supposed to denotate intensity? Just plain bad. Really. Bad stuff.<<<

Funny then that it was produced by Production I.G., one of the best and most respected animation companies in Japan.

I disagree that the animation. was. bad. I thought it was marvelously executed, and as someone who's an avid student of animation, I'm massively critical.

You seem to have made up your mind that this film was awful from start to finish and are inventing justification for it.
 
 
&#9632;
20:06 / 23.10.03
Jesus.
Sorry, that was a bad film.
I'm sure I could waste lots of my life trying to be clever about cartoon violence and clever self-referentiality, but I can't be arsed.
I really hate to say this, but Charlie's Angels 2 was better. OK, I'm willing to concede that it might be a grower, but when I walk out of a film thinking "Is that it?", I feel like I've been ass-candled by someone. and we all know how that feels, right?
 
 
PatrickMM
20:20 / 23.10.03
I just saw the film for the second time. When I got back from it the first time, I completely loved it, and on the second viewing, it was even better.

For me, the movie that Kill Bill most resembles is the original Star Wars. Both of these movies took a genre that had a lot of untapped potential, and made an incredible movie that perfectly captures the spirit of the genre (Space opera or Kung-Fu), while making it completely modern and enjoyable.

Like Star Wars, Kill Bill exists in a universe unto itself, something that is very rare among films today. There are so many moments in this movie where the visuals and music combine to create something incredible, and that's probably the most powerful quality of cinema, the ability to turn disparate elements into something unique and powerful, story-wise.

Walking out of the theater, I had an incredible feeling, a real love for cinema, and in capturing that feeling, I think Tarantino's work on this movie was completely successful.
 
 
Hieronymus
21:03 / 23.10.03
Anybody else notice the ad in Japan for Red Apple cigarettes? Somewhere Butch is smiling.

Personally I think if you take this film in any way seriously, despite Tarantino's temptations made to the viewers to do so, you've screwed yourself. As long as the absurdity is kept in mind, the film handles well. But a marked achievement in cinema? Feh. Hardly.

Dark Horizon's Garth made mention of the fact that this isn't a sequelized flick anyhow. It's an entire film chopped literally in half. So judgments should probably be made with the understanding that the rest of the full course meal is just around the corner. I'm certainly curious about it.
 
 
PatrickMM
21:58 / 23.10.03
One question. Is the music from the end credits, and the scene when Hattori Hanzo is giving Uma the sword, on the soundtrack? I know that the soundtrack is missing a lot of cues, and that's the track I'm mainly interested in getting. And if it's not, anyone know what it's called?
 
 
LDones
22:17 / 23.10.03
PatrickMM, isn't that "The Lonely Sheperd", by Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute? Unless I'm mistaken about when that particular music cue takes place, it's Track 14 on the CD.
 
 
at the scarwash
23:02 / 23.10.03
Cameron, I've never made any bones about how much I respect your taste. You are one of my three or four favorite artists in comics. I still say that I did not like the animation. Maybe some of my attempts to attack this film are not well-defended, but I was just trying to throw my opinions into the ring, and hoping to generate an alternate current in the discussion. Maybe I'll go home and meditate on my weaknesses and come back to take you all on like a real god damn samurai.

Was the Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves actually filmed on the Shaw Brothers lot?
 
 
PatrickMM
00:07 / 24.10.03
Thanks, LDones. Looks like I'll be picking up the soundtrack shortly.
 
 
LDones
02:25 / 24.10.03
Portions of the movie were shot on the Shaw Brothers lot, but I haven't read anything about which scenes, specifically whether or not the House of Fallen Leaves sequence was filmed there. I wouldn't be surprised.

The awesome 'Feature Presentation' animation and music from the beginning is a Shaw Brothers staple as well.
 
 
at the scarwash
02:51 / 24.10.03
I just feel like I've seen that particular garden a million times. And not all Shaw Bros. stuff. It looks exactly like the one where Bruce Lee proceeds to extend a hand in beating to the Japanese guy at the end of The Chinese Connection. Only not so snowy.
 
 
CameronStewart
15:29 / 24.10.03
>>>Cameron, I've never made any bones about how much I respect your taste. You are one of my three or four favorite artists in comics.<<<

Oh! This is very flattering and I do very much appreciate it, thanks!

>>>Maybe some of my attempts to attack this film are not well-defended, but I was just trying to throw my opinions into the ring, and hoping to generate an alternate current in the discussion.<<<

Yeah, I understand. I'm not trying to come across as bitchy and I know you're under no obligation to enjoy the film - though I'm sorry you didn't. It just read to me like you were swimming against the tide merely for the sake of it. Apologies!
 
 
at the scarwash
18:14 / 24.10.03
Oh, no. I do get contrary from time to time, but I really didn't like it.
 
 
not nervous
21:59 / 24.10.03
1. i loved this movie.

2. i just got one of those really big posters that they have in bus shelters and i'm delighted.
 
 
A
08:30 / 26.10.03
*I also thought that this movie totally rocked a snow leopard's arse.

*Is Kill Bill a fucking fantastic name for a movie, or what?

*I can't believe no one's mentioned that the band playing at the House of Blue Leaves is the 5678's! When I saw their name in the opening credits I got very excited indeed.
 
 
netbanshee
02:15 / 27.10.03
Got back from a first viewing and thought it was a good flick. Can't wait to see Carradine show up in the next part. Will be cool to catch some people from martial arts/pop culture flicks from the past. Recognized some of the actors from other things as well (beheaded mobster was from Odishon, etc.).

It was also nice to see how Uma continued to get more beat and fucked up as the movie went along. I'm getting curious to see what she'll look like in the end. Poor girl.

And that flute track was pulled from Legends of Kung-Fu... a favorite of mine that an unsuspecting friend had from college. It's been following me around since I got back...
 
 
nihraguk
13:10 / 27.10.03
I think a lot of people before me have expressed this opinion, so I'll keep it short: I think the film rocked; it was fantastic, imho, and great work by Tarantino. Agree with dizfactor's notion of the film as image; and I think QT crafted KB so. Brillant work.

One particular aspect of the film that I took a liking to was the human element in it, that seemed to exist almost as a subtext. The spurting gouts of blood with every kill, the manner in which the fight scenes do not show off mechanical, technical kung-fu expertise, but rather give significant attention to the fatigue of Thurman in particular, the manner in which the camera is not used to hide the ... gangly manner in which Thurman and Liu fight. The first kill scene, with the intersposal (is that a word?) of kid, mom, washing dishes and killing from a cereal box -- that particular chapter gave off strong whiffs of conflict in human roles, passions -- alluded to directly or indirectly (the notion of getting 'knocked-up', versus the physical presence of the kid). The kitchen floor dirtied with bloodied cereal and milk. The ultraviolence in this film seems to exist partially to call our attention to the human element; because violence is a flatline'd, repetition of effects (the blood, the SHARP sword -- yes we know it's sharp and slices .everything. cleanly -- all this seems to be used almost like a motif), it levels the ground, and allows the audience to focus on the things that -jar-, such as the human elements in the movie. It seems like QT is making some statement on this; I just don't know what.

All that having said, one of my favourite moments was the 'W H I M P E R' from young Liu-in-cartoon; maybe it's because I don't watch a lot of anime/manga, but I thought that was a great, yet simple employment of the form to fit the function.
 
 
Quantum
08:02 / 29.10.03
It rocked. Top moments- spanking the last of the crazy 88, the mosquito, the anime. QT is an auteur.
 
 
Not Here Still
20:04 / 29.10.03
OPB Anna: It seems like all the shots in the film were framed very deliberately, and that none of them were used without reason.

Indeed. Nice to see you back, BTW. Been meaning to say that for a while...

Get the obvious out of the way first; great film, think it is brilliant, not the finest film ever made but a damn good movie. There we go.

I think that, in Kill Bill far more than any of his other work, the little details are what makes this film. It is the kind of film people will be returning to again and again, theorising over and building stories around... something Tarantino has always done well.

Everything in this film seemed to have been delibarately placed there, rather than just appeared. Sometimes, as when you are shown a wide expanse of window at Vivica Fox's house, just enough for a schoolbus to appear into - it's fairly obvious where the film is going. Sometimes not. And there's plenty of funny little touches too - Darryl Hannah in the hospital reversing her eyepatch so it has a red cross on it, or the row of sunglasses on the sheriff's dashboard. For some reason a lot of the film's structure reminded me of comics, but that's just me, perhaps...

One point though; Uma, how come your legs can waste away in a coma and will be useless, but your arms won't? Huh?
 
 
mondo a-go-go
21:14 / 29.10.03
Because she lives in a world where there's a special place on deck for your samourai sword on every Japanese airline. ;]

Yeah, the framing like comics thing occurred to me, but QT isn't much of a comics fan. (though apparently his mum is)
 
 
PatrickMM
22:06 / 29.10.03
Yeah, the framing like comics thing occurred to me, but QT isn't much of a comics fan. (though apparently his mum is)

He isn't? I always assumed, just from the prominent place of comics in True Romance, a Marvel reference in Reservoir Dogs and I believe there was something in Pulp Fiction as well. But perhaps he's just trying to get the comics audience behind his film, in the same way that one minute about Star Wars in Clerks likely gave Kevin Smith half his following.
 
 
mondo a-go-go
22:29 / 29.10.03
Oh, I could be wrong. I just got the impression he wasn't a big fan of comics, specifically, so much as pop culture in general. He's so much more of a film nerd, though.

That interview I linked to upthread is a good example of what I mean; he talks about Road to Perdition versus Lone Wolf & Cub, and in both cases, he's talking about the film versions, not the comics.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
22:57 / 02.11.03
YOU KNOW THERE'LL BE SPOILERS FOR KILL BILL #1.



I think he's got a definite coke addled appreciation of comics. he ghost wrote the best thing about Crimson Tide, Denzel setting an ensign (?) on the sub straight about Kirby's superiority to Moebius when it comes to the Silver Surfer.

Just saw this film today and WHOOO! Just pure adrenaline, this film. The "Human Element" (agreed, best displayed in the Copperhead battle in the opening), is maintained by such an amazing amalgam of every aspect of film.

a) The Sound. You, you're fucking seat, feels every punch and kick in those first few minutes, still rattled after that, opening and devestating gun shot, I know.

b) The Visuals. Sweat. Blood. Glass. Gunpowder. These are the visual cues for pain.

c) The perfomance. You know how you don't buy the fights in The Matrix? This film explains why. Human beings suffer fatigue. (That being said, I'm all over the Matrix for completely different reasons. Bug frozen in Amber kind of thing, totally different.)

Thus in just a few minutes you're completely through the ringer, then you relax, start imagining the ultimate Soccer Mom Showdown on a baseball field and

FUCKING FRANK MILLER BLAM!

Dead body. I have a particular weakness when it comes to gunshots (volume, unexpectedness, it all goes back to a childhood experience with popping baloons) so those opening two stunners left me on edge for the rest of the film ("Oh shit, I know Lucy Liu is packing underneath that kimono...better cover my ears for the next forty five minutes...").

Lets talk about QT's structure. It's so wildly effective in this movie, dozens of moments of subtle chronology clues (the way the paino ashtray wroked in Mullholland Drive), and the Chapter Headings....there are so many moments that point out why changing fonts (Gus Van Sant's Pink) or drawing in shorthand (um, any Stephen King novel since IT?) will never work as well as just that one moment: "Chapter One: 2".

The moments of quiet (That Fucking Water Pump.....THAT WATER PUMP!) versus those moments of awesome Soundtrackness and the contrast between them. How we get The Bride (and by the way, I LOVED the bleeps) practically ripping a trucker's face off and then spending minutes (a long time in film) watching her struggle to get into...THE PUSSY WAGON...sorry..it is a truck that is, itself, in its own existence, capitalized. And then watching her get her feet to work.

I had seen that "Hard part's over" shot in the trailers that I pored over and I just could not wait for the payoff...watching those toes (so humanly beautiful)..and also the way QT fit in a whole origin story, animated, natch, while we were waiting....

I do agree though that there wasn't much Yuen Po-ness, it was all such a blur, however, that blur of limbs and blood and shiny metal was all constructed from scratch. This isn't really a film concerned with the grace of Kung Fu. This movie, from the start, is all about the work. How hard it is to get what you want.
 
 
Brigade du jour
21:54 / 03.11.03
Whhhhoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhthismoviefuckinro
cks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 
Mr Tricks
16:06 / 04.11.03
Blech

I have to say I was thoroughly dissapointed in this film...
All style no substance. Sure there where some nice tips of the hat, but the "jokes" got old.

This totally reminded me of Dusk 'till Dawn with its solid edgy begining that quickly faded into self indulgance.

The Anime sequence was great... but the MATRIX beat him to it with the Animatrix... If he had turned the whole movie into Anime the moment the story left Okinawa and landed in Japan, then I would have been inpress... the action would have been much more believable and then he could have saved the pretty faces for talking head shots.

The B/W spatter gore was boring and inconsistant. If he was going to go there then why not go there to the minute detail choreographing each cut and blood splatter. Too many time the sword fights resorted to the same old swing the sword and the guy falls over and rolls down the steps leaving no trail of blood. Why weren't people slipping and sliding on their companions' guts!!!?

The blue sihoulette scene was pretty but Uma looked like a Man!!! They might as well have treated it like they treated the fight scene in I'm Gonna get you Sucka.

Yeah, we KNOW Quentin loves this stuff.. and yeah nice use of sounds and the Shaw scope bit... but c'mooooon. It was to much like Jackie Brown when it should've been more like Pulp Fiction!!!

Dull Dull Dull . .. I'm just glad I went to see a matinee, and maybe I'll sneak in to see part 2.

The BUCK scenes, where classic Tarintino... but it could've been in any of his flicks. The closest the movie came towards any semblance of humanity was that sequence with whats-her-face's daughter in the kitchen...

Y A W N . . .
 
 
Mourne Kransky
19:46 / 04.11.03
Tricks, you hit the nail on the head. Started out so well with the kitchen scenes. Moments of genius there. So many times thereafter, you're trying to forgive the stupidity and contrivance of the hole-filled plot.

Beautiful to look at though (apart from Uma's surprisingly unattractive feet) and the narrative thrust kept me watching, eager for further back story. I quite liked Uma's vision of Dante's Inferno from the top of the stairs as the maimed lie groaning or crawling away below her.

And was that really the theme tune to Ground Force playing as she flew from Okinawa to Tokyo?
 
 
Brigade du jour
20:13 / 04.11.03
All style, no substance? Well um, that's like all Tarantino movies then! I mean!
 
 
Catjerome
04:45 / 05.11.03
I had fun watching the film, but when it was over, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd been watching several hours of fanfiction, or movie-buff wish-fulfillment. "Oh yeah? I'm gonna write my _own_ kung fu movie! And, and it'll have hot chicks, and they'll be like Charlies Angels, and it'll have Kwai Chang Caine in it, and all of the music and stuff I like, and really big swordfights, and Bruce Lee's jumpsuit!!!"

He did a really good job of it, but I'm in this phase right now where I'm really sick of homage, pastiche, revival, retro, ironic pomo examination, you name it, etc, etc. I'm really in the mood for something _new_, not clever rehashes of _old_.

And the dialogue was dreadful! I rewatched *Pulp Fiction* the following weekend - man, that whole first conversation scene with Vincent and Jules was priceless. Whereas while the Bride and Vernita Green were talking in the kitchen, I was wincing the whole time and hoping that it would end soon. So forced.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
15:45 / 05.11.03
Oh, I am SO looking forward to seeing this...
 
 
Mr Tricks
22:45 / 07.11.03
All style, no substance? Well um, that's like all Tarantino movies then! I mean!

I would have to disagree...

I enjoyed his previous 3 movies to varying degrees.... even that bit in Four Rooms though it was probably the most blatent Hitchcock Rip off in Movie History

with Jackie Brown I noticed the "Tip of the Hats" beginging to show through the substance of the film... it was forgivable and even though the film droned on a bit, it worked...

Now appariently Quentin and I grow up on the same Black belt Theatre as kids and, like me, probably continued to watch that stuff through collage. Okay so maybe it's a bit much to make such comparrisons but what Catjerome: That hits the spot! says, rings very true:
  • I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd been watching several hours of fanfiction, or movie-buff wish-fulfillment. "Oh yeah? I'm gonna write my _own_ kung fu movie! And, and it'll have hot chicks, and they'll be like Charlies Angels, and it'll have Kwai Chang Caine in it, and all of the music and stuff I like, and really big swordfights, and Bruce Lee's jumpsuit!!!"


BTW... That KUNGFU T.V. series was always horribly borring. Better action AND KUNGFU in Green Hornet!

Sure it was very well done stylisticly... But then what? What did it really offer beyond all the homage, pastiche, revival, retro, ironic pomo examinations?

Hot babes doing martial arts?
. . . Matrix, Charlies Angels . . .

Bruce lee's jump suit?
. . . Shaolin Soccer . . .

Kungfu Swordfights?
. . . Crouching Tiger . . .

Kato Masks?
. . . Black Mask . . .

Revenge? Anime? Old school actors?

it's all been done before... Not nessarily better but that doesn't excuse Quentin's relance on this stuff for his film. Imagine if all that stuff was nixed from the film... what would be left?
 
 
&#9632;
00:28 / 08.11.03
No, still trying to justify it and it's still a bad film.
Up to the big fight, yeah, it worked. Lots of classy little touches and nod'n'wink scenes, but the crazy 88?
Piss off. She's supposed to be clever, but somehow fails to realise there's a big fight coming. Duuurrrr...
The big fight sucks toffee apples.
So fast cut that you see nothing impressive in the choreography, so half-assed and coke-addled that the ultraviolence doesn't even come close to Tim Roth's slow death in RD. Is this supposed to be violent? If so, show the consequences. If not, don't claim the shot of the lightly messy room is at all affecting.
AAAuuugggghhh.
I wanted to love this film, but it BORED me. The amime was great, the setup was great, so why waste it all on a big QT cumshot lasting 20 minutes before he's even drawn enough breath to let Lucy strut her stuff? No, not sold.
OK, drunk and annoyed. Hoo ha. Can't wait for the Matrix. Oh, no. I can.
 
  

Page: 123(4)5

 
  
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