Kill Bill.

i would love to see such baby looking badman style yakuza's in the future. lucy liu's japanese has been improved quite a lot since the last time i heard her speak it. blonde girl's japanese sounded so funny and sometimes i could not understand what she said but that was cute. it's like a non-english speaking pretty girl tries to tell you "i like you." some of the translations aren't exactly done. in the sushi bar scene, actually there was a dialog that sushi guy said "just bring the sake you stupid baldpate!!." and the bald guy told the girl "i'm not bald i just shaved it." i don't think they translated this part correctly. anyways, fun movie with so much blood

 

Nothing original about this movie whatsoever, and the anime part did not quite work (IMHO), but it is a good bloodflick with an awesome soundtrack.

 

Kill Bill annotations

Elvis Mitchell of the NY Times annotates Kill Bill. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/movies/26MITC.html

Possibly the first time "Five Fingers of Death" and ""TNT Jackson" are mentioned in the same paragraph anywhere, much less the NY Times. You've never heard of those movies? Neither have I.

 

I don't know the majority of the B-flicks Tarantino referenced in Kill Bill, but I could definitely spot the reference to that Bruce Lee movie where he wore that yellow jump suit.

A lot of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns also seemed to have been an influence.

The extreme slow zoom-in of Lucy Liu at that yakuza meeting looked like Tarantino lifted that from the introductory zoom-in shot of Alex in A Clockwork Orange.

Also the crazy bltch with the ball and chain was most definitely inspired by this Japanese exploitation flick called Battle Royale. She was also a part of that cast so that's pretty much an easy reference.

The animated sequence, I loved. I don't like anything animated(except for The Lion King), but that sequence was amazing. Loved the hand-held shaky camera look of it.

 

I picked up the soundtrack yesterday. It's missing a few tunes from the movie but overall, it is great. I'd definitely recommend it.

Murf

 

Thumbs Down

Nowhere close to Pulp Fiction

The killing and slashing got tiresome in the Japanese restaurant, way too tiresome

At least Monty Python knew how to make a joke out of blood spewing out, Tarantino doesn't

And the plot was simpler than the most mindless Schwartzenegger flick. Slick filmmaking can't substutute for a decent story. And it in no way is worth two installments.

 

I absolutely loved it. Sure it was cheeseball, but I'm a big fan of that too. I thought it was amazing.

And I thought Uma Thurman was kinda weird looking before this, but she looks damn fine covered in blood weilding a big ass sword.

Except for her weird toes. But they make socks for that.

And it's not a two installment thing, it was too long when they made it so they had to chop it in half.

The music was awesome, the blood and guts were awesome, the only thing I noticed is at the end Lucy Lui's hair was up, and then all of a sudden it was down.

I've seen it twice, too.

And I love the Japanese band with the beehives in the club, they rocked.

 

I thought it might not be any good, but then I read some reviews, so when I saw it I knew what to expect. I really, really liked it, and I thought I understood why Tarantino did what he did. I also like how some people didn't like the fight scenes but the most glowing review of them came from my 50 year old fourth degree black belt Aikido instructor who saw it twice.

 

The 5,6,7,8s. Great name.


After sitting with this flick (and it is a flick) for a few days, I'm just sort of "ehh" about it. I liked it, but that's about it.

I saw Pulp Fiction again recently and was surprised how good it really is. The interactions between Travolta and Jackson, and Travolta and Uma Thurman are just great. While there's a lot (LOT) of crap in PF as well, there are at least some nice ideas. The whole movie is just seeped in ideas of mutual respect and trust. I also really liked Eric Stoltz and Bruce Willis -- perfectly cast in both of those roles. In fact I think PF is the first time I liked either of those actors.

Kill Bill is defintely an entirely different thing. But it's just too thin. I do think Uma Thurman is great in it though.

Oh, and one more thing:
"The 4th Film by Quentin Tarantino"

Give me a freakin break. I can count for myself, you delusional molestor.

 

I saw this on DVD (thank you, Thailand) last week after avoiding it in the theater. After the number of people that told me it was good, I was a bit disappointed when I saw it.

First, it was an okay movie, but it was so short the film felt as if it stopped half way through, not that it ended at a meaningful point of conclusion. Maybe this is a post LOTR hangover, but if he wanted to make a 3 hour slasher I'd rather he just did that than try to rip me off twice by seeing two 90 minute movies.

Also, while I appreciate the good flashback now and then, I think Tarantino is addicted with the technique. I get that telling a story from A to B has been done before, but flashbacks have been done before as well. The flashbacks worked well in Resevior Dogs. They were repetitive and distracting in Pulp Fiction, and I thought his use of them was bordering on indulgent, that he wanted to make the audience work extra hard to keep up by showing them someone who was alive in one scene, dead in one scene and alive in the next. I don't think flashbacks in and of themselves improve a movie. Do one or two, you can get the point across. Start cutting and pasting the movie all around at some point it just looks like you are being either sloppy or obnoxious. Case in point: Uma Thurman kills Vivica Fox, then gets into her car and scratches her name off of the list. It is the second name. The first name, already crossed off, is Lucy Liu's name. Then she goes to Japan, yadda yadda, and the first film ends with a climactic battle scene with Lucy Liu. Only it's not climactic, because of the flashback nature of the film you already know that Lucy Liu is going to die. Why ruin that on purpose? You want to tell me that her killing Lucy Liu was a better climax than killing Vivica Fox, okay. But why not just have Vivica Fox's name be the first on the list?What did ruining the end of the movie right there do to improve the film? You could assume that Uma wasn't going to die anyway since it was a two part film about revenge and if the second movie had anywhere to go at all she'd have to be alive in it, but I don't get why that was necessary. It seemed gratuitous.

I loved the music, and this film was another case of how well he can put together music and film. He gets credit for that (Bang, Bang especially). And yes, while the plot was simple, it didn't bother me as much as the pointless flashing back/flashing forward did. Not being Gringo Tex I clearly didn't get all of the nods he was making to filmmakers past, but I could see them being made and didn't have a problem with it. I thought the Anime scene was a little gimmicky, but it was done well enough that it didn't really bother me. I did get the feeling that he was trying to expose the wal marters to the genre a bit, so okay.

On the whole, I thought it was okay, but nothing special, and not a masterpiece. I put it behind Reservior Dogs and Pulp Fiction, though ahead of Jackie Brown.

Vol 2 comes out Feb 20 as far as I know. I can't imagine that I will rush to see it, though I will get around to it eventually.