film: Kill Bill

[Petersko]

Did she have her sword on the plane? I thought they only showed her walking through the airport with it - meaning she could have picked it up from security. Not that's a big deal either way.

 

[randycaver]

She did have her sword on the plane, yes, but I would have sworn I saw other people with them..

Or I could be insane.

 

[_a_A_C_c_]

i know she had her sword. it struck me as odd too. but i just assumed japan isn't as airport security crazy as the US. i don't remember if other people had swords on the plane or not...

i also don't think he made the movie to be entirely realistic, but more of a parody of the samurai films. hence the squirting blood and over the top violence. i found it to be highly entertaining.

...i think if you look at any movie close enough you will find scenes that resemble scenes from other movies. its inevitable. a director sees a scene that sticks out in his/her mind and then incorporates it into his/her next movie. i agree that QT has borrowed/paid homage/plagiarized a fair number of scenes in his movies. but that does not make me enjoy his movies any less. the dialogue is good, and the scenes visually interesting.

eh, this is just my 2 cents to this lovely debate....

ps- was the whole score to the movie composed by RZA for the movie? imdb.com doesn't have a soundtrack listing yet and i'm curious...

[edit] nevermind, i checked amazon.com and answered my own question. RZA only did about half the soundtrack.

 

[Raving Loony]

randycaver, I swear I saw another person on the plane with a sword as well. I wonder if every seat in every aisle had one.

yeah LA Confidential was just one that came to the top of my head. It's a good movie, but hardly a classic. Besides, I had to finish the sentence somewhere otherwise I would have started going nuts on some great oldies like Citizen Kane, Dr Stranglelove, Psycho and so on.

 

[God!]

everyone had a sword

Yeah, if you look closely enough (trust me I have I've seen Kill Bill 3 times already) then you will see that everybody you can see on the plane has a sword, its not that security is easier to get through in Japan its that this movie is taking place in another universe, a movie-verse if you will, You can see this by the way that not only does everyone have swords, but when you see the plane its a model as well as Tokyo japan....

I mean seriously if this didn't take place in a different universe holes begin to develop in the plot for example 1) Vernita Green runs into the kitchen and grabs a knife, why not use that opportunity to grab the gun?? 2) Why go to Okinawa to get "Japanese steel" when one could just buy a couple guns or a few grenades to take out the whole of "The House of Blue Leaves" and 3) How the hell is it snowing during the rooftop battle between O-Ren Ishii and The Bride when just minutes ago when she was riding there on her bike there was absolutely no snow

See its called the willing suspension of disbelief, you gotta take this things in stride and realize this movie is an exploitation flick, and not have too many probs with that, or else it would be like going to see a buddy comedy and bitching cause it wasn't serious enough...

Also to those of you who talk of how unoriginal Tarantino is, well news flash but nothing is original, The Matrix is far from original it takes a lot of VERY old concepts from philosophy and mixes em with anime, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, when it got released here it was an oscar contender but if you pay attention to Hong Kong cinema you see that they've been doing movies exactly like that for years...

And maybe when Resevoir Dogs came out he didn't call it a homage because no one would know what movies he was paying homage too. For example if I say I made movie B as a homage to movie A, but you've never seen "A" then what difference does it make??

 

[ShAdEs0fGrAy]

I finally saw this film tonight. I only have two words to say.

Kick Ass.

 

[Petersko]

oh i didn't realise the concept of the matrix had ever been explored before. what film \ book would you relate the plot to?

Neuromancer, by William Gibson. The characters jack into cyberspace where they have a virtual presence, but damage can be sustained by their physical bodies via the nervous system. There are character similarities as well. Molly/Trinity for instance.

Also, Philip K. Dick wrote a novel over 40 years ago called "Time Out of Joint" where the main guy is trapped in a virtual reality environment. The wachowski brothers mention him specifically as an influence. His novel, "Eye in the Sky" deals with virtual worlds as well, through which characters are forced to move.

The Matrix ideas were well travelled in cyberpunk fiction and anime long before the Matrix movie came to be.

 

[alasdairm]

---Jackie Brown---

I like this film as well, but it's adapted from a novel and hence, is actually ORIGINAL somewhat.

i'm intrigued by this notion that, because it's an adaptation it's somehow more original than some of his other work. can you explain?

alasdair

 

[God!]

On originality....

You've seen tons of movies that are completely original.... I would be quite happy if you would name a few....

 

[DJWhat]

A quote from the LA Weekly's review of Kill Bill I thought was relevant to this thread:

"...Early in his career, Tarantino was accused of ripping off other filmmakers — filching the climax of Reservoir Dogs from Ringo Lam’s far inferior City on Fire, for example. Whenever I have mentioned such charges to Hong Kong filmmakers, they’ve laughed: We steal things all the time. That’s how we make movies. And this is true not only in Hong Kong. Part of the electric excitement of modern culture is its delirious capacity for cross-pollination. One can only marvel how Dashiell Hammett’s novel Red Harvest turned into Akira Kurosawa’s samurai film Yojimbo, which became A Fistful of Dollars by Leone, whose grandiose style was further hyperbolized by John Woo, who then inspired Robert Rodriguez to make Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which ups the ante on Woo-ish mayhem while nodding back at Leone...."

 

[DJWhat]

DJWhat,

Although the article is relevant, I don't see your point.

Other films have been replicated also, yes.

This doesn't come as news to me.

I'm not surprised John Woo, for example, has ripped his concepts of other people. I find his films over the top with attempted style (kind of like Tarantino really, although less effective), boring, shallow and laregely predictable. I don't think he is a master film-maker. In fact, I don't think he is any good at all.

Can you (if you still have access to it\ remember it's location) give a link to the article itself?

I guess my point was that filmmakers steal from other films all the time. I don't think that Tarantino's unoriginality is enough to detract from his films, because what he might lack in originality is made up for in technique and style.

The link to that review is highlighted in my post...

 

[AmorRoark]

I've seen this movie 3 times and it is currently one of my favorite films.

I've seen segments of the 2nd part (my friend has the whole 2nd part on his computer). It is extremely kick ass. Although, I will pay my $8 several times to see part two on big screen. Homage to Tarantino.

 

[Petersko]

I would doubt very much if you could find a book (and like I said I haven't read those you mentioned - I'm just basing this on your brief explanations of each) or film that could by compared to the matrix in such a intricate manner as that of the comparison between Reservoir Dogs and City on Fire.

Well, Harlan Ellison wrote "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream". Global computer system gains sentience. Computer wins the wars. The computer traps himans in an artificial world.

"Welcome to the desert of the real" is a quote from this book.

Also, from Neuromancer, the main character is from... Zion. They also fly around in flying tug-like crafts.

I haven't read the books you mentioned, but by the concept of the matrix I meant - The entire planet used as human batteries plugged into a massive machine and their minds engulfed in a virtual world (yes the mind engulfed in a virtual world concept has been explored), completely unaware of their place as essentially energy for their creators turned rulers.

The unaware portion is not new... again, lots of references. The only thing that really seems to be new in the movie is the idea of human batteries. Frankly, I always hated that. Silliness. A fundamentally broken idea to anybody who gives it a little consideration.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the Matrix. Thought it was a really terrific movie. Not the sequel though...

But calling the Matrix "original" is, I think, as disrespectful to the writers who created the concepts as you think Tarantino has been to other movie makers. You need to combine ideas from about two books to get the Matrix.

 

[Frosty da snowman]

Just saw Kill bill today, Definatly a good flick. Anybody know who played GoGo, and what other films she's been in, cause dammn that chick was hot

 

[DJWhat]

I forgot her name, but she was in Battle Royale, another good flick. Check imdb.com

 

[-spiderman-]

Gogo's the girl in the beginning of Battle Royale, all bloody and smiling evilly cuz she won the last one.

 

[FunkyAlfonzo]

Sorry, this is quite a bit off-topic, but I have to add that as far as The Matrix being original goes it is a pretty extended ripoff of the story to Dark City.

(WARNING: imminent spoilers)
Dark City was about a group of beings having control over a whole city which they built, which was populated with humans. The beings had almost complete control over the city, by being able to pause the whole thing. However throughout its history there had been one or two humans born that were unnaffected by the pause thing and were able to have almost the same amount of control as the beings. One day, one of these people discovers what's going on in the city. He fights the beings and, right at the end, discovers that the whole city is it....they are on a ship travelling through space. Rather than expose everyone to this horrifying fact, he decides to reshape the city to his liking then go back to living a normal life with a woman he loves.

I wait to see if the new matrix film fullfills this storyline... I hope not.

Bottom line, very little is actually original.

 

[AmorRoark]

Oh my oh my! I know Uma's character's name!

Nothing that will spoil the 2nd part however.

 

[FunkyAlfonzo]

So what you are saying is that you view Tarantino films in the same way that people view covers of songs. Even if they change the song around a bit, its still not as good as if you wrote it yourself. I can appreciate that.

I still love listening to some cover songs though and sometimes they're done even better than the original, which I guess is why I still like Tarantino films too

 

[*=Regulator=*]

Other films with similar concepts to the Matrix:

Existenz
The 13th Floor

Both came out before the Matrix.