Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) & Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

[Guest rindge]

I just caught Kill Bill v2 on TNT. This is the 2nd time seeing the film for me. While I am not the biggest fan of the 2nd film I must say I did enjoy the limited training scenes with Gordon and Uma. I know a lot of people panned Uma for the training sequence, but I've got to give credit where credit is due. She seemed to be working pretty hard in the scenes and I think she pulled it off. I know I'm going out on a limb, but I think they did a good job of replicating the training scenes from films like master killer / 36th chamber. The scenes did not come anywhere near mad monkey kung fu (one of the best training scenes ever), but I was impressed and I think Uma gets an A for effort. I was impressed by her tiger and crane not bad for someone who never studied the arts. David Chiang never looked that good...LOL

Anyone have any thoughts on how she peformed?

Rindge

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I agree with you that Uma did a good job considering she wasn't a martial artist. Imo Kill Bill was alright as a sort of campy parody of the genere with plenty of colorful characters but the fight scenes were not that impressive. Carradine has been associated with the arts since the early 70's with the Kung Fu tv series but his skills have never impressed me even though he's claimed to have studied the arts. He's a great actor no doubt, but his martial abilities never have seemed to improve over the last 30 years. The best i've ever seen him look was in his fight scene with Chuck Norris in Lone Wolf McQuade which was surprisingly good. I agree with Chuck on his statement: "Carradine is about as good a martial artist as I am an actor". :lol

[Guest vengeanceofhumanlanterns]

David Chiang never looked that good...LOL

LOL is right! Comparing David Chiang to Uma?

[Guest rindge]

Vengeance, I'm not really comparing Uma to David - no real comparision, but I cant' recall seeing (memory is going on me) David in training sequence as "tough" :-) as the one Uma did. I'm sure there are some.

[Guest chen lung]

...dragged on too long.

[Guest teako170]

I just caught Kill Bill v2 on TNT.

Gotta love when the networks smoosh a fine 2.35 film into pan & scan.

I wonder.... will we ever see the 2 films as one as QT mentioned long, long ago?

KB2 indeed had some slow parts. The final 30(?) minutes with Uma and the "Karate Kid" should have been cut way back. On the flip side, it also had some great parts. Uma getting buried alive still pains me. Not the way I want to go. Have to start practicing my one-inch punches now....

[Guest Markgway]

Tarantino's most boring film.

[Guest kungfusamurai]

Vol 2 was a waste of time for me. I liked some of the sequences, like the Pai Mei sequence and the fight between Darryl Hannah and Uma. But overall, the movie sucked. Some stuff didn't even make sense, like how The Bride runs straight through the front door of Michael Madsen's trailer. If you're going to sneak attack someone who's also a trained assassin, you DON'T go through the front door!

KFS

[Guest Tosh]

I'm not a big fan of Uma, I personally thought that role should of went to Lucy. I liked KB for what it was, a homage to all the KF and Westerns a lot of us grew up to, shame he didn't get a few more old timers in there, like Lo Mang and Philip Kwok, it would have made it a lot cooler of a movie.

I'm not quite getting all the hate QT has been recieving on here lately, have I missed something? He goes to bat to get some of these movies released, or so it seems. I always thought he's probably up in his Hollywood mansion, with some huge home theater, watching KF movies all day.

[Guest GwaiLoMoFo]

Great movie. Not for people w/short attention spans.

[Guest kungfusamurai]

Great movie. Not for people w/short attention spans.

Not exactly a good defense for the movie. For my part, I watch all kinds of samurai films from the 60s where the build-up is very slow and would put off anyone with a 'short attention span'. But the acting, dialogue and stories are top notch in those flicks. KB V2 was weak in all three departments, not to mention having too much extraneous and unnecessary scenes, hence the lack of interest.

KFS

[Guest dyenboy]

I did not like kb v2..it was such a different movie from kill bill v1..

I thought Uma did a great job..not the best form..but for a non martial artist..tat was pretty dam good..

[Guest Dion Brother]

Don't see how you can consider KB 2 weak in the acting and dialogue department. Carradine was tremendous, and even Gordon Liu was a scene stealer (essentially portraying Pai Mei as a cross between Chiun from the Destroyer novels and Liang Jia Ren's character from MIRACLE FIGHTERS). Bill's speech about Superman is a terrific monologue. A reminder of how bad Tarantino's imitators are (like that hack that wrote CON AIR where characters make insipid ironic comments). I don't consider it a martial arts movie, so I don't judge it as such. It's Spaghetti Western pacing isn't for everybody, but, along with vol.1, I think it's Tarantino's best work since RESERVOIR DOGS.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I agree it was good for what it was, but not great in the action department. Tarantino excels with outrageous dialogue just like in Pulp Fiction and that is the part he excels in in Kill Bill. If you look at it as strictly a Tarantino style film it is good, but looking at it as a martial arts film it pales in comparison to the Hong Kong and Japanese films it tries to imitate. I definately want to give credit to Quentin as I like and respect his style of filmaking, when Pulp Fiction first came out it was one of my favorite films and was fresh and exciting and really shook up Hollywood as a revalation. He still has yet to top that film imo, but he does deserve props for promoting martial arts films as that makes him a cool guy in my book.

[Guest DragonMa55]

I think KB 2 was a good film, I just thought the training sequences were too short. I never got the feeling Uma was pushed beyond her limits in order to earn Pai Mei's admiration, all we got was Uma running up the steps with buckets of water and her punching a wall, I wonder how long she'd last being trained by So Hai :rollin

[Guest Markgway]

It's worth mentioning that Tarantino's best screenplays were co-authored by Roger Avery (or in the case of Jackie Brown based on an Elmore Leonard novel). Kill Bill represents his first solo work and it's his poorest. Coincidence?

[Guest Reincarnation Of Thundering Mantis]

I think it was lame the way Pai Mei died, it was a big spit in the face to very influential onscreen villain and a historically interesting character

[Guest Dion Brother]

RESERVOIR DOGS was predominantly his work, as was TRUE ROMANCE, and I rank both scripts over PULP FICTION. And JACKIE BROWN only adapts the Elmore Leonard novel RUM PUNCH in terms of story structure. The dialogue and characterizations were QT's own. Roger Avary has really disappointed with his non-QT work. KILLING ZOE was good, but I hated RULES OF ATTRACTION, been told MR. STITCH is awful, his dialogue for Gans' CRYING FREEMAN is clunky (the worst thing in the film)...still haven't seen SILENT HILL.

I simply never considered KILL BILL a martial arts movie, or a spaghetti western or a giallo, despite both film's frequent allusions to all three genres. If you rate it as such, it will disappoint compared to the classics. It's just two amazing hybid films that contain martial arts. I'd still rather rewatch either volume over most of the Hong Kong movies from the last 15 years (particularly those produced by Tsui Hark or directed by Ching Tsiu Tung or starring Donnie Yen), or the overrated CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON.

[Guest ToothbrushFu]

And JACKIE BROWN only adapts the Elmore Leonard novel RUM PUNCH in terms of story structure. The dialogue and characterizations were QT's own.

Now why would Tarantino throw out Leonard's dialogue and characters and just leave his basic plot intact? Did he really do that? (I haven't seen the film so I don't know.) Leonard's novels are all about the language and dialogue, that's where his genius lies*. In fact if I look at all the quotes on the inside cover of my copy of Rum Punch I read stuff like:

"Leonard may write the best dialogue of any contemporary writer"

"vintage Leonard... the dialogue is as authentic as conversations overheard"

"few others in the genre can match his astonishing ear for dialogue"

"fuelled by its droll dialogue and rogue characters"

"replete with stirring dialogue and vivid characters"

"the most authentic dialogue in contemporary fiction"

"just what you expect from Leonard, who is without equal in giving us the dialogue we've grown to appreciate"

This makes me wonder what Tarantino saw of value in the book in the first place. I remember reading an interview where he said it had taken him something like a year to adapt the book to a screenplay, so was that cutting out all the good stuff and replacing it with his own? Why didn't he write his own original screenplay instead - surely that would have been easier?

* My father (who was a writer) was scathing about pretty much every contemporary novelist I read until I lent him Freaky Deaky and then he said "this guy can write!" and came round and borrowed all my Elmore Leonard novels. He totally loved the way Leonard does dialogue and the way he flips tenses and main character points-of-view within a scene.

[Guest Dion Brother]

Movies are a different medium. What reads good on a page doesn't always sound good as film dialogue. A better description would be QT embellished the dialogue to suit his own style. Which is fine, Leonard didn't care. Otherwise, any hack could have directed and adapted the film. An auteur wants to put his own voice in the film. Sometimes it works great (John Boorman's adaptation of Richard Stark's THE HUNTER into POINT BLANK), sometimes mediocre(Michael Mann's MANHUNTER) and sometimes awful (DePalma's BLACK DAHLIA, a terrible film of a really good James Ellroy novel).

I thought JACKIE BROWN could have been better with about 30 minutes chopped out. In other words, he could have followed the leaness of RUM PUNCH, instead of expanding it. But I respect what he was trying to do, just didn't hit the mark for me.

I think FREAKY DEAKY was the last Elmore Leonard novel I enjoyed. Thought either it or UNKNOWN MAN #89 would have made better movies than his other work.

[Guest Markgway]

Actually, the plot is the best thing about Jackie Brown, besides the two lead performances from Pam Grier and Robert Forster. The "hip" dialogue isn't so great, but having not read the novel I don't know who wrote what? Does the book have 40 uses of the epiphet "@#%$" on every page?

For the record my favourite Tarantino film is Reservoir Dogs and he's never come close to matching it.

[Guest Dion Brother]

"Does the book have 40 uses of the epiphet "@#%$" on every page?"

Nope. Nor does the script. That was improvised by Samuel Jackson.

[Guest ToothbrushFu]

A better description would be QT embellished the dialogue to suit his own style. Which is fine, Leonard didn't care. Otherwise, any hack could have directed and adapted the film. An auteur wants to put his own voice in the film.

That last line could be a great argument against auteur filmmakers adapting novels. Tarantino does like to put in his showboating monologues, doesn't he? But that goes back to my previous point about why he doesn't write an original screenplay if he really wants to put his own voice in a film.

BTW, if the movie is too long then that's not entirely Tarantino's fault, a good producer should be able to rein in a director's excesses and make them cut the running time if necessary.

[Guest Tosh]

I'd still rather rewatch either volume over most of the Hong Kong movies from the last 15 years (particularly those produced by Tsui Hark or directed by Ching Tsiu Tung or starring Donnie Yen), or the overrated CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON.

Woah:eek , I think you need an "IMO" after that comment, but to each their own:smokin .

I thought CTHD was an awesome movie IMO, god forbid there was actually some good acting and emotion going on there.

[Guest The Running Man]

It's worth mentioning that Tarantino's best screenplays were co-authored by Roger Avery (or in the case of Jackie Brown based on an Elmore Leonard novel). Kill Bill represents his first solo work and it's his poorest. Coincidence?

Co-authored is too nice of a term. He basically ripped an entire story from Avery. Roger Avery's contribution to that script was 1/3 and it was the Bruce Willis story. What Tarantino did was take that exactly as it was from one of Avery's short stories and simply inject it into the web of the rest of the movie.

For the record my favourite Tarantino film is Reservoir Dogs and he's never come close to matching it.

So you think that Pulp Fiction is a better screenplay than Reservoir Dogs but think that RD s a better film?

I'd still rather rewatch either volume over most of the Hong Kong movies from the last 15 years (particularly those produced by Tsui Hark or directed by Ching Tsiu Tung or starring Donnie Yen), or the overrated CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON.

You're on your own there bud.

And as long as we taking opinions here...Pulp Fiction is Tarantino's best work for me. Rd was solid but not a masterpiece that I find Fiction to be. Jackie Brown grows on me with every passing viewing. Kill Bill vol. 1, even with it's bad action (add to that Uma Therman looks terrible in action scenes), it's still quite tremendous.

Kill Bill vol. 2 is easily for me Tarantino's worst work yet. It was still good overall, but for the first time ever I was bothered with his dialog. It seems he got too over zealous with it and had characters talking for the majority of the time that just felt like they had to exchange dialog. It's too much and just feels all like excess. A great example is when the assassin tries to kill Thurman in her hotel room. Both of them at gun point exchange words to each other for no other reason except to do such. That scene could have been done with minimal to no dialog and still work. It gets laughable when David shoots Uma when that needle to stun her and he actually says that the effects of it are gonna give him plenty of time to talk.

In fact, when I think about it, if Tarantino was still gonna make one movie like he was originally going to, I would bet that most of the stuff that would have been cut would have been things in vol. 2.

That said, I'm still looking forward to Grindhouse. In fact, his segment is the only one I care to see since Rodriguez is quite a crappy film maker imo. Oh he can save money on a film and knows all the best ways to do it, but all of his movies IMO after El Mariachi have gotten worse and worse (and yeah, I think Sin City's quite garbage).