Well i came back from the movies today after seeing Kill Bill. i have to say that it is one of the best movies i have seen all year. i enjoyed it a lot more than Matrix Reloaded (different types of movies though). if you haven't seen it yet, then i strongly recomend that you do. if you have seen it, what did you think? i only had two complaints, now i have to wait for part 2, and Uma Thurman had a better Japanese accent than Lucy Liu.
plus it had Chiaki Kuriyama from Battle Royale (yay)
Very good movie which pushed all my buttons. I didn't like the switch to B & W during the House of Blue Leaves fight - I hear that the Japanese version is full colour all the way through that one (or apparently for their DVD cut). I liked the brutality of the fights which appealled to my bloodlust (psycho!) but my only grief is that it really feels like half a movie, with no real closure. Even Reloaded and the LOTRs movies had better conclusions to them. The twist at the end was nice tho'. Don't think anyone really saw it coming.
The chronological placement of scenes is very Tarantino and I look forward to the second part which is supposed to have more witty bits in it. Soundtrack was pretty cool, but a bit jarring. Loved the tune on the motorbike - the same one from the trailer.
The House of Blue Leaves (now referred to as HoBL) is a great set piece but I think I like the burly brawl of Reloaded that little bit better. Even tho' the CGI detracted from the scene, I liked the camera shots and the crazy 'spectacularness' of it. But as someone else mentioned, Reloaded and Kill Bill are two very different kettle of fish. KB is unashamedly revelling in it's own brazeness -- it's Tarantino's film the way he wants it done. Fine by me.
It was kinda easy to spot Uma's stunt double at times (apparently the same double for Lucy Lawless' Xena) -- she's a little bulkier in the ass than Uma's frame allows.
Costumes and sets were amazing - and those swords! Oh. My. God.
Great flick - 8.5/10. Can't wait for the second part.
Aven -- are you a fluent Japanese speaker?
heh, saw some of it with a fluent japanese speaker, and while my japanese is not so good, could understand a lot of what Lucy Lui said and her japanese acent seems as grating as mine....
each seat on the plane having space for a samurai sword was about my favourit.... and the fight stopping for the kid to come home from school...
Well not being a fluent Japanese speaking person I really couldn't give a hoot if its the wrong dialect Lucy is speaking. [:P]
As for the film, I thought it was great, just the right blend of violence and violence. [:)]
My favourite part..maybe the fight in the blue leaves joint or when Uma is talking to the french bird in the trunk of the car.
Out of curiosity does this film officially have the highest count of mutilated body parts?
alright i was thinking of giving it a full review style thing in my original post, but i didn't for some reason. i will do one now.
Pros.
. Violence
. Awesome style. the 60s theming with the music and design worked really well. considering that it had a large part set in Japan, they often have 60s influence with their music, so i had a massive grin on my face :) i thought that the best music though came courtisy from when O-Ren and her gang was walking into HoBL.
. The limbs. soooooooo damn many.
. The fight scenes were quite good. a good mix of serious fighting and blantently obvious wire work. once again this helped to give it that 60s feel.
. More violence.
. The Camera Angles. Tarantino did well in using a lot of cool camera angles when he could have quite easily have just used all the ones that a popular now (bullet cam, and the slow pan into a quick one in the space of 1/10 of a second). The history of O-Ren had some sweet angles in it. Infact that whole scene was just brilliant.
. Have i mentioned the violence and limbs yet?
. Tarantino's unique way of doing a really serious part, and then making you smile at the end because of his unique sense of black humor.
. His shock ability. i wanted to kill that prick of a surgin (i could use more appropriate words, but probably shouldn't) in the hospital scene.
. It was a hell of a lot better than Jackie Brown. there wasn't any crap where a character would walk into a room, stand there for 10mins doing NOTHING (with camera focused squarely on them), and then just walk off. the pacing was great.
. The Katanas and costumes were very cool. i really hope that they release a replica of Hattori's katana :).
. And it of course has Chiaki Kuriyama in it. not quite as psychotic as in Battle Royale (if you have not seen this film then buy a copy off ebay), but still very disturbing. the giggling part just made me feel uneasy.
. And of course, the violence :D.
Cons.
. Yeah, the ending was a little abrupt. that could have been to keep up with it's 'in your face' style though.
. The stunt double for Uma was very obvious. they didnt even try. hair ALWAYS covering every inch of her face. still the fight scenes were cool, so this is forgivable.
. Release part 2 damn it.
I don't by any means, mean that Lucy Liu was crap, i just said that Uma Thurman sounded better. i can sympathise with her completely. she knows what to say, and how to say it, but she is afraid of pronuncing it incorrectly, so she holds off and ends up pronouncing it incorrectly anyway. My Japanese is FAR (so very far) from being fluent, so i do feel for her. i always did the same thing in Japanese class. her american accent didn't help out too much either, as americans roll their vowels too much. i easily thought it was her best role to date though.
Overall i would give it 9/10, with a quote along the lines of,
'Just go and see it.'
Saw it last night. Loved it!!
Saw brutal but soo fun!
The score was good and I liked the way it was shot. Interesting set of characters aswell.
I do agree that it didnt feel like it had much closure.
When I saw the "charlie brown" guy, I thought the the same thing and when the guy said it on the film I laughed. All the guys who were moaning after they had been hurt in the HoBL scene was funny. As for a fav scene, it was probably when the lady cut out the lights and all you could see was the silihouttes fighting agianst the blue backdrop.
Looking forward to volume2.
*me wants a samurai sword*
i just wished that Charlie Brown's wife slipped at the end of the HoBL scene. i was waiting, and it didn't happen :(
there are a few Katanas available through ebay... pity customs will probably hold them up. i have never ordered a weapon (real or replica), but i know that customs does not like it. i wanted to get a Shi replica Naginata a few years back, but it wasn't available outside of the states.
Yes yes i too loved the film, a mate of mine at school on the other hand thought that Uma did not potray the fighting style of a true samurai. To that i say " ur full of s***, how can u say that when ur only reference to samurai is bloody kenshin and that shite in the animatrix. On top of that, the last time i checked, there are no real samurai's left except for schools who practice the art, but not the act".
Yeh i got a little pissed at her comments because i thought Uma was great, the sakki was great and that whole meifumado thing they had going on in the film was great as well. ( I know my samurai and this holds up nicely in our modern pop culture, along with the classics seven samurai and lonewolf and cub).
One thing i find troubling though is the rumor that they might be taking the movie off the cinemas as it's rated the most violent film in cinema history. If this happens then what's gonna happen when they release the 2nd?
thats a good thing. im sick of going to movies and having little shits there that just wont shut the hell up. thats the reason why i dont go to movie marathons any more. why would you want to bring your pajamas and a sleeping bag to it? morons i tells ya, morons.
another thing that i remembered about KB that made me laugh, was the dagger that O-Ren and GoGo use. it had the typical Japanese girl strap dangling off it ^_^. the only way that could have been better is if were to have Hello Kitty on it.
Sho-nuff, just ignore her. kenshin may be very good, but it is still anime and far from being 'true' to the Samurai heritage. Animatrix... last i knew that was far from being real, or can it get away with it because it is in the matrix and it is meant to be false? the Lonewolf and Cub movies are quite cool though ( i have only seen a couple of them though).
Alot of people seem to really love this flick, but I personally thought it sucked. I don't necessarily dislike Tarantino, I can certainly see what he's trying to do, but there is a difference between paying 'homage' to movies that you like, and flat out copying scenes/shots from them.
Also, what *happened* in Kill Bill? There was alot of ranting about some character development, and two bitches got killed and plenty of blood was shed in the mean time...it seemed to drag on and on when it's just a very VERY basic revenge story. And I could see the 'twist' at the end coming from a mile away.
It did some things right, Wo Ping Yuen (?) did his usual good job of fight choreography, but the fact that Uma could never be seen executing a single stunt was a bit dismal.
My major problem with the flick is that the black humour is very much lost on me. I can never figure out whether Tarantino is just simply being ridiculous about his portrayal of violence, or if he's trying to make some message about the ridiculousness of violence. I can't really make my mind up about how to approach these films, they seem to take themselves so seriously sometimes, and then at other times they take themselves as a complete joke.
When I watch a movie I usually expect either to just sit back, switch off, and watch a mentally devoid 100 minute long hollywood dumbass fest, or sit back turn the brain on, and watch a reasonably clever story-telling experience with meaning, allegory and depth. When a movie can't seem to take itself either seriously or not, I just struggle to get into a mood for it.
The start of the movie was great, I really thought it was going to go places and explore some dark themes, I guess I was let down by the rest of it.
i think that tarantino does try to have messages in his violent tellings, and that is why he tries to take it more seriously. then however, critics have a shot about the level of violence in his movies, so i think he makes it more cartoony to keep them happy/quiet. that may just be his way though, he is a very goofy guy.
i may be too generous with this movie because Jackie Brown has such crap, and this returned him to his more trusted roots.
i do honestly feel that you are being a little harsh about it Maitrek, but thats cool. you didn't really like it, and when you spend $15 to watch something, you want something you will enjoy.
yes, unfortunately hollywood has its way of making very witless movies, but where do you go then? european movies are all about some woman who cant find love or some guy coming to grips with his sexuality. as soon as hollywood does that, they are criticised and called unoriginal. go for asian cinema, and you usually end up with movies that are too in depth for most people. most people really dont want to think when they watch a film, so this aims at that. the most difficult part is tarantino's usual non chronologically corret order of storry telling. if people would just sit down and wtach it without asking qustions, they would realise that it is really simple to follow. i found it to be a really good light entertainment film. the only serious thing about it is the violence, which i still found to be highly cartoony. then again, i find most violence to be cartoony.
I can generally enjoy crap movies, as long as they don't take themselves seriously. I can easily laugh with them (or at them) and just try and have 'fun'. Hell, I even managed to sit through Bulletproof Monk and get a few laughs and a bit of enjoyment from it - and that was Yun Fat Chow's worst ever movie by far.
There were some things I did like about Kill Bill - the scene in the snow in the garden was excellent, up until the 'Hannibal'-esque scalping of Oren Ishii. As I said the start was good as well. The use of swords instead of guns is always a good 'stylistic' choice of violent material. There's plenty of history and respect placed upon the ol' sword, and it generally makes for a more interesting show than a gun fight (except in the case of John Woo's old Hong Kong flicks).
One thing I don't really like about Tarantino is his disjoint approach to time in films. He does alot of out-of-sequence flashbacks, and tells bits of the main journey out-of-sequence. Is this a bad thing? Not entirely - it can be grating - but it just seems indulgent and in some ways, unnecessary. It seems he can't keep intrigue and mystery in his movies without cutting up the story into fragments and showing them in an odd order.
I'm really not sure whether the anime/cartoon style telling of Oren's past was a shit-hot decision either. Obviously it's part of the Tarantino style of story telling, but when I was sitting in a cinema, and the movie switched into cartoon mode, it threw me quite a bit. It's obviously visually out of place, and Oren's past seemed out of place and completely irrelevant as well. Okay, they built up Oren's character, but did it mean shit? Aside from learning about her past she spoke a couple of lines during the main "journey" parts of the movie. The movie could have easily had that entire section cut out, and I probably wouldn't have cared. It just seemed like an excuse to show some some more violence.
I guess I'm just bored of violence :) Tarantino goes out of his way to highlight the violent nature of us, but I don't think he executes it quite right for me.
I still have a measure of respect for Tarantino, but I'd definitely like to see him try to use his own original shots and scenes instead of copying other directors previous efforts. He also needs to stop wasting so much film on things that aren't entirely pertinent to the rest of the flick.
you are right about O-Ren's past being fairly irrelevent, except to show that she was a really cold hearted bitch. i thought that the diner with the Yakuza bosses did show that better, especially since she was very disrespectful when she cut his head off and then didn't clean the Katana before sheathing it.
i also don't mind Tarantino's arse about face way of telling a story. makes it a little more interesting.
don't worry though, i think that the Matrix movies are very overated. we all have different tastes. that is what makes us unique.
Saw it on the weekend. The action was great, but I just got a bit bored of it after a while. The directing was nice (there was a part where the camera panned for 10 minutes without a cut), and the pacing was good too.. But Uma's character just seemed to kick a lot of ass, and didn't seem vulnerable whatsoever. She was like a female superman, and no matter what was thrown at her, you knew she was going to make it through. I didn't feel any sense of urgency or danger. The final fight with O-Ren felt so anti-climatic since it came right after the House of Blue Leaves massacre. The story was pretty thin, and like Maitrek said, it's pretty much a basic revenge movie. A better story would have propelled and give better purpose to all that action.. at least something more interesting than having people on a list to kill, then going out and killing them!
Anyway, it's a movie where you either loved it or just thought 'meh!'. [:)]
(There was this bit in the trailer which didn't appear in the movie. I'm guessing it'll show up in part 2. Uma was fighting some guy with a white beard who somersaulted and landed on her sword, then did a flip and kicked her in the face.)
My movie-of-the-year currently goes to Pirates of the Carribean. That movie was hilarious, and the acting and sets were awesome. [:)]
i haven't seen Carribean yet :( i wanted to, but none of my friends want to see it (LotR all over again).
i also thought that LXG was a rather good movie, but that is either a love or a hate movie. no real in betweens.
haven't seen the italian job yet. i'm not expecting a story though, just cool car chases :D
I'm going to have to be a bit 'lame' by some people's standards and say that I thought Matrix : Reloaded was the best film so far this year...but I reckon Return of the King, or Revolutions will most likely take the crown for best movie of the year for me.
Pirates of the Carribean was great, Johnny Depp was freakishly good in that role, he's been very average in some other recent movies.
i saw it last night,
and i gotta say that the japanese must be SUPER stressed, because their blood pressure has to be insanely high to pump that much blood