Kill Bill: Volume One

[edison]

I think when people are talking about the fight scenes they are probably referring to how Matrix had to resort to CGI, esp. during the Burly Brawl, and i didnt once see anything like that during KB, but i could be wrong, but i will agree that Matrix had better fights but i like the realism of KB, not just the standard punch-punch-block-flip-block-hit-blah-blah.

[cine]

I would say it was good but not great.
i really didnt have the same expereince most of you did.  
I mean i liked it but some parts just seemed to drag.  
i really hated the fucking black and white bullshit.
Everyone needs to stop say "Wow the fights were way better than that matrix crap" they werent so get over that shit.  

I liked the movie i thought it was good but i mean i dont know...........................................................................

quote me

Case in point, your views are so negative compared to mine that I can't take your matrix comment to heart.. opinions are opinions and i also loved the realism of them. I mean, hey, QT would at least agree with me.

Other stuff I loved in the film
the Charlie Brown stuff..
Buck.. and he likes to fuck.. (SLAM)
and did anyone notice that the guy who comes in to fuck Uma is Sandler's friend who played small roles in Waterboy (the lurch-like idiot) and Big Daddy (one of his lawyer friends, i think)..

[Pedro]

Banky, I can see why you thought that it dragged, but I do feel as an overall film, it's anything but slow.  I really loved it and thought that the fighting made up for every flaw...

I'd like to know why the fighting in the matrix was superior to this.  Please, elaborate.

[1976]

Samuel L. Jackson is in this movie.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I would say it was good but not great.
i really didnt have the same expereince most of you did.  
I mean i liked it but some parts just seemed to drag.  
i really hated the fucking black and white bullshit.
Everyone needs to stop say "Wow the fights were way better than that matrix crap" they werent so get over that shit.  

I liked the movie i thought it was good but i mean i dont know...........................................................................

quote me

I normally agree with you, Banky.  Especially on AV's.

But I was completely riveted with the cinemtography, fast-paced well choregraphed action and Uma Thurman's body.

I don't want to talk this up a whole lot for those of you who haven't seen it (like it won't be anyway) but I certainly cannot speak badly about it in any way.

Never have I been so refreshed walking out of a movie theater since Punch Drunk Love.

[Weak2ndAct]

I'd like to know why the fighting in the matrix was superior to this.  Please, elaborate.

I don't want to get into a whole Matrix/KB argument, but I do agree that fights scenes in both Matrix flicks are *better*, but that's not to say I don't love what KB has to offer.  

To boil it down simply: I think the Wachowski's have a better handle on their shot selection and the staging/choreography.  The shots are carefully planned out, each part flows into the other, and you get a real sense of where the actors (or I guess, cg characters) are in the location.  I felt a little disoriented in the KB fights at times.  Sadly, I think the O-Ren/Bride duel was mis-shot in the finale (held too long on the wide shot before the um, 'end' of it) and I was left a little confused.  Aside from that, I think Wachowski's also have a great handle on the use of music during fights, and know how to heighten the moments.  The fights essentially are musical numbers and have the rythyms/pace of a song.  

I don't know if that makes any sense.  But there's my 2 cents.

[cine]

Never have I been so refreshed walking out of a movie theater since Punch Drunk Love.

For me, it was Lost in Translation.. which says this is a damn good movie season.

[Pedro]

I'd like to know why the fighting in the matrix was superior to this.  Please, elaborate.

I don't want to get into a whole Matrix/KB argument, but I do agree that fights scenes in both Matrix flicks are *better*, but that's not to say I don't love what KB has to offer.  

To boil it down simply: I think the Wachowski's have a better handle on their shot selection and the staging/choreography.  The shots are carefully planned out, each part flows into the other, and you get a real sense of where the actors (or I guess, cg characters) are in the location.  I felt a little disoriented in the KB fights at times.  Sadly, I think the O-Ren/Bride duel was mis-shot in the finale (held too long on the wide shot before the um, 'end' of it) and I was left a little confused.  Aside from that, I think Wachowski's also have a great handle on the use of music during fights, and know how to heighten the moments.  The fights essentially are musical numbers and have the rythyms/pace of a song.  

I don't know if that makes any sense.  But there's my 2 cents.

**SPOILERS**
That all makes a lot of sense, and I mostly agree, but something about me still perfers KB's stuff...I guess the sense of disorder added something for me...but I still think he was able to be beautiful with it...like the silhouetted fight infront of the blue background.  I found that phonomenal...

but what i loved the most out of this movie was the opening...the high contrast B&W.  the dialogue.  the shot.  i jumped like 10 feet...and i knew what was gonna happen too,

[Alethia]

just got back from seeing it.  i cant say anything that hasn't been said yet.  one of the best movies of the year.

[MacGuffin]

Quentin Tarantino's sanity has been debated more than once in the past couple of years. In fact, nearly everyone who has been questioned about his first film in six years, ''Kill Bill'' -- a production that was so prolonged, freewheeling, and downright goofy that the crew called it ''the traveling circus'' -- has responded with a bemused question of their own. And that question is: Has Tarantino, the star filmmaker behind such cultural touchstones as ''Reservoir Dogs'' and ''Pulp Fiction,'' lost his mind?

''He has this free style and it's terrific, but the movie was totally out of control,'' says Uma Thurman, who stars as an assassin called ''The Bride'' in ''Kill Bill,'' a two-part revenge thriller (''Volume 1'' opens Oct. 10, followed by ''Volume 2'' on Feb. 20). ''It was a wild ride. But that's Quentin.''

Actually, it was his old friend Thurman who inspired Tarantino, 40, to pen the script that became ''Kill Bill.'' At the Miramax Oscar party in March 2000, the actress asked Tarantino, who'd virtually disappeared after making 1997's ''Jackie Brown,'' about an old revenge movie they had cooked up in a bar while shooting ''Pulp Fiction.'' Tarantino's interest flared -- for her 30th birthday, he promised Thurman that she'd have a screenplay in three weeks.

A year and a half later, he was done.

Thurman's birthday gift turned out to be a doorstop of a script (222 pages) that told the story of a character named only The Bride, who takes a bullet to the head on her wedding day, recovers, and goes on a kill-happy rampage, visiting revenge on her former lover Bill and his team of sexy hired guns, the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS). (The similarity between the DiVAS and ''Fox Force Five,'' the fictitious martial-arts TV show Thurman describes in ''Pulp Fiction,'' is far from unintentional.) It was a thin, bloody story with near-endless action sequences and countless stylized touches.

''A cruel older brother, that's what he's like,'' laughs Thurman. ''Me, in the dirt, with blood everywhere is his favorite thing in the world. He wants to rough me up every day. He wants to see me mad. But she's just a great part: She's a fierce, heartbreaking American girl who's very good with a sharp-edged weapon. What's not to love?''

''In one scene, I'm in a car trunk,'' says Julie Dreyfus, who plays a DiVAS associate named Sofie Fatale. ''And the makeup artist was spraying my face with a few droplets of blood and Quentin just stood there saying, 'More.' And she puts on a little bit more and he's like, 'NO! MORE!' Finally, he picks up -- I swear -- five gallons of blood and pours it over my head. It took weeks to get off.'' (The body count in ''Kill Bill'' is staggering. Tarantino himself says it's virtually incalculable, which created a bit of a ratings problem with the MPAA. ''You don't have that many directors saying, 'It was really great working with the MPAA on my really f---ing violent movie!''' says Tarantino. ''But I respect where they're coming from. They asked me to tone it down and I did.'' The movie -- or at least the first installment of it -- ultimately earned an R rating.)

Of course, not everything went as smoothly on set. Miramax suits were beginning to notice that Tarantino, fight master Yuen Wo-ping (''The Matrix,'' ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon''), and cinematographer Robert Richardson (an Oliver Stone vet, who won an Oscar for ''JFK'') were showing an expensive tendency to scrap well-planned, elaborate action sequences to improvise on the spot. After much debate, the budget -- originally $42 million -- was bumped up to a reported $55 million. But as production dragged on, it became clear that there was no way that what Tarantino had shot could be contained in a single film.

''If you look at that script, it was massively overwritten, especially for a movie that he said he wanted to be 90 minutes,'' says Thurman. ''You suspect various things. Quentin had gone mad, or was playing with lives, or playing with money. It made no sense. Whether he had intentions to separate the movies from the beginning or it was unconscious, I don't know. But it would have been difficult to include even half that material in one movie.''

Soon whispers started to be heard on the set that ''Kill Bill'' had actually been planned all along as a two-movie epic. Weinstein made an appearance in Los Angeles and suggested the idea himself -- but really, what else could he do, having already gone on record saying that Tarantino built Miramax and could have whatever he wanted? And, besides, there was absolutely no way they could release ''Kill Bill'' at three-plus hours. It was too violent. Too intense. Too giddily over-the-top.

''I didn't ever bring up splitting it up because I had to wait for it to be Harvey's idea for it to ever work,'' remembers Tarantino. ''But the minute it happened and Harvey suggested it, all right? It was, like, within an hour I had it all figured out. Literally an hour. It wasn't hard at all.''

(This is an online-only excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's Oct. 3, 2003, cover story.)

[Ernie]

Wait, so it's not ok to dislike the Matrix and love Kill Bill? Is that what Banky said? I know I'm a little late but I'm just checking cause that's how I feel. I never got into the Matrix hype....granted I was just a little year or two too young for it back in 99. So I kind of forgot about it until the hype for the sequel started up...I ended up finally seeing it earlier this year and I couldn't sit through the whole thing the first couple times I tried to. I tried really hard too...I wanted to like it....but I just didn't. People will probably say "yea, that's the hip thing to do-hate the matrix" or whatever but I don't give a fuck. I'm not going to be a dick and rag on the movie either, I don't even HATE it. It's got some great, exciting moments (talking about the first one)...but that doesn't make a great movie. There's no likable characters, that's the killer. The last movie Keanu Reeves was truly likable in was Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey...no joke, I love that movie. The other thing that annoyed me was how repetitive the movie seemed to be. I mean, the whole "what is real?" thing got old (at least for me) REALLY fast. I don't know if I was just having a bad day each of the three days that I rented it but I just got sick of all that. I love Charlie's Angels as some may know...that's like the opposite of The Matrix to me. It's got likable characters and there's something new at each turn, nothing is repeated...even in the sequel! It's common that they recycle things in a sequel but they didn't. That alone impressed me. Now, I know these two movies probably shouldn't be compared but I decided to anyway since they are both in this new modern action genre...with the wire frames and the stunts and the CGI. Kill Bill is as well.

Anyway, I just didn't understand what you meant. I truly was more entertained by the fight sequences in Kill Bill than in The Matrix. Are you talking about the sequel? I haven't seen that one yet so I really can't argue with you there.

[Pedro]

I think the first matrix is done quite well in parts but Keanu Reeves can't act.  And i think some of the brilliance of the movie is that they worked around his terrible acting, but the way they got support for the movie was by having him in it.  

Um, oh yeah, kill bill is awesome

[cine]

but what i loved the most out of this movie was the opening...the high contrast B&W.  the dialogue.  the shot.  i jumped like 10 feet...and i knew what was gonna happen too.

Holy shit me too.. I was so pissed off at QT because I was so pumped for the film and then he almost makes me have a heart attack. It was worth it though.

[©brad]

1. What about the ending though!? I can't believe I'm the only one that's mentioned that so far! That was fucking AMAZING! I didn't expect that at all, not the least bit.

It's probably just because you didn't try to think about it. As soon as we saw she was pregnant during the wedding, someone beside me said to his friend : "I bet her child is alive". Hehe

what about vivica a. fox's kid? i suspect that kid and uma's kid will eventually cut eachother up w/ knives. sumthin is going on there.

[cine]

what about vivica a. fox's kid? i suspect that kid and uma's kid will eventually cut eachother up w/ knives. sumthin is going on there.

For a second there, I thought Uma was going to gut her like a fish and then mosey on back to her Pussy Wagon with cereal and coffee.