Lady Snowblood

[nix]

Anyone seen this movie? After Kill Bill I was really hyped to see it.

It's on my netflix que but it's listed as "very long wait". I wanna see it but not quite bad enough to shell out 26 bucks for the blind buy. Just wondering if it and it's sequel are as good as they look.

I'm waiting to be redirected.

[pete]

I've seen it, it's based on a manga, pretty cool, a slow movie though.  they remade it into a faster-paced version that actually got released over here called "The Princess Blade" and it was choreographed by Donnie Yen who was in Hero and Iron Monkey.  I don't really have as much attachment to it as QT does.

[nix]

Watched it today. I really enjoyed it. It's interesting to see the things Tarantino borrowed. There is even a series of lines that he lifted directly.

I thought the film did a wonderfull job a setting a mood right from the begining, and hadled the difficult task of maintaining that mood throughout. The cinematography is beautiful (it has it's share of 70s zooms and whatnot, but I like that stuff).

I didn't think it was slow at all. It had several dialogue heavy scenes but I never felt like it dragged. Speaking of the dialogue, it is a little cheesy in places, but I took it for what it was.

The lead actress is perfectly cast, she looked great covered in blood.

A damn good time.

[Weak2ndAct]

So the Easter Bunny isn't real.  

I snagged the the new region 1 dvd of Snowblood, curious to see what limb-chopping mayhem inspired Tarantino to make Kill Bill...  Inspired?  Oops, I should have said FUCKING RIPPED OFF BIG TIME.

When Tarantino's rep began to grow back in the day, there were dissidents who claimed that Reservoir Dogs was just a big rip-off of Ringo Lam's 'City on Fire.'  I tracked the film down, and with the exception of one small scene in the climax, it really wasn't anything to write home about.

But Lady Snowblood... that's a whole different story altogether.  The similarities are rampant:
- Opening scene: samurai swordfight in the snow.
- The theme song for the movie is the music that plays after Uma slays Lucy.  Fine, you borrowed music.  But...
- LS is about a girl who wants revenge on the 4 people who murdered her father, who is dressed in all white when he meets his end.
- When each killer is introduced, there's a freeze-frame and title-card showing you who's who.
- LS tracks each one down.  One is a downtrodden drunk (Budd), another a big-time female crime-boss (O-Ren), and another is criminal mastermind who has his hand in everyone's pocket (Bill anyone?).
- The film is broken up into chapters, each bearing their own title.
- Young Snowblood is trained by Pai-Mei like master into becoming a killing machine.
- Oh yeah, a fucking Manga sequence, only it's stills, not animated.

My list doesn't even do this justice.  If I had made the film, I would have sued the pants off of Quentin and Miramax.  Kill Bill is so blantantly stealing from LS that it makes me upset just thinking about it.  I'm shocked that no one else has noticed or cared.

I guess the only question that remains is what movie is Q going to rip for his WW2 film.  Where Eagles Dare?  The Dirty Dozen?  The Guns of Navarone?  The Big Red One?  Who knows.  Consider this fan fucking flabbergasted.

[Pubrick]

I'm shocked that no one else has noticed or cared..

i'm not surprised about the caring part.

realizing another (admittedly huge) reason to be disappointed with kill bill, is like reading a report that says "iraq is a mess".

[pete]

yeah, but that is if you haven't seen any other chanbara or kungfu film.  Plenty of films before LS has those scenes (from all sorts of different countries!) and plenty more later.

My list doesn't even do this justice.  If I had made the film, I would have sued the pants off of Quentin and Miramax.  Kill Bill is so blantantly stealing from LS that it makes me upset just thinking about it.  I'm shocked that no one else has noticed or cared.

[Ghostboy]

I watched this this evening and really enjoyed it, and I don't think what Tarantino did with it is nearly as greivous an offense as Weak2ndAct makes it out to be. There are a lot of similarities, but like Pete said, a lot of them are cliches of the genre, and while there are other things in this particular film that had an obviously direct influence on Tarantino, he changed them up enough to be safely in the realm of homage, not rip-off. Furthermore, he's been pretty upfront about his influences for Kill Bill, which is how most of us heard about this in the first place. If anything, seeing this just made me appreciate Kill Bill more.

And that actress does look great drenched in blood. Her big scream at the end was great.

I saw Princess Blade, Pete, and didn't really think it had that much in common with this -- is it really, officially, a remake? Maybe I just don't remember the plot enough.

[pete]

Furthermore, he's been pretty upfront about his influences for Kill Bill, which is how most of us heard about this in the first place...Furthermore, he's been pretty upfront about his influences for Kill Bill, which is how most of us heard about this in the first place. If anything, seeing this just made me appreciate Kill Bill more.

And not that there's a "correct way" of viewing movies.  But I think watching a homage of a genre should make you appreciate the genre and its history more, as opposed to watching its history makes you appreciate a certain homage.  That's why we call it an homage.  but nostalgia aside, some of these movies really deserve more respect than footnotes in some revisionist filmmaker's DVD.  
And I'm just using this as an example.  I think because of the way the video industry is ran in America, a lot of kids really don't have much of a chance of viewing the same 500 movies that everyone watches, and it's easy to think that that's all there is in the world, that the best cinema in the world is the American big-budget indies or small-budget edgy Hollywood films, with about a handful foreign autuers in the world.  QT is showing off what he's seen when making his movies, to remind people that how much there is out there, and how much is still out there today.  And when someone casually comments something like "seeing this just made me appreciate kill bill more" is kinda disheartening.

[Ghostboy]

I know where you're coming from, but I didn't mean for my comment to be a rip on any other type of film...and I've certainly never excluded any type of cinema from any part of the world, or assumed that America does it best. I seek things out quite often, but sometimes, as in this case, I see the inspiration after I see the homage. Regardless of the order, when I understand where someone's influence comes from, that insight makes watching their movies more interesting. It makes me feel more knowledgeable as a filmgoer, to be able to spot homages, and because I love movies so much, I enjoy seeing signs that another filmmaker I love also loves movies, and wants to show that love off.

For example, about the only joy I got from The Terminal was the Tati homage.

[Alethia]

ur not alone on that one.

[pete]

I saw Princess Blade, Pete, and didn't really think it had that much in common with this -- is it really, officially, a remake? Maybe I just don't remember the plot enough.

ah man, I got so carried away that I forgot to answer an actual question.  It's not officially a remake, but both movies are based on the same manga.  They both had the same Japanese title, Shuroyuki Hime.

[Alethia]

yeah, so i just put this in and didnt really feel like watching all of it, i thought it was kinda boring, so i took it out about half way through....