Anyone seen Kill Bill yet? [merged]

[Desdichado]

Anyone seen Kill Bill yet?

? How was it?

 

[Hand of Evil]

Just got a call from my brother who saw it today, enjoyed it, action, fast pace, BUT

Spoiler

pissed about the ending, no details just ends.

 

[drnuncheon]

Well, there is going to be Kill Bill, Vol 2, no? It's not so much an eding as a several-month intermission.

 

[Tear44]

Went to see it this afternoon. Power went off about 20 min into movie any they kicked us all out. Got a refund and free pass, but still sucks. Movie looked awesome. Can't wait to see the whole deal.

BTW Vol. 2 is out in February. And suposedly there is something at the end of the credits that is suppsed to counter the sudden ending.

 

[KenM]

I heard Kill Bill was going to be one movie, but it would have been like 4 hours, so they split it up.

 

[2d6]

It's getting positive reviews, for what it's worth. I can;t wait to see it myself.

 

[John Crichton]

I have my weekly game tonight so I'll be seeing it tomorrow. I'm not a huge fan of the movies that inspired this one but I am a QT fanboy so I'll probably love it. Either way, I'm not going in with any expectations except that their will be lots of swords and witty dialogue.

 

[Nightfall]

I'm seeing it this weekend. I'll give you people my review. So far though I don't think it will suck. Not just because of the reviews, but because the fact it has the mixmaster from Wu-Tang clan in charge of the score. Now you know THAT will kick some ass.

 

[Tom Cashel]

I heard Kill Bill was going to be one movie, but it would have been like 4 hours, so they split it up.

It would have been 3 hrs. Reports conflict as to why they split it, but the most convincing (to my mind) is that no sane person could sit through 3 hrs. of such horrendous violence and stay that way.

 

[barsoomcore]

It would have been 3 hrs. Reports conflict as to why they split it, but the most convincing (to my mind) is that no sane person could sit through 3 hrs. of such horrendous violence and stay that way.

The story from both Harvey Weinstein and Quentin Tarantino is that quite late in the game, as shooting was winding down, Weinstein (one of the owners of Miramax Pictures, the distributors of the film) visited the set in Beijing, saw some footage and suggested to Tarantino that instead of trying to cram everything into a single film, they release two films and allow him to put in everything he wanted.

Saw the film at a midnight screening last night.

Before I saw Kill Bill, my answer to the question of "Is Tarantino a genius or a hack?" was "Insufficient data. Unable to compute."

Now I have sufficient data.

There's no question, this is a violent film. A really, really violent film. And this coming from somebody who watches a LOT of violent films. I am, frankly, shocked to see this film get released with an R rating, and more generally get released at all by a major studio like Miramax. This is one violent film.

And it's not a FUN film. One of the things Tarantino does, or rather, does not do, is provide any moral framework to his revenge tale. We aren't asked to identify with these characters, we aren't asked to sympathise with these characters. We are only asked to watch these characters.

And they ARE watchable.

One of the dizzying results of this lack of moral guideposts is that the only reason for sitting through the movie is to watch the images on the screen go through one change after another. In a sense, this is pure cinema. Tarantino allows himself no sentimental ploys with which to entice his audience -- he flies on image and sound and story alone. The characters speak with a bizarre directness -- there's no witty comebacks, no salacious double-entendres. These characters say what they mean and mean what they say. They tell you outright what they mean to do, and then they go ahead and do it. It's startling.

This is not a movie many people will come out hooting and hollering with delight. It doesn't make you feel cool. It doesn't make you wish you could do that. It makes you glad you haven't pissed any of these people off, because this is a movie about bad people. Really bad people who for the most part come to really bad ends.

One quibble I have (being a sword nerd) is with the very Chinese-looking swordwork -- this even with Sonny Chiba and his daughter on the credits as advisors. Oh well.

Is Tarantino a genius or a hack?

Genius, my friends. There's no question any more. He has made the world's most violent anti-violence film, an action film that makes you not want to be an action star, a blood-soaked epic without moral purpose, a revenge tale stripped of any and all trappings that are not purely cinema. No sentiment, no easy ways out, no good guys.

You'll either love it or hate it. I didn't know which I did when I first walked out of the theatre, but in the hours since I can't stop thinking about what I saw and what it meant and how I feel about it. I like that.