Rate Kill Bill

[Kai Lord]

Strange that the movie went black and white at some point, first I thought it was the projector, but it ended when uma closed her eyes, so I guessed it was intentional even though the trailer was colored in those parts. Maybe I would've liked the normal way better. Such artsy tricks have their places, but I don't know in this case .. or is that an old hongkong movie throwback also?

I assumed the black and white was used during Uma's sword fight with the Yakuza to avoid an NC-17 rating. Black and white film is different than color, and in the trailer when the Yakuza throws the axe at her head and she dodges it its in color. Which means they filmed the entire sequence in color, and then for some reason changed it to black and white for the theatrical release. As this would have been more expensive than just shooting that sequence in B/W to begin with, I can only imagine they got slapped with an NC-17 due to the all the blood in the last fight, and that the lack of color was Quentin's clever way of toning it down a bit to get the R.

 

[barsoomcore]

They filmed the entire sequence in color, and then for some reason changed it to black and white for the theatrical release. As this would have been more expensive than just shooting that sequence in B/W to begin with, I can only imagine they got slapped with an NC-17 due to the all the blood in the last fight, and that the lack of color was Quentin's clever way of toning it down a bit to get the R.

These days it's usually MORE expensive to shoot BW. Stock and processing are usually more expensive. If you want to shoot BW, it's easiest to get colour stock (which you're probably getting a deal on anyway because you're buying a million feet of it) and then desaturate post-production.

That sequence reminded me of the end of Sword of Doom so much I can't believe it's a coincidence. And as the fight went on, it got more and more like the climax of that film -- in which our psychopathic protagonist gets cut down by a swarm of enemies in a house -- that I started wondering how he was going to segue out of the reference -- and then the colour came back and I grinned. I felt that right at that moment that Mr. Tarantino had just said to me, "I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. She's not a psychopath, and she's not going to die."

This is one of the things I really enjoyed about the film. It threw my brain around on so many levels simultaneously I just couldn't keep up with what was happening.

 

[Krug]

After 105 votes, average score of 7.56..

 

[jdavis]

Thats quite common phenomenon when leaving a theater. I've never seen a crowd be totally quiet. (Ok, maybe people wouldn't giggle after Schindlers list, but in any movie that aimed to be funny.)



Thats true, I'm not a big fan of old hongkong movies. Maybe thats why I didn't like the cartoon in the beginning (hmm.. not quite in the beginning, but in lucy lius past part) either, I don't like those anymore that much.

Strange that the movie went black and white at some point, first I thought it was the projector, but it ended when uma closed her eyes, so I guessed it was intentional even though the trailer was colored in those parts. Maybe I would've liked the normal way better. Such artsy tricks have their places, but I don't know in this case .. or is that an old hongkong movie throwback also?

The black and white bit was also a artsy throwback bit. Here is what Lucy Liu said about that scene: http://us.imdb.com/WN?20030605#9

Stunner Lucy Liu is warning sensitive fans to avoid her new movie Kill Bill - because the dramatic violence will make them physically ill. The Charlie's Angels babe stars alongside Uma Thurman in cult director Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited fourth film, and predicts audiences will either flee from the cinema or vomit in their seats when they watch the extreme action - even if she thinks the violence is artistic. She says, "It's so violent. People will leave the movie theatre or get sick in the movie theatre. But there's so much violence that it becomes not numbing, but almost comedic. There's a scene where there's so much violence that the color of the film goes into black and white, so that the blood looks like oil. It's cinematic, it's art. You can take it to a different level, and show what violence is, in such a heightened manner that you don't think of it as violence anymore, you think of it as a language. If you go to Kill Bill, you know there's going to be violence - that's your option."

 

[Trainz]

Incredible Nightfall, for once we agree on something.

Fascinating, wouldn't you say ?

Of course, it's non-RPG related...

 

[WizarDru]

Loved it. Once I got into the spirit of things, I absolutely loved it. I was suprised how violent it was (and I expected the violence), but at the same time, I loved how stylistic it was, and how spot-on it was to the original material. There were so many visual, musical and plot references that I was staggered.

The incomparable Sonny Chiba (old 'Stoneface' himself, he of Streetfighter, Stormrider and Golgo-13 fame) was hilarious and spot-on as the bladesmith. The girl who played Gogo (previously seen in Battle Royale and....a live action MPD Psycho?!?!) was mucho scary. Having Gordon Liu (the Master Killer himself) in two separate roles is brilliance.

The film showed the love affair that Tarantino has with Asian cinema in general, be it Hong Kong, anime, Chambara or even 70's U.S. chop-sockey fare. With references to Haley Mills movies side-by-side with Star Trek references...well, I dig QT more than I ever did.

 

[pfisteria]

I gave the movie a one; any movie that has me looking at my watch several times wondering when it's going to end deserves a one.