The Chameleon
With the release of his 4th film Kill Bill, even I became a fan (again). His mix of kung-fu, samurai, anime, and gangster genres seemed to offer something for everyone and at the same time manage to keep us entertained. Known for exploiting the obvious, Tarantino has brought forth an array of characters in which he could get a lot of mileage from.
I'm just happy to finally watch one of his films, where the "N-word" isn't repeated in machine-gun cadence as in his films True Romance (writer), Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs (I didn't see Jackie Brown). I like his films, I really do, but his earlier work, though praise by the critics, had serious racial overtones. You'd think he'd spent some time in jail and was given a "hard" time by his Afro-American cellmates. (Back to the movie at hand). I was impressed with the flow of the film and was actually surprised that he could pull off a martial-arts themed film that could be true to the genre. I met (saw) him at a film festival in Beverly Hills in Feb.28, 2003 when Celestial Pictures was premiering the launch of the films to DVD for U.S. distribution. He seemed shy and distant until he gave his speech about kung-fu films in general. I was somewhat surprised by his knowledge of the genre, but when you're hanging around (3) of the genre's best Sonny Chiba, Gordon Liu, and Yuen Woo-Ping, you'd expect him to have learned a great deal about martial-arts movies. Yet, if he is indeed a true fan of the kung-fu genre, he's in the best possible position to get certain movies released and/or buy copyrights to un-released kung-fu classics. Whether he is in a position to do this at/with Miramax Films is really unknown, but definitely possible. In anticipation for the 2nd installment of the movie, fans will see if Quentin's visions of kung-fu were in fact "Illusions of grandeur" or the real deal. [ 36 Most Influential ] |