The Hateful Eight

(Movie Review)

***Spoiler Warning***
This is one of those movies in which knowing the plot twists ahead of time will completely ruin the movie for you.  Even minor spoilers should ideally be avoided.  So if you haven't seen this film yet, don't read the review.

The Review
I wish I had some new commentary to offer, but most of what I have to say about this film are the same things I said before in my previous reviews of Quentin Tarantino movies.
This wasn't intentional--I didn't set out to copy myself--but after the movie finished, I made a list of everything that struck me and it was largely the same things I had said before about other Tarantino movies.

So here goes:
Quentin Tarantino is an amoral story-teller in just about every sense.  Not only does he like to tell stories in which the good guys don't always win, but he likes to tell stories in which there are no clear good-guys.
In this aspect he is not necessarily unique.  Granted, it's obviously a departure from the modern Hollywood storytelling formula, but to be fair, unhappy violent endings have a long tradition in world literature.  (the Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's tragedies, Japanese literature).  But what separates Tarantino from the Greek tragedies is that in the Greek tragedies, the audience was supposed to learn a lesson.
In Tarantino movies, however, there's no larger message he's trying to communicate.  It's a violent story about amoral people with a violent ending, and the audience is left with nothing to take away.

...Nothing to take away, that is, except a sense of awe at how well the story is told.  The art of the story-telling itself is the sole point.

Tarantino's basic technique has remained the same over the years, even though he's pushed it further and further with each movie.
The audience knows that he's got a sadistic sense of violence in him.  So you know sooner or later, the hammer's going to drop down, and people are going to get killed in very violent ways.
And you know he's got an amoral sense of storytelling, so there's no guarantee that the sympathetic characters are going to live, and the hateful ones are going to die.  Anybody could be violently killed at any moment.
And Tarantino knows that we know this.  So he's able to exploit this tension by making the build up longer and longer and longer.
He's been pushing this more and more with each movie.  In Inglorious Basterds, he was able to keep the tension going for about 20 minutes before the shooting finally started.
In The Hateful Eight, he milks that tension all the way up to 90 minutes.

And for my money, he pulls it off.  I mean, wow, does he pull it off.  Even though it was 90 minutes of slow build up, I was on the edge of my seat for the whole time.
Add to that Tarantino's wonderful ear for dialogue.
Add to that the great actors that Tarantino always recruits, and the wonderful performances he always gets out of them.
Add to that some interesting visual tricks with camera angles.

The word "genius" get over-used a lot these days (and I'm guilty of over-using it myself) but I'm convinced Tarantino is a true genius.  His movies are going to be studied in film schools for decades to come.

Which makes it so puzzling that a man possessed with such genius is so obsessed with creating low-art.

I don't want to say that the violence is pointless in a Tarantino film, because the threat of eventual violence is what underlies the whole tension of the narrative.
But...but you do get a sense that he takes a little bit too much sadistic pleasure in this violence.  And this is something that's bothered me in all his movies, but it's on full display here as well--the director seems to take a little bit too much pleasure in using Jennifer Jason Leigh's character as a human punching bag, or in describing the sadistic torture of General Sandy Smith's son, or in showing Samuel L. Jackson in pain after having his testicles blown off, or showing Six-Horse Judy gasping for breath as she's bleeding to death on the ground.
Don't get me wrong, I like an action movie as much as the next guy, but the sadism in Tarantino's violence has always troubled me.

....And yet, without the threat of that sadistic violence hanging over the narrative, you wouldn't have any tension in the narrative.  It's precisely because you know that Tarantino's crazy enough to do all this stuff that you get so tense as you watch the movie.  It's what makes his work so fascinating, and also so problematic.

But if someone were to ask me: forget all the moralizing--the real question is: were you entertained?

Then I would have to admit that, yes, I was.  Thoroughly.

Final Analysis and Rating
The first half of the film was pure genius--the way the tension slowly built, the way the characters slowly assembled, the way the plot was slowly began to form, the way we got slow hints that something wasn't quite right at the inn.  The dialogue was brilliant, the actors were brilliants--I was thinking I might be giving this movie a full 10 out of 10 stars.

But then once the tension broke into violence, the violent ending wasn't nearly as satisfying as the tense build up.  And I'm going to knock a couple stars off for that.

That, plus when it was revealed that another character had been hiding in the basement, this seemed to me to be cheating.  The set-up seemed to promise a story in which 8 men were locked in a cabin, and would have to work everything out themselves.  To introduce another character out of nowhere, and to have him come out like a deus ex machina and upset the balance of power, broke the rules of the game.

Final score: 8 out of 10 stars.

Links:
A lot of people a lot more intelligent than me have written about Tarantino's contradictions, so I'll borrow from a couple of them.

I think Vince Mancini at Uproxx.com sums up the nature of Tarantino's work very well:

The basic pattern of The Hateful Eight is this: Tarantino displays a mastery of classic storytelling and brilliant suspense that would make him the darling of even the stodgiest elitist film critic, and then, just when they’re ready to elect him president of the snoot academy, he hits them with an exploding dick or some shitbomb of schlocky gore that ruins countless cravats. He never lets you forget that while he can do high art as well as anyone, low art is his first love, that no matter how much he evolves, he’ll always be a vulgarian.

The AVclub has an interesting review which sees political themes in The Hateful Eight.  I think they may be being a bit too generous (I saw the movie as mostly just violence for the sake of violence), but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

Also I found this discussion here to be an intelligent dissection of both the movie's strengths and weaknesses.



 For my other reviews of Tarantino movies, see: Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill, Kill Bill Further Thoughts,  Kill Bill 2, and True Romance.

Link of the Day
Varoufakis and Chomsky discuss Neoliberalism

Django Unchained

(Movie Review)

Positives

* As usual with Quentin Tarantino films, he has great dialogue.

* As usual with Tarantino, he manages to pull off long self-indulgent scenes with meandering dialogue, and yet still keep the tension high.

* As usual with Tarantino, the sound track for this film is awesome.

* As usual with Tarantino, the film has all sorts of clever homages to the 1970s style of filmmaking.

* As usual with Tarantino, he’s managed to pull together yet another all star cast.

* Great performances by the aforementioned all-star cast

Negative

* As usual with Tarantino, he’s being trivial with subject matter he really shouldn’t be trivial with.

* As usual with Tarantino, there seems to be a degree of sadism going on in this film.

* The film starts out strong, but the resolution is just a boring shoot-‘em-up. 

The Review

          At this point in Quentin Tarantino’s career, everybody knows what to expect.  The usual strengths are fully on display, as well as his usual failings. 

            There’s a thorny question about whether it’s appropriate to exploit real historical tragedies for trashy revenge films.  That question is outside of the 100 words I’m giving myself for this review.  But if you put that aside, and focus just on the entertainment value of this film, I’d call it a success.

Rating :

7 out of 10 stars.  (Assuming you focus only on the entertainment value, and ignore questions of appropriacy, I think it gets a solid 7 for entertainment.)

Links

In my review of Black Ajax, I made reference to the controversy surrounding Django Unchained.  Having seen this film, I have to say it’s even closer to Black Ajax than I realized.  Both stories involve a Francophile sadist slave owner who trains his slaves as pugilists and forces them to fight to the death.

Also see my other reviews of Tarantino films:  Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill, Kill Bill Further Thoughts,  Kill Bill 2, and True Romance.

External Links

            The AVclub’s review of this film does such a good job of capturing the ambivalence any sane person would feel towards Tarantino, that I want to quote the first paragraph in full:

Quentin Tarantino has devoted the last decade to meticulously crafting enormously satisfying B-movie revenge fantasies for sexy women (Kill Bill, Death Proof), Jews (Inglourious Basterds) and now, with his explosive slavery-themed Western Django Unchained, African-Americans. In the films of Tarantino’s revenge collection, a noble desire to cinematically right (or re-write) historical wrongs mingles with and mutates more problematic impulses toward exhibitionism, sensationalism, voyeurism, fetishism, and exploitation. In film after film, Tarantino combines aggressively combustible elements—racism, sexism, profanity, hard drugs, violence against women, rape, Nazi brutality, slavery—with the deranged delight of a mad scientist, then cackles with glee as he lights a flame and watches the magnificent destruction that ensues. Tarantino remains an entertainer above all else, so his lurid provocations are generally in service of the intense emotions he forcefully, confidently orchestrates. Part of his genius in manipulating audiences lies in creating immersive cinematic experiences so overpowering that they distract from the thorny questions about race, sex, violence, and representation his films pose without answering. For better or worse, Tarantino aspires to an experience more emotional than intellectual, more in line with the giddy, transgressive thrill he experienced devouring B-movies as a young cinephile than the more cerebral, less immediate charms of the arthouse. He straddles the line separating art and trash, but his allegiance clearly lies with trash.

The rest of the article is worth reading as well.

Link of the Day

Noam Chomsky "Globalization and Neoliberalism"

True Romance

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie

          I know I’m probably seeing this movie 20 years too late. People have been recommending this movie to me for years now.  And as someone who’s interested in Tarantino, I’ve always been meaning to get around to it.  But the final impetus came when a friend invited me over to watch it with him one night.

Positives

* An all star cast and great performances

* Plenty of usual Tarantino metafilm references

* Good soundtrack

Negatives

* Sadistic violence?

* Loses a point for “the bad guy should have just shot but instead decided to monologue” scene.

The Review

          It’s a funny thing when a film becomes a victim of its own success.  So many people have imitated Tarantino over the years that it’s difficult to go back and objectively evaluate his early work.  “I guess this must have seemed very innovative back in 1993,” I kept telling myself as I watched the movie.

            As with most of Tarantino’s work, the movie doesn’t really have much of a point, except the experience of the movie—and the stylized ultraviolence— is an end in itself. And the unpredictability of Tarantino keeps you on your toes the whole time.

Rating :

6 out of 10 stars.  (If judged on cultural impact, I’m sure this movie would rate higher, but I’m just judging it on watchability).

Other Things I Would Talk About if I Wasn’t Limiting Myself to 100 Words

* Debating whether Tarantino’s movies are deliberately designed to be sadistic, or if he introduces brutal violence as a way of keeping the tension high in his narrative.

* Trying to evaluate this film in terms of its cultural legacy.

Links

For my other thoughts on Tarantino films see Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill, Kill Bill Further Thoughts and Kill Bill 2.

Also Tarantino has spawned legions of imitators, and the 1990s and 2000s were filled with a lot of bad Tarantino imitations.  Many of them (Go, Things to do In Denver When you’re dead, et Cetera) I saw before starting this blog or my movie Review project.  But for some Tarantino knock-offs I have blogged about, see Domino, Intermission, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,  Lucky Number Slevin .  (Having seen True Romance, I think I understand a little bit better now what these movies were ripping off.)

            True Romance in turn borrows heavily from the Badlands (using the same music, and homage scenes to the Badlands)—my review of Badlands here.

External Links

Roger Ebert’s review of the film here.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky: The Race War of Drug Prohibition 
and from cracked.com: 5 Disturbing Reasons Not to Trust the News (from a Reporter)

True Romance: Movie Review

Inglourious Basterds

(Movie Reviews)

I once had an English professor at Calvin who was always complaining about violence in movies. He would go off for rants about the subject in the middle of his lectures, and was one of those people who was convinced that most of society's problems could be traced back to Hollywood's influence.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I found out he was a big fan of "Pulp Fiction."

"I once saw a movie," he said to the class, "that I almost walked out of. I thought it was violent, I thought it was crude, I thought it was tasteless. And then, halfway through I realized it was a satire. And I had a great time after that."

This raises the question: when reviewing a Tarantino movie, how much of the subject material is Tarantino morally responsible for, and how much of this can be written off as just a satire/ homage to other movies?

For example there is a lot of stuff in this movie that should give us pause. It takes one of the greatest atrocities in human history, and exploits it to tell a trashy fiction story.
It also has a strong revenge theme, and (like a lot of Tarantino's work) features more than a little bit of sadism.

But then again, this material doesn't necessarily represent Tarantino's own views. This is his homage to all the Nazi-exploitation films that have come before him.
He's the dedicated scholar of pop culture and pulp fiction, and he knows that over the past 70 years, few subjects have been exploited more than Nazi Germany and World War II movies. In retrospect, it was just a matter of time until he worked his way around to it.

In particular I noticed that the ending climax was drawn straight from "The Dirty Dozen" (a film which was itself accused of sadism back in its time). And so while the casual sadism of the movie repulsed me a little, I've decided to write it off as Tarantino responding to the culture, and not creating it.

With that elephant out of the way, let's get into the entertainment value of the film.

I rented this film with my brother-in-law, and on the drive back home we discussed our views on Tarantino: which of his movies we liked, and which of his movies we didn't like.

"You know," I said, "Some of his movies on repeated viewing I've decided aren't all that great. But the first time watching any of his films I'm always on the edge of my seat the whole time, because you feel like he's crazy enough to do anything. So you never know what's going to happen next, and that makes the whole movie really suspenseful."

I suspect this is true for most people.

And Tarantino has apparently realized he has this power. He takes advantage of it by mercilessly drawing out every scene, knowing he has the power to do this and still keep you on the edge of your seats. And so, as in every Tarantino movie, the conversation lingers. It wanders. It goes off on unrelated tangents. It does anything but get to the point. And yet you watch it fascinated.

He does, however, somewhat overplay his hand in this movie. The long drawn out scenes that are so fascinating at the beginning of the movie start to wear on you towards the end. Halfway through my brother-in-law and I both agreed that, although we didn't know where the movie was going, we both thought it should get there soon.
The opening scenes of this movie are brilliant, but in my humble opinion, it would have been better if this movie had started to gradually gain momentum throughout, so that each scene was a little faster paced than the last.

As it is, the key to sitting through this movie is to just know ahead of time that it's extremely slow paced, and try and go into it with the appropriate level of patience. (As with "Jackie Brown".)

But say what you want about Tarantino, the good thing about his movies is that they are always something fresh and different.
If you waste too much of your life watching movies (as I do), you're probably sick of the same old-same old formulaic Hollywood and plot structure. There's none of that here, and as a result the movie felt fresh and new. I'm not sure I'd want to re-watch it again anytime soon, but I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a new movie as much as I enjoyed this one.

Perhaps Tarantino's exalted reputation for genius is simply an over-reaction based on the delight people get from something new and different.
(No, actually on second thought it can't be that simple. If that were true, than all the Tarantino imitators in the late 90s would have been just as successful as he was).

While on the subject of Tarantino, my past related posts: Kill Bill, Kill Bill update, and Kill Bill 2.

Link of the Day
Anarchism 101 with Noam Chomsky

Inglourious Basterds: Movie Review (Scripted)

Joel’s Movie Reviews
As indicated in the previous creative writing experiment, I’ve been using my Golden Week vacation to visit the cinema a few times, so I thought I’d include a few thoughts on what I’ve been watching.

Kill Bill 2
I walked out of “Kill Bill 1” not sure I wanted to go back to and see “Kill Bill 2”. But it had gotten such good reviews, and I was somewhat curious to see the conclusion, that I thought I’d give it a try. And I did enjoy it actually.

Those of you who have seen the movie (and since it was released later in Japan, I’m sure by now everyone who was planning on seeing it has seen it) will remember that unlike the first volume, the second one did not have such a prominent Japanese theme. There were a couple throw away references though, which did seem to be appreciated judging by the laughs of the Japanese audience I saw the movie with.

And a bit of little trivia: I’ve mentioned before I’ve started to get into Japanese oldies over here. The Japanese music group “The 5,6,7,8s” featured in Kill Bill 1 and in the credits of “Kill Bill 2” is a real Japanese group from the 1960s. I haven’t been able to find them on CD yet, but I’ve seen their old records in used Japanese record stores. Anyway, those women must be getting pretty old now. I’m guessing that Tarantino did a good job of making them look young by using a lot of make up and no close ups.

The Passion
I’ve been reading with interest about the controversy this film had caused back home, so when I found out it was now released in Japan, I came out the next day to see it. I had wanted to weigh in on the issue a long time ago, but was trying to restrain myself from forming an opinion until after I had seen the movie.

Of course as with a lot of the political/social commentary I put on this blog, my timeliness has been handicapped by the fact I live in Japan. I know this is old news now in the States, and everyone is talking about other movies now, but I thought I’d post my two cents here anyway.

As noted in the previous entry, I had some criticisms in mind, but the wind was somewhat taken out of my sails by the fact that the film actually did not included the “blood curse”. (I could have sworn I read in a Washington Post article that the blood curse was included, but apparently I was misinformed.)

Some of you know I am a big fan of the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.’ I admit this somewhat sheepishly because it is a guilty pleasure. As with any musical, the music is probably the most important thing, and one of my guilty pleasures in the cheesy rock musicals from the late 60s and early 70s. I’m also a big fan of “Hair” and “Tommy”.

As with other people who are raised Christian, I was very familiar with the story of the crucifixion, and had seen numerous Church passion plays growing up. They were always boring affairs, trying to emotionally drain the audience as much as possible in an attempt to make you realize the sufferings of Christ.

I think “Jesus Christ Superstar” helped me realize for the first time what an exciting story the whole thing really was. Jesus was born into a politically turbulent time. He outraged the existing religious authorities. He was surrounded by people who didn’t understand him, and even his closest followers didn’t get it. He was betrayed by one of his inner circle, and saw all support fall away from him at the end by both his disciples and the crowd. The story was always there, but most Christian movies and plays stifled it with boredom and reverence and overkill. "Jesus Christ Superstar" was able to do away with all that, and leave just the excitement of the story behind.

It really is an amazing story if you think about it. But Mel Gibson’s movie, like many of the Passion plays I’ve seen in my youth, seemed determined to sap all life out of the drama. Every moment seems to be over acted, over emphasized, and over emotionalized.

This is true right from the beginning in the scene in the garden of Gethsemane, when Judas betrays Jesus, and Peter subsequently cuts off the ear of one of the guards, only to have Jesus rebuke him and heal the man. The slow motion, the long close-ups, and the sappy music all seemed to rob the story of what could have been a very vivid scene if the director was not determined to drain every emotion out of it. This was true of the long walk to Calvary as well, all the sad music and slow motion seemed emotional overkill.

And, like a lot of people, I was left somewhat wondering what the point of the movie was. It didn’t seem an effective missionary tool. Surely if that was the point, a movie on Jesus’ life or resurrection would have been better than his death.

It may have been aimed at the faithful instead, but if that was the case perhaps a theater release was inappropriate. Maybe screenings at local church’s would have been better. (Although it wouldn’t have made as much money). I’m sure I’m not the only one who encountered a moral dilemma at the concession stand.  Normally I buy popcorn when I'm at the movie theater.  But did I really want to be munching on popcorn and drinking coca-cola while I watched Jesus be crucified.  It seemed inappropriate somehow.

Perhaps (and I’m just throwing this out as an idea), the debate over this movie was an example of a larger phenomenon in the American culture wars, in which religious conservatives are so eager to put Christian images in prominent places they don’t stop to think about whether God is truly being glorified. Is God truly being glorified when we force unbelievers to recite “under God” in the pledge of allegiance? Or the debate over Jesus’ picture in public schools. Sometimes I think Jesus doesn’t really care if his picture is displayed in public schools or not. Or the 10 commandments in the court room, etc etc etc.

Perhaps some religious conservatives where so excited to have a box office hit about the crucifixion, many of them didn’t stop to think if it was appropriate. (You’ll notice I’m qualifying my remarks with "some", as I am aware that many of them did consider these concerns).

At any rate in Japan, a land with a great ignorance of Christianity, it will be interesting to see how this film is received. After viewing the movie, I spent the next hour trying to answer the questions of the Japanese friend I saw it with. Whether such a graphic and bloody movie is the best possible introduction to Christianity is another question.

Troy
I’m going to contradict myself somewhat here in that in this case I am going to comment on a movie I haven’t seen. I’m also going to make a disclaimer that what followers probably deserves a “Geek Alert.”

I’m eagerly awaiting, but somewhat worried, about the upcoming “Troy” movie. Those of you who knew me in my youth (around 7th and 8th grade) will recall I went through a phase of great interest in the Trojan War.

Anyone familiar with this ancient Greek legend knows the amount of literature produced on the Trojan War is just overwhelming. If I remember right, it was something like half of all ancient Greek literature, not even counting the Romans and Shakespeare and Chaucer. How this will all be crammed into a 2 hour film I shudder to think about.

I’ve always thought the Trojan War would be very difficult to transfer into a movie. For one thing the subject is much too vast for a 2 hour film. For another thing it will be difficult for modern audiences, as there is no discernible “good guy” or “bad guy”. In some ancient works, the reader is made to feel sympathetic for the Greeks. In other ancient works, the reader feels sympathy for the Trojans (in the latter case usually works by Roman authors, since the Romans believed themselves to be descended from the survivors of Troy). In the hands of most authors, the reader feels sympathy for both the heroes of Greece and of Troy. It is a story that can not easily be made into the standard “sword and sandal” epic.

I do think that “The Iliad” if done right, could have been a good film, because the focus of the story isn’t the about justness of the war as much as it is about the conflict of egos in the Greek camp and the parallel quarreling of the gods in Olympus. But “The Iliad” deals with only a few months during the 10 year war, including neither the beginning or the end of the war. It is asking a lot of audiences to be dropped into the middle of the war, and then to finish the movie without a conclusion.

Perhaps, like Tolkien’s works, Troy should have been made into a Trilogy. There would certainly have been enough material to do it. But I’ll wait and see what happens with the new movie.

Video Version Kill Bill 2



Video Version The Passion of the Christ



Video Version Troy

Kill Bill update
I was talking to a some friends last night, and a couple things were brought to my attention in relation to my previous post on "Kill Bill".
1): I've been living under a rock. My friends who teach in the high school say that all their students are super excited about the new “Kill Bill” movie. Partly because high school students always like these kind of violent movies, but the Japanese theme of the movie is also important to them. “Kill Bill” is filled with a lot of little references to Japanese cinema, which were all over my head, but not lost on the Japanese viewers. Also, I guess Tarantino has been on Japanese TV and Japanese game shows recently, because of this new interest in him and his movie. I suppose since I work in the Junior high and elementary schools, a certain amount of my ignorance towards the attitudes of High schoolers can be forgiven. I don’t really have a good excuse for not knowing Tarantino has been on Japanese TV regularly. Just goes to show I don’t always know what I’m talking about, and you should always take what I say with a grain of salt. But I still think there was some truth in my previous post, so I've chosen to write this addendum rather than go back and edit the original. The two different posts should perhaps balance each other out.
2): Also (and this is interesting), apparently the Japanese version of "Kill Bill" contains some scenes that were deemed too violent for American audiences. Specifically I guess the animation sequence was longer and more violent in the Japanese version. Also the climatic fight sequence at the end was apparently in black and white in the American movie theaters. Is this right? It was in color here in Japan. And also twice as long, with again more blood and violence than the American version.
So, if you read my previous “Kill Bill” post, and you thought, “Boy, he’s getting a bit squeamish, isn't he? I saw the movie, and I didn't think the violence was that bad.” Then this is possibly because we saw two different movies.
Which brings me to a bit of social commentary: Do you remember the movie, “Bowling for Columbine” when Michael Moore makes the point that it is kind of silly to blame violent media for the violent crime in America, when Europe and Japan have the same violent media, and a fraction of the violent crime? It was a good point I thought, and this is a good example. Another good example is the Japanese film “Battle Royale”, which was a huge hit in Japan. But because of the graphic depictions of high school students killing each other, no major distributor in the US would touch it, and it was essentially unreleaseable in the US. And yet Japan has barely any violent crime, and violent crime in the US is off the charts. Just some food for thought.
Although to be fair, violent crime in Japan has gone up slightly in recent years (still nothing compared to the US, but it has gone up slightly). And some politicians in Japan have blamed violent media like “Battle Royale”. Also refer to point number one--always take everything I say with a grain of salt, because I don’t always know what I’m talking about.
Finally quick movie trivia: Did you know the really evil high school girl in “Kill Bill” was played by the same actress who played the really evil high school girl in “Battle Royale”? No you probably didn't, because it’s almost impossible to find a copy of “Battle Royale” in the US. But it's true.
[My spell checker is telling me "unreleaseable" isn't a real word, but I'm using it anyway].

Kill Bill Update update: Since I originally posted this, I did some surfing around on-line, and confirmed what my friends had told me. Indeed, as mentioned above, the Japanese version is more violent and bloody. You can surf the net and see for yourself if you like. I found conflicting reasons given on line, so I'm not sure which is accurate but either
1) It was trimmed down to secure an R rating in the US or
2) It was decided the Japanese audiences could handle the extra blood and gore better

Video Version

Kill Bill
So I saw the new "Kill Bill" movie this weekend in Fukuoka. (Which is just recently opened in Japan). Because it is an hour drive to the nearest movie theater, and because movies are so expensive in Japan, I very rarely go through the trouble of seeing anything in the theaters. In fact, I can count on my hands the number of times I've gone to the theaters in the 2 plus years I've been in Japan now.
But I thought I had to see this movie, as a long time Quentin Tarantino fan, I felt I had to......
No that's a lie. The truth is I'm more of a band wagon fan. I started getting into his stuff in high school, when everyone thought he was the coolest thing ever. And my favorite film of his is "Jackie Brown", which all the "real" Tarantino fans aren't so hot on.
But I admit his films are pretty clever. And since a lot of "Kill Bill" took place in Japan, I was curious to see how this was done.
Japanese people, like people all over the world, are in love with Hollywood and American movies. And at times can get pretty excited when their own country is referenced in an American movie.
I myself have taken a new interest in "Japan as it is depicted in American movies" since I arrived here. All those references to Japan which used to go in one ear and out the other suddenly make me sit up and take notice. And unfortunately, I've noticed that the way Japanese, and Asians in general, are portrayed in Hollywood is often in either a villain role, or stereo typical role (Japanese tourist with camera, etc). So I've got a new issue to whine about now, but perhaps I'll save my rantings for another post.
Anyway, I was really expecting a lot of hype in Japan about the new "Kill Bill" movie, since it does deal a lot with Japan. And to be fair the movie is doing pretty well in Japan. All my Japanese friends of around the same age have either seen it already or want to see it. (As with in America, Tarantino's ultra-violent style doesn't appeal to the older people so much). And the theater I went to was certainly filled to capacity.
But again, given the love affair with hollywood in Japan, I was expecting more excitement about how prominently Japan is featured in a big blockbuster American movie. For instance, I mentioned the movie to a teacher at my school, who saw it on my recommendation. Now at the time I recommended it to her, I hadn't seen it yet. I just said it had already been out in America for a few weeks, and most of my friends seemed to really like it. She said she watched most of the movie with her hands over her face because of all the blood and killing, and I apologized for recommending it to her, but tried to talk about the Japanese connection. Wasn't a lot of the movie filmed in Tokyo? Wasn't a lot of the dialogue in Japanese? Weren't famous Japanese actors featured in the movie? And she just shrugged most of these off, which is typical of most of my conversations about this movie.
Another example: after leaving the theater, I was talking to the Japanese girl I had seen the movie with. Isn't it interesting how much Japanese language was in that American movie? And again, she just kind of shrugged it off as well.
Of course this was after I had seen the movie, so I can understand a little better at this point. It is yet another movie in which the Japanese are portrayed as villains. And rather clumsy buffoonish villains at that, given how easily Uma Therman slices through them.
Now, lest anyone think I'm getting a little overly sensitive in my old age, I do acknowledge that the movie is a satire. The unrealistic fight scenes in which Uma Therman slices through a whole army of Japanese Yakuza, and the ridiculous amounts of blood, are a satire on this genre movie. As well as a satire on how Japanese people are usually depicted in hollywood, everything from the Kato masks to the green hornet music is a satire.
I'm just saying that if there was a Japanese movie, with a Japanese protagonist slicing through as many Americans as easily, and a Japanese friend said to me, "Isn't it great that our movies are taking such an interest in your culture? Look, there was even some English and some American actors in that movie." I probably would have told him to go blow it out his ear.
But about the movie in general: A little too violent for my tastes. Although if I think about it, Tarantino's movies have always been pretty violent, huh? I mean that scene in "Reservoir Dogs" when the cop gets his ear cut off and is then doused with gasoline...that wasn't really easy to watch either, was it? But there was enough other clever stuff in that movie to make me overlook it, and to want to not only watch the movie, but re-watch it as well.
I thought in "Kill Bill" a lot of the cleverness was gone, and just the violence was left, but if you want to disagree with me, send me an e-mail (or comment below).
Of course with any Tarantino movie, half the fun is always the sound track. And in this case, Tarantino's choice of having Mexican sounding music in a lot of the scenes involving Japan seemed vaguely fitting to me. A lot of people might not think so, but it makes me think that Tarantino might have had a similar experience to mine: He was in Japan for an extended period of time, and then all of his friends joined a Salsa band, and he had to listen to them practice every damn night of the week, and for ever after Japan and Salsa music were fused together in his mind.
Oh, also I assume in the American theaters all the Japanese was subtitled. In the Japanese theaters the English was subtitled, but all the Japanese dialogue was left unsubtitled. So it was a bit of a struggle, but I'm fairly pleased with how much I was able to catch (if I can be allowed a moment of patting myself on the back).

Video Version