I saw Quentin talk about how it was samurai movies that influenced him - yea yea - but I also heard the cast say that they had to watch countless Kung Fu movies and Westerns. Obviously there were other influences there.
The fact that the stunt and martial arts coordinator was Yuen Woo Ping points to the fact that the main influence was Hong Kong cinema. Gordon Liu is Chinese too. He was the main thug in Orin Ishi's "crazy 88" gang. Some of the sword fighting looked all Wutang and you can thank those two guys for most of that, I guess.
(not that I am a sword expert, I just took a little Iaido back in the day)
Quentin said he picked Sonny Chiba because he watched him in some series that was on the Japanese TV station when he was a kid in LA. Calling Sonny the greatest actor to ever appear in a martial arts movie living today, I guess that is okay. Sonny was trained by the great Mas Oyama and he did a couple of films with Toshiro Mifune. (Toshiro died a few years back) .. Whatever.
I watched Streetfighter the other day and the martial arts wasn't that bad - even though this movie is like the poster boy for the cheesy cliche' martial arts films that followed. Grunting and bugging out his eyes and everything .. if this film was made today it would be considered racist somehow.
There were a lot of films about samurai and ninja that were done by Hong Kong companies back in the day. Duel To The Death, films like that feature samurai and ninja but from a Chinese perspective. I know Quentin is a movie geek but he is not a martial arts geek so I doubt he knows the difference between Japanese and Chinese styles.
I would put Kill Bill volume 1 at about 60% HK cinema, 15% Western and 25% samurai film. Those are my official stats.
In fact, I would say that the main reference was Once Upon a Time In The West, a Sergio Leone film.
I liked Kill Bill. It was cool. It wasn't a total samurai film by any means. Wastrel is right.
The fact that the stunt and martial arts coordinator was Yuen Woo Ping points to the fact that the main influence was Hong Kong cinema. Gordon Liu is Chinese too. He was the main thug in Orin Ishi's "crazy 88" gang. Some of the sword fighting looked all Wutang and you can thank those two guys for most of that, I guess.
(not that I am a sword expert, I just took a little Iaido back in the day)
Quentin said he picked Sonny Chiba because he watched him in some series that was on the Japanese TV station when he was a kid in LA. Calling Sonny the greatest actor to ever appear in a martial arts movie living today, I guess that is okay. Sonny was trained by the great Mas Oyama and he did a couple of films with Toshiro Mifune. (Toshiro died a few years back) .. Whatever.
I watched Streetfighter the other day and the martial arts wasn't that bad - even though this movie is like the poster boy for the cheesy cliche' martial arts films that followed. Grunting and bugging out his eyes and everything .. if this film was made today it would be considered racist somehow.
There were a lot of films about samurai and ninja that were done by Hong Kong companies back in the day. Duel To The Death, films like that feature samurai and ninja but from a Chinese perspective. I know Quentin is a movie geek but he is not a martial arts geek so I doubt he knows the difference between Japanese and Chinese styles.
I would put Kill Bill volume 1 at about 60% HK cinema, 15% Western and 25% samurai film. Those are my official stats.
In fact, I would say that the main reference was Once Upon a Time In The West, a Sergio Leone film.
I liked Kill Bill. It was cool. It wasn't a total samurai film by any means. Wastrel is right.
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