QUENTIN
TARANTINO reveals almost everything that inspired KILL BILL
By Tomohiro Machiyama
A MESSAGE FROM THE MANAGEMENT
This interview was conducted in Los Angeles on
August 28, 2003 during a press junket for KILL BILL: VOLUME ONE held
exclusively for the Japanese media. In this one-on-one chat, Quentin Tarantino
goes deep into the many influences for KILL BILL; it's mythology, and even the
future for his characters beyond the two-part film. Originally conducted by
Tomo Machiyama for Japan's Eiga Hi-Ho (Movie Treasures) magazine, Japattack is
proud to present this interview for the first time anywhere in English
transcribed from the original recordings. The usual spoiler warnings apply.
The interviewer: Tomohiro
Machiyama
A founder and former editor-in-chief of Eiga HiHo, Japan's premier cult
movie magazine. Also, an author of couple of movie books in Japan.
The interview
Tomohiro Machiyama: Can you give me some comments
about some of the films referenced in Kill Bill?
Quentin Taranatino: Ok. Cool, cool.
TM: The scene where Go Go Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama)
stabs a guy who approaches her for sex…was this from Battle Royale (Kinji
Fukasaku, 2000, Japan)?
QT: I went out to dinner with Kinji Fuaksaku and
Kenta (Kinji's son) and I was going "man, I love this movie! It is just so
fantastic!" And I said, "I love the scene where the girls are
shooting are shooting each other." And then Kenta starts laughing. So I
ask, "why are you laughing?" He goes, "the author of the
original Battle Royale novel would be very happy to hear that you liked that
scene." And I go "why?" And he says, "well, because it's
from Reservoir Dogs!" Even when I was watching it I was thinking
"God, these 14 year old girls are shooting each other just like in
Reservoir Dogs!" And Kenta said, "he took that from Reservoir Dogs,
so he'll be very proud that you like that!"
TM: I'm wondering why you changed the name of the
girl force from Fox Force Five, in Pulp Fiction, to DiVAS in Kill Bill?
QT: Well, the thing is, as similar as they are to
each other, they are different. Fox Force Five were crime fighters. They were
secret agents. The Deadly
Vipers are NOT secret agents! They are killers! But the idea is very, very
similar. It's like the flipside. (Both groups Fox Force Five and DIVA are both female
orientated)
TM: The DiVAS look like The Doll Squad (Ted V.
Mikels, 1973, USA), right?
QT: Oh yeah, very similar. They definitely have
that Doll Squad or Modesty Blaise look to them. Those girls just look cool in
their turtle necks (another two fighting groups made mostly female).
Honey West was an American TV show, and that's in there as well.
TM: How about The Bride Wore Black (1968, Francois
Truffaut, France)?
QT: Here's the thing. I've never actually seen The
Bride Wore Black.
TM: Really?
QT: I know of it, but I've never seen it. Everyone
is like, "oh, this is really similar to The Bride Wore Black." I've
heard of the movie. Its based on a Cornell Woolrich novel too, but it's a movie
I've never seen. The reason I've never seen it is because…I've just never been
a huge Truffaut, fan. So that's why I never got around to see it. I'm not
rejecting it, I just never saw it. I'm a Goddard fan, not a Truffaut fan. So I
know of it, I know all that stuff, but it's a movie I've never seen.
TM: I thought of it because The Bride has that list
of names she checks off.
QT: Oh, is that in there too?
TM: How about Hannie Caulder (Burt Kennedy, 1971,
USA *Bigger image) ?
QT: Oh yeah. Hannie Caulder is definitely in there.
That was definitely of the revenge movies I was thinking about. I had a whole
list of revenge movies, especially female ones like Lady Snowblood (Comparing Kill Bill to other martial arts
revenge films) (Toshiya Fujita, 1973, Japan *Bigger image). But one
of them definitely was Hannie Caulder. You know who I love in Hannie Caulder so
much is Robert Culp. He is so magnificent in that movie and I actually kind of
think there's a bit of similarity between Sonny Chiba and Uma and Raquel Welch
and Robert Culp in Hannie.
TM: How about Dead and Buried (Gary Sherman, 1981,
USA)?
QT: Ok, yeah. I've seen Dead and Buried. So what's
the connection?
TM: Daryl Hannah disguises herself as a nurse and
tries to kill the Bride in a coma with a syringe (a famous scene in the film).
OT: Oh! Yes! Lisa Blount! The girl from An Officer
and a Gentleman! Yeah, exactly. Actually, to tell you the truth, there's
another movie that I kind of got that idea a little bit more from. And that's
John Frankenheimer's Black Sunday (1977, US). There's a scene where Marthe Keller goes into the
hospital and disguises herself as a nurse and she's going to kill Robert Shaw
with a poisoned syringe.
TM: The character of Daryl Hannah is based on They
Call Her One Eye (AKA Thriller, Bo Arne Vibenius, 1974,Sweden)?
QT: Oh, definitely! I love Christina Lindberg. And
that's definitely who Daryl Hannah's character is based on. In the next movie,
she's wearing mostly black. Just
like They Call Her One Eye, she's got some color co-coordinated eye
patches. And that is, of all the revenge movies I've ever seen, that is
definitely the roughest. The roughest revenge movie ever made! There's never
been anything as tough as that movie.
TM: It was supposed to be a porno.
QT: Well, it has those insert shots in there. I
remember showing Uma the trailer to They Call Her One Eye, and she said,
"Quentin, I love that trailer…but I don't know if I can watch that movie!
I'm actually scared to watch it. It looks too tough." I showed Daryl the
movie. I gave her the video tape. She watched it without subtitles, just in
Swedish. And she said, "Quentin! You had me watch a porno!" I said,
"yeah, but a good porno!" She'd never had a director give her a porno
movie to watch as homework!
TM: How about Master Killer (AKA 36 Chambers of
Shaolin, Chia-Liang Liu, 1978, Hong Kong)?
QT: I'm a huge fan of Master Killer and of Gordon
Liu in particular. He's fantastic. He doesn't look any goddamn different today
then he did back then. And it's just so cool to see both him and Sonny Chiba in
the same film together. They
are every bit the superstars. Living legends. As I am framing shots, I'm
thinking "I can't believe Gordon Liu is in my movie! I can't believe
it." And to have been
so influenced by seventies kung fu films and to have, as far as I'm
concerned, my three favorite stars of kung fu from three different countries ..
Gordon Liu representing Hong Kong. Sonny Chiba representing Japan. And David
Carradin representing America. That's a triple header. A triple crown. If Bruce Lee was still alive,
he'd be in it. If Fu Sheng was still alive, he could be in it too.
TM: So will David Carradine play a flute in the
sequel?
QT: Oh yeah! He does! You saw that in the trailer,
right? And it's actually “The Silent Flute". It's a flute he made, he
carved it out of bamboo. And that is the silent flute from the movie Silent
Flute (AKA Circle of Iron, Richard Moore, 1979, US). You've got a great thing
with David because Bill really is a mix of Asiatic influences and genuine
American Western influences.
TM: Not only was he on Kung Fu, but he was also one
of The Long Riders (Walter Hill, 1980, USA).
QT: Yeah, and who else are you going to get to do
that?
TM: How did you get the rights to use the music cue
from Master of the Flying Guillotine (Jimmy Wang Yu, 1975, Hong Kong)?
QT: We bought the rights to it. First, we had to
find out what it was (Super 16 by German group Neu!). Once we tracked it down,
we went to them and just commissioned it and they gave it to us. That little
bit of music is even on the Kill Bill soundtrack album. (imitating music)
"Doing! Doing! Doing!"
TM: I can't remember the title, but there is a Hong
Kong movie where Jimmy Wang Yu fights with 100 enemies. The fight in the House
of Blue Leaves reminds me of it.
QT: That's from Chinese Boxer (Jimmy Wang Yu, 1969,
Hong Kong *Bigger image). It's where he's created the iron fist. He's turned
his fist into iron and they're burned black. He's got a surgical mask over his
face and he's got these mittens on his hands and Lo Lieh is the bad guy and he
goes into the casino. Well, did you know that this is very historically
important movie? That was the first full-on open handed contact movie in Hong
Kong. Chinese Boxer is the
first movie where the hero didn't fight with swords(An important factors in martial arts film).
He just fought with his hands. That was the first time that was done. I mean,
there are kung fu movies before that. But this kind of like, what we know today
as a real kung fu movie. Before that, they were doing wushu, swordplay; and even though they were
doing it in a Chinese style, they still had one foot in the Japanese samurai
movies. But with Chinese Boxer, they took that foot away. And that fight
scene is so fantastic. That's become one of the staples of the genre: one
against a hundred. Well, that was the first one. Wang Yu directed it too. It
was so cool because I remember showing Yuen Woo-ping that scene to show him
something I wanted to capture and Woo-ping goes, "Hey! That's my
dad!" His father was one of the guys in the movie. You know, when all the
guys are circling Wang Yu, he's the one with the chain. His dad was Simon Yuen,
the old guy from Snake in Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. That's Woo-ping's
father.
TM: How about Takashi Miike's Fudoh (1996, Japan)?
QT: I haven't seen Fudoh. I know of Fudoh. I've
seen the trailer for it. I couldn't be a bigger fan of Miike, but I've never
seen Fudoh. I've been meaning to see it, but that's one I haven't seen yet.
TM: I thought the idea of the Crazy 88s was inspired by the teenage gangs
from Fudoh.
QT: I just thought that once O-Ren became the queen of crime
in Tokyo, which is kind of a reference to Black Lizard (Kinji Fukasaku, 1968,
Japan) because O-Ren runs the city the way Black Lizard did…she wouldn't have a
bunch of bruisers. No! She'd have a bunch of moptops. This isn't in the
movie, because I'd have to
stop and tell the audience this but the Crazy 88s are…because O-Ren is
half-Chinese and half-Japanese, so is her army. So there's 44 Chinese people
and 44 Japanese people! But that's part of the mythology I would only go into
if I wrote a book. The black suits are from Reservoir Dogs. And the masks are
from Kato. I just thought that it looked really cool. Now, while I'm saying
that I haven't seen Fudoh, I'm not saying I haven't been influenced by Takashi
Miike. Personally, my favorite cinema right now is this violent pop cinema
coming out of Japan. As far as a group of directors that are my favorites…and
there's a lot of American directors that I really like…my favorite as far as a
group is all the directors doing those kinds of movies in Japan. Obviously, I'm
talking about Takashi Miike, Takashi Ishii, Sogo Ishii.
TM: How about Teruo Ishii?
QT: Oh, Teruo Ishii is a fantastic director, a
great director! I love Teruo Ishii. Also, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. And the other guy…I
know him, I'm friends with him, but I keep forgetting his name…the guy who did
Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl and Party 7 (Katsuhito Ishii). He actually
did some work on Kill Bill. He did the character drawing that starts the anime
when you see O-Ren when she was eight and then you see Boss Matsumoto, you
know, just those two drawings? He did those drawings for me just as a present.
He didn't do any of the anime. That was Production IG. But he did those
character drawings and I ended up using them in the movie. And, not only that,
he did a drawing of Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) in her nurse's outfit and she
had a red cross on her eye patch. And I thought it was such a good idea that I
put it in the movie. His name is in the credits, but he didn't get paid for it
or anything. It was a gift. I met him in Hawaii and we became friends and I see
him whenever I'm in Japan.
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