Kill Quentin

Rating: Null/10 (25 November 2004)

It's not by chance that the credits give this the honor of being the '4Th Tarantino Film', 4 being the number associated in some parts of Asia with death. But it's not the abundance of gory executions the ominous number should be referred to, but rather the final demise of any creativity that this bold icon of shoddy plagiarism represents.
Kill Bill is the ultimate exploitation movie, and reflects all too well the complete lack of ideas of this era of Hollywood globalization that which until now we thought was best portrayed by the Matrix trilogy. Kill Bill takes the omnivorous homogenizing machine one step further the 'tribute' into 'cut and paste' land. At its worst, the movie is a repetitive cartoon.
At its best, this is a clever pastiche of spectacular scenes all of which give the viewer an uncomfortable feeling of 'déjà vu'. But indeed, that's what many film viewers like to pay for anyway, as the 'tell all' movie trailers of late seem to indicate. No surprises, lavish special effects. The problem is that Tarantino never gets even close to the spontaneity of the many low-budget flicks he tries to imitate. Sure, it's possible that the protectionist US movie and cartoon market has saved many viewers from experiencing the original versions of Quentin's 'tributes'. And the product is definitely sleek and polished, but who wouldn't have achieve such shine with the power of the then almighty dollar?
Like Stone in 'Natural Born Killers' Tarantino switches back and forth between 'real' and cartoon reality. Unlike Stone's stylish MTV era animation, here we have only apparently more appropriate anime-style gore-fests. The graphic style is reminiscent of early seventies anime, but the action is all 'Okuto No Ken'. The use of sharp, overexposed black and white for the grisliest scenes is excellent, but wait, where did I see that?
The Japanese scenes are pathetic at best. They really look like the product of a fanboy, who oh-so-desperately tries to recreate the texture of his wet dreams, failing miserably at giving it a life of its own. The icon for this effort is Lucy Liu's casting as O-Ishii 'cottonmouth', as clumsy on the set as she is desperately trying to utter Japanese that doesn't sound completely inadequate to any minimally proficient viewer. Here the director loses a great opportunity to dub the less-than-capable actress with a Japanese voice actor, maybe with intentionally poor lip-sync. Now, that would have been clever, and would have also spared my ears. The 'best of worst' performance is however the 'table speech' at the Yakuza conference (I suspect the only research done for Kill Bill was adding Black Rain to the movies-to-copy pile). Thankfully Liu delivers the speech in English. Too bad she is lousy at that, and, in any case, we heard that stuff from Honey Bunny, in a better movie. Ironically Tarantino is at his best when staying away from Asian-themed schlock and indulging instead in sharply exposing the Ugly American. The Texas scenes are memorable, as the ugliness of the hospital comatose rape word. Unfortunately even that's where self indulgence and self referencing abound. The Pussy Wagon reminds nostalgic viewers of Zed's chopper, and the hospital ward his dungeon. Unfortunately, in show business you can pull that kind of trick once: the second time, sorry, you are repeating yourself, albeit stylishly.
I resisted watching this embarrassing excuse for movie until both DVD editions where in the cheap movie rack. Now I wish I waited a little longer.