Why doesn't somebody pull out a .45 and, bang, settle it?

Rating: Null/10 (23 October 2003)

Bruce Lee said that in Enter the Dragon, the kung-fu masterpiece. It's good question in that movie and a good one here. QT has made a pretty good homage to the genre he loves so much, however, the problems that plague many of those movies also occur here; namely that no matter how bad a kung-fu or sword master one happens to be, you can't beat a gun. So why, when so many people seem to have their lives on the line, does no one pull out their piece when they are obviously overmatched in swordmanship department by the bride? The usual answer to this question is that it is movie, but that isn't good enough. Sure Tarrantino puts some bizzarre and improbable events in his movies, but none of them totally defy logic like having one person fight and kill 90 others with nothing but a sword, and corpses to be 2-90 never think about whipping out a nine a capping that ass. This is why kung-fu tends not to work outside historical period settings, because people don't kill people, guns kill people. This is why I have a problem with the showdown at the house of blue leaves, 90 vs. 1 and none of them, not any of the crazy 88, not the insane bodygaurd, not even the ultra-ruthless O-Ren Ishii pulls out a gun, Black Mamba is pretty much occupado and open for the shot in the back, but no one takes it. Are you supposed to suspend disbelief so much as to accept that a group of gangsters was able to take power in the yakuza, which is notoriously violent, with swords. Otherwise, this was an awesome flick, especially the amazing anime sequence which looks like it was done by the cowboy bebop folks, the characters are not as deep as in say pulp or dogs, but QT is going for straight action here. Also, he seems to be trying for a semi-literary feel, with the chapters and such, but again is going for action, so he uses pretty a basic plot a characters that more movie archtypes than actual people, this isn't the count of monte crist(the book) and Quentin isn't Alexandre Dumas. Uma was good, but the best performances were Sonny Chiba and Lucy Liu, both of whom were pretty f-ing amazing. Also not as much quotable dialog and the fact that this is HALF A MOVIE. Was QT so anamored with the Matrix and Lord of the Rings shooting multiple movies at once that he decided to cut this in half, because length cannot be the issue, Pulp Fiction is two hours forty five minutes long, what you think people can't sit in the theater for three hours, give them an intermission, preferably so they go out and smoke a bowl. Finally, the music is awesome, from the oppening song, to another great score by RZA, another big fan of 70's kung-fu, here going for more or a 70's funk vibe than the bad-ass beats he used to score Ghost Dog, now if only he could hook up with John Carpenter for the next Wu Tang album.
Any fool can pull a trigger.