Category: Sonny Chiba

TRUE ROMANCE

By Marc S. Sanders

The structure built into the script for True Romance by Quentin Tarantino, directed by Tony Scott, is like the trunk of a solid oak tree with strong, sturdy branches representing its collection of seedy characters in off color scenes. Tarantino sets it up – an Elvis infatuated boy meets a rookie call girl (Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette). Boy marries girl, and then boy & girl find a suitcase filled with a fortune in uncut cocaine. A simple storyline that now allows a bunch of fun, short vignettes to be played out, all leading to one moment after the other within this universe of outlandish, lurid debauchery.

What works so well in True Romance is that literally from beginning to end, you are always meeting a new and incredibly interesting character. Each scene welcomes someone else into the fold. For that, you need an all-star cast. Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer, Conchata Farrell, Dennis Hopper, James Gandolfini, Brad Pitt, Bronson Pinchot, Saul Rubinek, Michael Rapaport, Tom Sizemore, Chris Penn, Ed Lauter, Elvis & martial arts master Sonny Chiba. The list goes on and on. It should be noted that some of this cast were hardly bankable stars before this film, which flopped at the box office in 1993. Before the movie became a cult B movie obsession on home video and cable, it was blazing the trail of well-established careers for much of its talent.

Nearly every character can have a story of their own written about them. Take Gary Oldman in one of his best roles as the vicious looking pimp named Drexel, a white guy adopting a Jamaican gangsta accent with dreadlocks, gold caps on his teeth, a blind eye and wickedly curved scar down the side of his face. His appearance alone makes me beg to know this guy’s background in a whole other movie. Drexel’s introduction comes early when he pumps a shotgun into two hoods. Shortly thereafter he’s conversing with Clarence Worley (Slater), and we know who’s in charge of this scene. Oldman is only given about 10 minutes of screen time, but it’s hardly forgettable.

The same goes for Walken, as a well-dressed mafia don interrogating Clarence’s father (Hopper). This scene has become legendary for film lovers, and it carries into a stratosphere of intelligence and timing in performance duality. It remains one of the best scenes Tarantino ever wrote as we learn a probable origin of Sicilians from a doomed Dennis Hopper. This is an acting class at its finest.

Jeffrey L Kimball filmed the piece showing contrasts of a wintery cold and dirty Detroit versus a sun-soaked Los Angeles. It’s sharp photography of gorgeous colors schemes.

Hans Zimmer scored the soundtrack, deliberately saluting Terrance Malick’s Badlands where we followed a similarly young criminal couple played by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Zimmer’s fun, melodic tones to celebrate Arquette and Slater’s adventures is perfectly in tune with the two-dimensional charm of their new and happy relationship. Most of Tarantino’s script is not taken seriously. Zimmer was the right device for that.

A few spare moments are played with dread, though. Slater and Arquette are truly in love. So, Tarantino & Scott threaten what the film treasures. Arquette as a call girl named Alabama Worley is incredible throughout the film. She’s a silly, adorably cute Southern belle dressed in secondhand store accessories, such as a cow spotted patterned skirt with neon blue sunglasses, and red cowgirl boots. This is not someone you’d hire to manage your accounting firm or run a library. However, Arquette’s emotional range really comes through during a brutal beating scene with Gandolfini. It pains a viewer to watch the moment, but it comes long after we’ve grown to love her.

Later, towards the end, our favorite couple is again endangered during a three way Mexican standoff. It’s hilarious, and way off kilter, but then it also gets downright scary.

That’s the beauty of True Romance. It’s a well-organized mess of emotions from comedy to drama to violence and silliness. Tarantino has great set pieces put together in a connect the dots rhythm.

It’s an endlessly quotable film. It’s a visual film. It’s a literal roller coaster of dangerously amusing storytelling told with affection and gratuity. It’s also quite sweet.

True Romance remains one of my favorite films of all time.

KILL BILL VOL. 1

By Marc S. Sanders

Kill Bill Vol. 1 is Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to the best in Kung Fu films. A cinematic celebration for the eyes amid swords, blood and feminine gusto.

I consider Tarantino a writer of two dimensional characters; people with roll off the tongue names like Elle Driver and the only depth he awards them is to provide a code name like a breed of a deadly snake (Black Mamba, Cottonmouth). Multi dimensional characters are an absolute must for me most of the time. The only time I forgive its absence is when I watch Han Solo, Indiana Jones (circa the original Raiders…) and anything introduced by way of QT. Why? Because with these examples it is the situation and depiction of action that offers more than what you see. A ball and chain with a saw blade is wielded by Gogo, the catholic school girl assassin, and we don’t care so much if it hits its target. Rather we care about its traveling trajectory. The ball will zing through the air, sever a wooden table into splinters and zing back to hit its target in the back of the head. QT can thank his loyal editor, the dearly departed Sally Menke for achievements like this.

None of this is serious. It’s a step-by-step storyline of vengeance by Uma Thurman as The Bride, who is vows payback on Bill and his underlings for having the nerve to crash her wedding, leaving her for dead.

Getting from place to place is the glorious fun of the picture, thanks to a rocking soundtrack and actors (Thurman, a stellar Lucy Liu and a brash Vivica A Fox) ready to recite heightened, forthright dialogue that a 10 year old might give to his favorite action figures. “The baseball diamond where I coach little league and we have ourselves a knife fight.” Only assassins from Quentin Tarantino’s glossary talk like this.

Action scenes are not only gorgeously crafted with knife choreography and plenty of martial arts, but there’s almost a slapstick element to it all, along with a comic book feel. Tarantino is a well-known Three Stooges fan and beyond being an admirer of cinematic heroes. The Bride doesn’t just spill the blood of her opponents (The Crazy 88), she severs limbs and heads, so arteries spray never-ending geysers of blood. By the time the showdown of 1 vs 88 is over, the blood is in such excess, it appears as if the most extreme of pie fights has occurred among the mess. If Wile E Coyote took it up a few notches against the Road Runner, it might border what’s presented in this film. This is Quentin Tarantino with free reign and an unlimited budget providing what Kung Fu cinema fondly remembered from the offerings of legends like Sonny Chiba (who appears as a sword maker here) and Bruce Lee.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a glory to behold. It’s a variety of clear cinematography through different lenses Black & white, red with siren sounds, quiet dual set ups in glowing blue, and the purity of Lucy Liu’s code in a snowy white setting. Following a prenote of “Our Feature Presentation” the picture is bright in color and crisp in sound. Cereal is spilled all over a kitchen floor following a knife fight, and you just adore the crunch beneath The Bride’s feet as she walks out.

Overhead crane shots give an outline of a locale’s interior. Scorsese did this for terrifying effect at the end of Taxi Driver. Tarantino uses it as a means for the viewer to be let in on everything The Bride considers or looks for. The 4th film from Quentin Tarantino is so well constructed and so well-orchestrated. You see something new with each repeat viewing.