i took a lot of notes during this movie. but i don't really have much to say about it. i didn't like it as much as the first one. it was more expositional and, hence, boring. it dragged in places with the slow blah blah blah. nothing could really compare with the fight scene in japan with the crazy 88's and lucy liu.
the scene in the coffin, for example, went on wayyyyy to long. at first it was all creepy what with the being buried alive. but then it was just breathing in the dark. the chinese kung fu master...well it was certainly central to the plot, but it was completely absent from the first one and its induction in this one seemed like a slightly non-exact puzzle piece turned on its side and glued in. with paste. the kind that dissolves in water. all right now i'm just being picky and overzealous.
it was good. parts of it were good. i think that really i just need to see it again. it's a movie which needs to be appreciated not loved at first sight like the first one.
Posted by michele at June 25, 2004 09:47 AMIf I remember correctly, wasn't Quentin originally shooting this as one movie and the action sequences just became so long that he had to make it into two? May that has something to do with the lack of transition between pt. 1 & 2. I haven't seen the second one yet so maybe I'm way off base.
Posted by: Clint on June 25, 2004 10:12 AMyes. zoe said she wasn't aware during filming that it was 2 movies.
Posted by: didofoot on June 25, 2004 10:18 AMI think Miramax wanted it 2 and a half hours, max, while Tarantino's original cut was over 3 hours. The Brothers Weinstein saw an opportunity to both re-cut a film and cash in royally, two favorite Brothers pursuits, so they made it two movies.
The total of the two movies is a little over 4 hours, so maybe that's why Part 2 is slower. It's sort of like seeing a movie where all the potential filler for "Deleted scenes" stayed in entirely.
Regardless, I loved it. I have been trying to figure out or invent some kind of significance to the same actor playing the kung fu master *and* the swordmaker, and another actor playing both the sheriff and the Cuban pimp, but I got nothing.
I'm with you on the coffin and the too-long darkness and breathing. The person I was with was really into the whole scene, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt, I guess.
I really enjoyed the throwaway line about how there weren't really 88 guys in the Crazy 88's.
Posted by: sean on June 25, 2004 04:20 PM