Shadows Stories
On shooting in China (continued)...Daryl: I agree with Uma that the fight team was the heart. I was in Beijing for a month training so I got to see the most of China and I only shot there for one day. I got so attached to the fight team and got so close to them, and they made me enjoy the experience so much, getting to know the culture and see the place. And I think it also made us all a tighter, more hard-working team to watch the way they worked. Quentin: One of the reasons I wanted to go to China was that there’s a vibrancy to Beijing I was trying to capture. Even though the movie doesn’t necessarily take place in Beijing, there’s a vividness and invigoration to Chinese cinema that I was aspiring to, that I wanted to get at. Also I wanted to shoot the Chinese way, and the Chinese way as opposed to the American way is they don’t give a damn about the schedule. Films there are cheap enough you just shoot until you get it right, as opposed to America where the schedule is God. That’s what I wanted – because I wasn't going to settle for anything but one of the best action scenes ever made, and that takes time. If you're going to make a giant omelette for everybody in the room you've got to break them eggs! Having said that, one thing that was just as important to me as making a cool movie was to go on the adventure of a lifetime. I wanted to remember this experience. The adventure aspect, the journey aspect, was as important to me as making a good movie at the other end. They can work together but they were equally important. And I got it! I got the adventure of a lifetime, and I’ll quite never be the same again.
On breaking one movie into two movies...
Quentin: If I could have done it as two movies from the get go I would have. But to bring it up with Harvey Weinstein right at the beginning and say, "Hey, I've got an idea! Why don't we make it two movies, alright?" That would maybe have a tendency to send up a warning sign or a red flag right off the bat, which I thought might not have been prudent. But what ended up happening was the crew pretty quickly realised they had made two movies. The crew make movies all the time and normally they make about two movies in the course of a year. Well, on this movie they made one movie in the course of a year and realised, you know what? This is two movies! So there were all these two-movie jokes going on around the set. But when it actually happened, Harvey Weinstein came on the set in the last month shooting and said, “You know, Quentin, I'd hate like hell for you to have to lose anything – why don’t we make it two movies?” And I was like, “That’s a great idea Harvey! Genius!” And then I went back to work and I directed for another hour, and in that hour I kind of figured it all out: OK, this would happen here, and the second one would start here and the first one would end here. And in about an hour I had it all figured out and that's what we're doing.
About Volume 2 and the DVD...
Quentin: I’ve still got to make Volume 2. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing such a whistle-stop right now. If we were done we’d have a bit more time, but I got to hurry it up and get home and do it all over again. The thing about Volume 2 actually is there’s a personality change. At the end of Volume 1 Sonny Chiba gives that little parable, when he says that revenge is never a straight line, it’s a forest, and like a forest it’s easy to get lost and to lose your way and forget where you came in. Well, Volume 1 is a straight line, a straight-ahead, heart-pumping, sit on the edge of your seat, “Wow, that was a night at the movies, alright!” kind of thing. It can be said, [French accent] “where’s the resonance?” When I was growing up and I watched Avenging Eagle and Five Fingers of Death I wasn’t thinking where’s the resonance? I was getting off, man! This was the sh*t, alright? My feeling is it’s there, but it don’t have to be there – it’s there if you want. So the resonance is in Volume 2. It’s also not straight ahead; now it’s the forest. Now it’s easier to get lost and lose your way as far as the Bride’s journey is concerned. Now we slow down a little bit, we get to know the characters a little bit more, things aren’t 1-2-3 anymore for her – real life rears its ugly head and she must deal. And as far as the DVD, yes I’m thinking about it big time already. I can’t imagine a better movie when it comes to great DVD stuff. And I’m going to really play fair as far as the DVD is concerned: we’ll come out with a separate volume for Volume 1, we’ll come out with a separate volume for Volume 2, I’ll do special stuff for that. Then we’ll come out with a real big version and put both of them together. But I won’t repeat the special stuff I put on Volume 1 and 2, I’ll do something whole other, and I might even make some little movie-movie thing just to go on that special double feature version. Hey, I’m all about a collector, man – you come out with all the different junk you can!
Who would be your dream cast, living or dead...
Quentin: Oh gosh that's too big of a question! Oh my God. It would be quite a few people. Charles Bronson would definitely be one of them. Also you'll also notice in that RIP list at the end of Volume 1 the Hong Kong kung fu star Lo Lieh, who created the character Pai Mei, who's in Volum 2. He would be in there. You also notice on the list Shintaro Katsu, who created the character of Zatoichi the blind swordsman. He'd be in there. You'd also find Aldo Ray in there. You'd find Ralph Meeker in there. The list goes on and on. I don’t need Dietrich, because I have my Dietrich [hugs Thurman]!
