Quentin Tarantino once outlined his love for Hong Kong cinema
Given his encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema, Quentin Tarantino hardly arrived as a fully-formed filmmaker bursting with narrative and aesthetic ideas that were entirely of his own creation, not that he’s ever been shy in admitting it.
Throughout his career, the writer and director has directly or indirectly referenced at least one major inspiration behind every single one of his features, ranging from the fingerprints of Ringo Lam’s City on Fire being all over Reservoir Dogs to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood‘s fictitious western Nebraska Jim hailing from Sergio Corbucci, who himself helmed two of the biggest influences behind Django Unchained through the original Django and The Great Silence.
However, despite Tarantino’s output featuring plenty of gunplay and bullet-riddled chaos, his on-screen shootouts have rarely sought to emulate – never mind eclipse – the balletic style of John Woo. And yet, the legendary action auteur has been a massive inspiration in the way the two-time Academy Award winner stages his gun-toting set pieces.
“John Woo was a major hero to me at the time, I was just so influenced by Hong Kong cinema. To this day, I still think it’s the most invigorating cinema that’s made in the world,” he said. “All the older guys had died. It was really just James Cameron, and that was it. And he was fantastic, but there had not been a Sergio Leone to come out and show us what we’d seen before but with new eyes until John Woo”.
After hearing a studio executive dismiss Woo’s Hard Target with faint praise by saying, “He can direct an action movie for sure,” Tarantino replied with a statement that perfectly outlined his admiration. “Yeah, he can direct an action scene, and Michelangelo could paint a ceiling”, which is about as glowing as praise can be.
Bruce Lee’s The Chinese Boxer was a touchstone during the crafting of Kill Bill, with Game of Death another obvious point of reference alongside The Five Fingers of Death, while Gordon Liu played a monk with martial arts expertise in both 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Tarantino’s revenge story, but it’s been a recurring theme of his back catalogue even when it wasn’t quite as blatant.
Besides City on Fire, the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs, where a team is kitted out in black suits and wearing shades, seems very reminiscent of Woo’s A Better Tomorrow II, which features similar iconography, and it can’t be a coincidence that Tarantino’s obsession with Hong Kong cinema in his formative years bled directly into what he depicted on-screen in his very first feature.
If there’s any orchestrator of spectacular stunts and pyrotechnic excess worth drawing from, though, then there aren’t many to have ever done it better than Woo.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.