Quentin Tarantino names the world’s “most invigorating cinema”
There’s a genuine visceral nature to the works of Quentin Tarantino, a style that embodies profound violence and leanings into action-based cinema. Sometimes, there are criticisms that come the way of the legendary filmmaker for the fact that violence of a graphic nature can occasionally err on the side of the self-gratifying.
However, so many of Tarantino’s most violent moments are some of his most memorable. From the cutting off of the ear in Reservoir Dogs to the scene in Zed’s basement in Pulp Fiction to almost every action sequence in Kill Bill, it’s clear that he has never shied away from bloodshed.
After all, it’s well known that Tarantino is a great fan of action cinema, certainly of his native America, but on a deeper level, that of Hong Kong. Tarantino once went on record at the Film School Archive to state his love for one of Hong Kong’s cinema’s most significant directors, John Woo.
“John Woo was a big, major hero to me at the time,” Tarantino said. “I was just so influenced by Hong Kong cinema. And to this day, I still think it’s the most invigorating cinema that has been made in the world. The 1980s, Jesus Christ, was the worst time for action filmmaking ever”.
He continued, “Walter Hill was off his game; all the older guys died, Aldridge and Peckinpah. There was only James Cameron; he was fantastic, but there had not been a Sergio Leone or anybody like that come out and shown us what we’d seen before, but with new eyes, until John Woo.”
A true visionary of the action cinema genre, John Woo left a deep etching on the history of the film medium by revolutionising the way that action movies are made and received by the public. With some of the most frantic and impressive sequences of all time and violence of the most stylish kinds, Woo’s films have established him as one of action’s true auteurs.
From A Better Tomorrow to Hard Boiled and The Killer, Woo’s works blend the boundaries between fighting and ballet with his use of slow-motion and choreography of the highest order. The Hong Kong acting icon Chow Yun-fat was known for his collaborations with Woo, and he’s another figure who regularly caught Tarantino’s eye.
“I was really taken with Chow Yun-fat at a lot at that time; I thought he was one of the cooler actors to come out in movies,” Tarantino said. “He kind of had this Chinese Alain Delon quality. When I saw not even The Killer but Better Tomorrow, part two in particular, I got a big long coat like him, I got a pair of glasses like him and walked around for like three months dressing exactly like Chow Yun-fat.”
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