The violent movie Quentin Tarantino wishes he made: “It’s that one”
Alongside being one of the most succinctly story-driven filmmakers working today, Quentin Tarantino is known for his preference for gore, guts and violence, as well as his genuine love of cinema. In each of his blood-spattered masterpieces, this can be seen.
The legendary director is one of modern cinema’s scholars. He is passionate about pretty much anything that runs over a 60-minute runtime and can select and discuss a wide range of pictures at will and offer a well-reasoned, if not always agreeable, viewpoint on each one.
Though he may not be well known for his forays into the horror genre, he is certainly influenced by its legacy, inspired by old Grindhouse films as well as brand new horror efforts, as illustrated in his 2007 film Death Proof. But while the storylines of horror flicks have played a part in his work, more appropriately, it is the blood and guts of violence that seem to most prominently feature.
“Violence is just one of many things you can do in movies,” the director once said at a 1994 press conference as reported by Newsday, when his two movies, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, displayed a level of vicious violence to warrant an investigation from Middle America. The director added, “People ask me, ‘Where does all this violence come from in your movies?’ I say, ‘Where does all this dancing come from in Stanley Donen movies?’”.
Having long been criticised by conservative film fans for his fondness for graphic violence, Tarantino has rebutted such claims, refusing to accept that fictional violence is anything like the real thing. Further commenting on the matter, he adds, “If you ask me how I feel about violence in real life, well, I have a lot of feelings about it. It’s one of the worst aspects of America. In movies, violence is cool. I like it”.
Violence isn’t just a cheap gimmick for Tarantino, either; it’s a necessary stylistic tool. The filmmaker took notable inspiration from Toshiya Fujita’s Lady Snowblood and Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale, both of which were influential in the final design for 2003’s Kill Bill, starring Uma Thurman. A cinematic magpie of sorts, Tarantino selects the great and the good from cinema history to deliver flickers of homage in his movies.
In fact, Tarantino holds a particular fondness for Fukasaku’s Battle Royale, once calling the film, “my favourite movie of the last 17 years” in a 2009 interview. Continuing to praise the classic action film, the American filmmaker further added, “If there’s any movie that’s been made since I’ve been making movies that I wish I had made, it’s that one”.
During another conversation with Ellen Taylor when asked for his favourite movies of the “last 17 years” in 2009, Taranitno replied: “Upon later reflection, I realized there was one movie released in the last 17 years that I love so much that, yes indeed, it could find its way onto that tough ten list that constitutes the history of cinema. That film would be the late Kinji Fukasaku’s Japanese masterpiece, Battle Royale.”
Released in 2000, the bleak action movie tells the story of a futuristic world in which the Japanese government sends a class of ninth-grade students off to a remote island to fight to the death under the revolutionary ‘Battle Royale’ act. An influential film in more ways than one, the classic picture brought a new appreciation for Japanese cinema, with many seeking out the original novel of the same name, written by Koushun Takami.
Heralding in a new age for ‘battle royale’ stories, the brutal Japanese tale takes a harder line on the now iconic concept than the likes of other popular fiction, including The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. Featuring a similar story about a group of young people forced to brutally kill each other as a punishment for the bad behaviour of the nation’s youth, the original Japanese film pioneered much of the modern obsession.
Sharing a subversive attitude that intends to challenge institutional systems, the heroes of the story eventually overcome their oppressors and champion the very system that once held them in a chokehold.
Take a look at the trailer for the iconic movie that Quentin Tarantino wished he’d made, below.
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