Watch this little french flick and you may see QUITE A BIT of similarities between this and KILL BILL...
Kung Fu Shemp (The fake one)
"Snoochie Boochies, Little Noochies..."share
besides her being a bride and the revenge premise i didnt find much similar
sharejoshuamassre, you are completly right its a complete plot-ripp-off
but what i want to know is: Where there any credits in "kill bill" that says that it was inspired by this movie or quentin got away with it without anybody noticing???
Truffaut adapted a book by William Irish. Maybe Tarantino got inspired by the book and not by "La Mariée était en noir" (1968). William Irish was a pulp writer after all, and Tarantino seems to be quite a pulp specialist!
(...) Si vous ne filmez que le visible, c'est un téléfilm que vous faites. JLGodard
And William Irish was AKA Cornell Woolrich. Why isn't this film on the Woolrich list as other William Irish stories are? I love Woolrich's stories and I love this flick!
shareTruffaut adapted <I>The Bride Wore Black</I> by Cornell Woolrich, alias William Irish, as <I>La Mariee Etait En Noir</I>.
Does this explain the similarity?
Woolrich was also adapted by Truffaut in <I>Waltz into Darkness</I> -> <I>La Siren de la Mississippi</I> or <I>Mississipi Mermaid</I> and by Hitchcock in <I>Rear Window</I>. Probably among others.
The Bride Wore Black and Kill Bill basically have the same story. It's true. I always thought that Kill Bill was intended as a remake of The Bride Wore Black, actually, so I was surprised when Quentin Tarantino tried to deny it. My theory is that he had a vague notion of what this movie was about and tried to make what he imagined when he heard of the premise of The Bride Wore Black. Maybe he's telling the truth when he says he's never seen it, but he must have gotten the story idea from this one. It's possible someone told him all about The Bride Wore Black, including the thing with checking off the names of the people as she kills them, and then he forgot that someone had told it to him and started to believe that it was his idea.
shareYoud think if he really knew about the movie before going ahead and making Kill Bill that hed take a couple hours beforehand and watch the movie. *puzzled*
He still makes good enough movies, I think his best was Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but the dude is getting irksome, predictably so.
Or maybe, this concept is a very simple one, and go figure more than one person thought of it.
Why, in the freaking long list of films he has said he borrowed from would he deny one single film?
In fact Kill Bill has more in common with Lady Snowblood, and he freely admits that.
Do you guys actually think that this film is so original that every film like it must be inspired by it?
Is Being John Malkovich just a rip off of the Quantum Leap TV show?
Kill Bill is a blend of all genre cinema. Exploitaion/Westerns/Kung-Fu/Samurai are blended into a tribute to the other side of cinema. We don't only see "The Bride Wore Black". We see "Lady Snowblood", "They Call Her One Eye", "Once Upon a Time In the West", "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly", and like a million Shaw Bros. films present. It's not a rip-off.
shareYou can post that comment on half of the Imdb's pictures listed!!!
Quentin is a (talented) photocopier of everything...
Quentin Tarantino stated he's never seen it.
He's not a huge Truffaut fan apparently.
that's bull. of course he's seen it. not a huge truffaut fan? when the bride rings vivica fox's doorbell, the close up of the finger pushing the bell, that's from shoot the piano player. a direct outtake.
share"don't jimmy me jules"...he's certainly watches a lot of truffaut. the foggy window name reveal was taken from the story of adele h, another truffaut film.
share"You can post that comment on half of the Imdb's pictures listed!!!"
uhhh... this is a pretty ignorant thing to say...
Come on guys. I defy you to lock your selves in a room and sit there until you come up with the next big movie idea. Quentin Tarantino steals things. But you know what, It turns out good. So we can have it to ways, Bland, boring movies. Or fun, exciting movies that yes, may steal things. He aint the first one to do it. He just gets the *beep* for it because people need a target. He doesn't look at The Bride Wore Black (I am american. I am going to speak english. No one try to stop me) and go,"Oh this is *beep* I hate this. This is mine now!". He doesn't! He loves it. Thats why he rehashes it. You know what. Who thinks that the french guy who made this (I am american. I refuse to go back to the main page and get that guys name.) just BAM thought this up. The only way ideas come about is if they happen. Come on... This might have happend in france. But not to the person who wrote this. I'd bet that he got it from that book like you said. Does that make him bad for being a stealer? Please. Honestly, If you have a good idea- I bet it resembles something that already exists. How many times do you hear, "Its just like ___ with ____". 'just like' is part of the creative language. Things haven't changed. We argue about Quentin Tarantino. Creators have been stealing ideas since the dawn of time. Who knows. Maybe there are still some undiscoverd original ideas. But I think the well is pretty much dried up. And come on! QT loves movies. He makes a good movie, I'll watch it. I don't care if he smuggled that idea in under his jacket or up his ass. Its like sex. If it makes you happy, leave your politics at the door. And possibly your clothes depending how into Tarantinos work you may get.
"An inch of time is an inch of gold but you can't buy that inch of time with an inch of
gold."
[deleted]
Certainly,
1. Julie has a terminate list like the Bride
2. There is a scene on the plane in which she creates and marks off people on her list.
3. Spouse is killed on their wedding day (at least Julie got to actually get married)
4. One of the targets is a family man with a single child who may have witness the death of the parent and one is a criminal
5. Kill Bill was a homage to the Shaw Brothers, Bride was a homage to Hitchcock
"Bad Writers plagerize. Good Writers steal."
10 Master Plots and How to Write Them
In the words of Pablo Picasso, "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal." Tarantino perfectly executed his Kill Bill series. Not trying to demean Truffaut in any way, but come on, give Tarantino a break.
share[deleted]
"Still, Truffaut understood very well that I depend on style more than plot. It is how you do it, and not your content that makes you an artist. A story is simply a motif, just as a painter might paint a bowl of fruit just to give him something to be painting. -Alfred Hitchcock on the subject of The Bride Wore Black
i think Tarantino understands this well. every story under the sun has been told.you can thank Shakespear[i know i spelled it wrong] for that.i could hear the same joke from 10 different people, but if Dave Chappelle is one of the guys telling the joke its probably gonna be funnier.its all about how you tell it-same with making movies. yeah he copied a lot of peoples film shots and angles ,but youve gotta understand this guy didnt go to film school. he learned by watching films he liked and essentially this is what every director does. plus half of these films hes copied would go unknown had he not copied them. you could argue this is the reason he stole from unknown films as to go undetected, but hes a film geek too and knows about the fandom so he knows hed get busted.plus he actually has met with these directors and they give him theyre blessing.
I think the similarities are just a tad too obvious for Tarantino to be completely unaware of the film. Julie crossing off the names on the hitlist while on a plane, the one victim with the small child, etc. I'm not a Tarantino hater or anyone with an agenda against him, it's just that some people are a bit naive if they believe that he didn't lift at all from the The Bride Wore Black. Perhaps it was some unconscious thing, but really.
*Sigh*
This entire discussion reminds me of the pummeling De Palma has endured over the years for films like "Blow Out", "Dressed To Kill" and "Body Double".
Don't forget Scarface, which I just rewatched and perhaps saw all the way through for the first time, and, frankly, not only is it dumb but it's insulting to both the viewer and the participants. Now, oddly enough, Dressed to Kill was the scariest movie for me as a child and I believe I saw it later in life again, and it too was nothing like what I remembered as a child. The bottom line, imo, is that Scarface, Blow Out, and Carlito's Way are not just overrated (btw, Blow Out is a huge ripoff/remake) but pretty much stink as far as cinema goes. Don't hate me for being the messenger.
shareDitto.
Just bought and watched this film (I loved Truffaut's work... 400 Blows my fav) and was slightly pissed throughout the entire film. The similarities were too similar.
When I saw this scene (Julie crossing off the names on her list on the airplane, then looking out to the clouds) I shuttered. I do like Tarantino and think he's one funny a$$ mofo when he attempts to describe something oh so simple, but I do not loathe his work. Even in his scripts he let's it be known what he's copying or stealing, so if there is no praise or homage given to Truffaut for THE BRIDE WORK BLACK, that is complete bull$hit.
What I find most amusing is this (alleged) assertion of Tarantino's that he's never seen The Bride Wore Black. Rubbish. Course he's bloody well seen it, the lying liar. I remember him going on about Truffaut in an Empire magazine interview over a decade ago.
share
They're also a list much like the one in Kill Bill in the 1968 film The Mercenary. Kill Bill also uses music from The Mercenary.
Well, even Shakespeare thought that the originality of the plot wasn't all and often borrowed some material from pre-existing sources. Anyway, whether Tarantino stated that he saw this movie or not (did he give contradictory answers? ), I'm 100% sure that he did. But that's his trademark, he homages the movies that left a mark on him. He borrows some old stories, but reinvents them and makes them new. I think it's a nice way to compliment the staying power of a previous work. Quentin remains an author, he's not a cribber like, say, Darren Aronofsky or Julian Fellowes.
Now, I'm a Tarantino fan, but I much prefer "The Bride Wore Black" to both Kill Bills. But I still admire the way Quentin reimagined the story.
MrEdnablackadder
Well, even Shakespeare thought that the originality of the plot wasn't all and often borrowed some material from pre-existing sources. Anyway, whether Tarantino stated that he saw this movie or not (did he give contradictory answers? ), I'm 100% sure that he did. But that's his trademark, he homages the movies that left a mark on him. He borrows some old stories, but reinvents them and makes them new. I think it's a nice way to compliment the staying power of a previous work. Quentin remains an author, he's not a cribber like, say, Darren Aronofsky or Julian Fellowes.
Now, I'm a Tarantino fan, but I much prefer "The Bride Wore Black" to both Kill Bills. But I still admire the way Quentin reimagined the story.
MrEdnablackadder wrote:
Well, even Shakespeare thought that the originality of the plot wasn't all and often borrowed some material from pre-existing sources.Actually, almost all of his plays are based on pre-existing sources.
The Merry Wives of Windsor ranks next after Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Tempest among Shakespeare's plays, as owing least to any definite sources for its plot.Shakespeare was definitely a ripoff master, if you want to put it that way, and he was in a long tradition of ripping off earlier works.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sources/merrysources.html
simbob:
Seems strange he would say he hadn't seen The Bride Wore Black if he had, given he said it in an interview in which he was talking about movies that influenced Kill Bill.
The obsession with originality is a modern invention.
Here's part of the interview were he said it...seems you need to log in to look at the original site now.
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-292120-tara ntino-interview-from-japattack.html
Tomohiro Machiyama: Can you give me some comments about some of the films referenced in Kill Bill?
Quentin Taranatino: Ok. Cool, cool.
TM: The scene where Go Go Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama) stabs a guy who approaches her for sex…was this from Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000, Japan)?
QT: I went out to dinner with Kinji Fuaksaku and Kenta (Kinji's son) and I was going "man, I love this movie! It is just so fantastic!" And I said, "I love the scene where the girls are shooting are shooting each other." And then Kenta starts laughing. So I ask, "why are you laughing?" He goes, "the author of the original Battle Royale novel would be very happy to hear that you liked that scene." And I go "why?" And he says, "well, because it's from Reservoir Dogs!" Even when I was watching it I was thinking "God, these 14 year old girls are shooting each other just like in Reservoir Dogs!" And Kenta said, "he took that from Reservoir Dogs, so he'll be very proud that you like that!"
TM: I'm wondering why you changed the name of the girl force from Fox Force Five, in Pulp Fiction, to DiVAS in Kill Bill?
QT: Well, the thing is, as similar as they are to each other, they are different. Fox Force Five were crime fighters. They were secret agents. The Deadly Vipers are NOT secret agents! They are killers! But the idea is very, very similar. It's like the flipside.
TM: The DiVAS look like The Doll Squad (Ted V. Mikels, 1973, USA), right?
QT: Oh yeah, very similar. They definitely have that Doll Squad or Modesty Blaise look to them. Those girls just look cool in their turtle necks. Honey West was an American TV show, and that's in there as well.
TM: How about The Bride Wore Black (1968, Francois Truffaut, France)?
QT: Here's the thing. I've never actually seen The Bride Wore Black.
TM: Really?
QT: I know of it, but I've never seen it. Everyone is like, "oh, this is really similar to The Bride Wore Black." I've heard of the movie. Its based on a Cornell Woolrich novel too, but it's a movie I've never seen. The reason I've never seen it is because…I've just never been a huge Truffaut, fan. So that's why I never got around to see it. I'm not rejecting it, I just never saw it. I'm a Goddard fan, not a Truffaut fan. So I know of it, I know all that stuff, but it's a movie I've never seen.
TM: I thought of it because The Bride has that list of names she checks off.
QT: Oh, is that in there too?
TM: How about Hannie Caulder (Burt Kennedy, 1971, USA *Bigger image) ?
QT: Oh yeah. Hannie Caulder is definitely in there. That was definitely of the revenge movies I was thinking about. I had a whole list of revenge movies, especially female ones like Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita, 1973, Japan *Bigger image). But one of them definitely was Hannie Caulder. You know who I love in Hannie Caulder so much is Robert Culp. He is so magnificent in that movie and I actually kind of think there's a bit of similarity between Sonny Chiba and Uma and Raquel Welch and Robert Culp in Hannie.
TM: How about Dead and Buried (Gary Sherman, 1981, USA)?
QT: Ok, yeah. I've seen Dead and Buried. So what's the connection?
TM: Daryl Hannah disguises herself as a nurse and tries to kill the Bride in a coma with a syringe.
OT: Oh! Yes! Lisa Blount! The girl from An Officer and a Gentleman! Yeah, exactly. Actually, to tell you the truth, there's another movie that I kind of got that idea a little bit more from. And that's John Frankenheimer's Black Sunday (1977, US). There's a scene where Marthe Keller goes into the hospital and disguises herself as a nurse and she's going to kill Robert Shaw with a poisoned syringe.
TM: The character of Daryl Hannah is based on They Call Her One Eye (AKA Thriller, Bo Arne Vibenius, 1974,Sweden)?
QT: Oh, definitely! I love Christina Lindberg. And that's definitely who Daryl Hannah's character is based on. In the next movie, she's wearing mostly black. Just like They Call Her One Eye, she's got some color co-coordinated eye patches. And that is, of all the revenge movies I've ever seen, that is definitely the roughest. The roughest revenge movie ever made! There's never been anything as tough as that movie.
TM: It was supposed to be a porno.
QT: Well, it has those insert shots in there. I remember showing Uma the trailer to They Call Her One Eye, and she said, "Quentin, I love that trailer…but I don't know if I can watch that movie! I'm actually scared to watch it. It looks too tough." I showed Daryl the movie. I gave her the video tape. She watched it without subtitles, just in Swedish. And she said, "Quentin! You had me watch a porno!" I said, "yeah, but a good porno!" She'd never had a director give her a porno movie to watch as homework!
TM: How about Master Killer (AKA 36 Chambers of Shaolin, Chia-Liang Liu, 1978, Hong Kong)?
QT: I'm a huge fan of Master Killer and of Gordon Liu in particular. He's fantastic. He doesn't look any goddamn different today then he did back then. And it's just so cool to see both him and Sonny Chiba in the same film together. They are every bit the superstars. Living legends. As I am framing shots, I'm thinking "I can't believe Gordon Liu is in my movie! I can't believe it." And to have been so influenced by seventies kung fu films and to have, as far as I'm concerned, my three favorite stars of kung fu from three different countries .. Gordon Liu representing Hong Kong. Sonny Chiba representing Japan. And David Carradin representing America. That's a triple header. A triple crown. If Bruce Lee was still alive, he'd be in it. If Fu Sheng was still alive, he could be in it too.
TM: So will David Carradine play a flute in the sequel?
QT: Oh yeah! He does! You saw that in the trailer, right? And it's actually “The Silent Flute". It's a flute he made, he carved it out of bamboo. And that is the silent flute from the movie Silent Flute (AKA Circle of Iron, Richard Moore, 1979, US). You've got a great thing with David because Bill really is a mix of Asiatic influences and genuine American Western influences.
TM: Not only was he on Kung Fu, but he was also one of The Long Riders (Walter Hill, 1980, USA).
QT: Yeah, and who else are you going to get to do that?
TM: How did you get the rights to use the music cue from Master of the Flying Guillotine (Jimmy Wang Yu, 1975, Hong Kong)?
QT: We bought the rights to it. First, we had to find out what it was (Super 16 by German group Neu!). Once we tracked it down, we went to them and just commissioned it and they gave it to us. That little bit of music is even on the Kill Bill soundtrack album. (imitating music) "Doing! Doing! Doing!"
gtsecc
TM: I can't remember the title, but there is a Hong Kong movie where Jimmy Wang Yu fights with 100 enemies. The fight in the House of Blue Leaves reminds me of it.
QT: That's from Chinese Boxer (Jimmy Wang Yu, 1969, Hong Kong *Bigger image). It's where he's created the iron fist. He's turned his fist into iron and they're burned black. He's got a surgical mask over his face and he's got these mittens on his hands and Lo Lieh is the bad guy and he goes into the casino. Well, did you know that this is very historically important movie? That was the first full-on open handed contact movie in Hong Kong. Chinese Boxer is the first movie where the hero didn't fight with swords. He just fought with his hands. That was the first time that was done. I mean, there are kung fu movies before that. But this kind of like, what we know today as a real kung fu movie. Before that, they were doing wushu, swordplay; and even though they were doing it in a Chinese style, they still had one foot in the Japanese samurai movies. But with Chinese Boxer, they took that foot away. And that fight scene is so fantastic. That's become one of the staples of the genre: one against a hundred. Well, that was the first one. Wang Yu directed it too. It was so cool because I remember showing Yuen Woo-ping that scene to show him something I wanted to capture and Woo-ping goes, "Hey! That's my dad!" His father was one of the guys in the movie. You know, when all the guys are circling Wang Yu, he's the one with the chain. His dad was Simon Yuen, the old guy from Snake in Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. That's Woo-ping's father.
TM: How about Takashi Miike's Fudoh (1996, Japan)?
QT: I haven't seen Fudoh. I know of Fudoh. I've seen the trailer for it. I couldn't be a bigger fan of Miike, but I've never seen Fudoh. I've been meaning to see it, but that's one I haven't seen yet.
TM: I thought the idea of the Crazy 88s was inspired by the teenage gangs from Fudoh.
QT: I just thought that once O-Ren became the queen of crime in Tokyo, which is kind of a reference to Black Lizard (Kinji Fukasaku, 1968, Japan) because O-Ren runs the city the way Black Lizard did…she wouldn't have a bunch of bruisers. No! She'd have a bunch of moptops. This isn't in the movie, because I'd have to stop and tell the audience this but the Crazy 88s are…because O-Ren is half-Chinese and half-Japanese, so is her army. So there's 44 Chinese people and 44 Japanese people! But that's part of the mythology I would only go into if I wrote a book. The black suits are from Reservoir Dogs. And the masks are from Kato. I just thought that it looked really cool. Now, while I'm saying that I haven't seen Fudoh, I'm not saying I haven't been influenced by Takashi Miike. Personally, my favorite cinema right now is this violent pop cinema coming out of Japan. As far as a group of directors that are my favorites…and there's a lot of American directors that I really like…my favorite as far as a group is all the directors doing those kinds of movies in Japan. Obviously, I'm talking about Takashi Miike, Takashi Ishii, Sogo Ishii.
TM: How about Teruo Ishii?
QT: Oh, Teruo Ishii is a fantastic director, a great director! I love Teruo Ishii. Also, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. And the other guy…I know him, I'm friends with him, but I keep forgetting his name…the guy who did Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl and Party 7 (Katsuhito Ishii). He actually did some work on Kill Bill. He did the character drawing that starts the anime when you see O-Ren when she was eight and then you see Boss Matsumoto, you know, just those two drawings? He did those drawings for me just as a present. He didn't do any of the anime. That was Production IG. But he did those character drawings and I ended up using them in the movie. And, not only that, he did a drawing of Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) in her nurse's outfit and she had a red cross on her eye patch. And I thought it was such a good idea that I put it in the movie. His name is in the credits, but he didn't get paid for it or anything. It was a gift. I met him in Hawaii and we became friends and I see him whenever I'm in Japan.
Ah, thanks for the interview. I still think that the similarities between the two movies are too strong to assume that it's a mere coincidence. I wonder if Quentin may have actually been inspired by some film that was inspired by "The Bride Wore Black" as well: in that case, it would make sense that the structure of Truffaut's movie has traveled all that way. I'm unfamiliar with most of the titles he mentioned in this interview, have you seen any of them? I think I might have "Hannie Caulder" in DVD (like Quentin, I'm a fan of Robert Culp). Maybe I should give it a look.
I've seen a few of them, like Lady Snowblood and Thriller: A Cruel Picture. Much of Kill Bill's structure comes from Lady Snowblood, although that movie is about a woman getting revenge for the death of her parents.
Some of those movies, like Thriller: A Cruel Picture and Chinese Boxer, pop-up on YouTube every once in a while.
Thanks, I'll have to check if one of them shows up again.
Do you think "Lady Snowblood" could by influenced by "The Bride Wore Black"?
After all the stealing, if the result is still an average film, then it could be a work of a bad artist as well. Certainly applies in this case.
sharesaying tarantino rips off other films is like saying a preacher rips off God
for all of those who put down tarantino...
let's hear some of your original ideas
don't have any?
so you shouldnt judge till you've actually done something, at least tried at it, created something
Tarantino's production company is called A Band of Outsiders, taken from the Truffaut film of the same name... which QT has said is his favorite film.
So, for QT, a confessed cinephile, to claim that he hasn't seen A BRIDE WORE BLACK, made by his confessed favorite director, is complete B.S. he's fooling no one.
I much prefer the original anyhow, for what little it's worth.
[deleted]
Tarantino's production company is called A Band Apart, and it's a Godard film.
shareWhy?
He's not creating anything original, just watering-down and re-using old stuff...
So heres an idea on-par with him:
"A futuristic zoo of seemingly docile dinosaurs that suddenly go out of control and have long meaningful conversations about killing people."
There, done.
Maybe the question "Have you seen The Bride Wore Black?" has such a obvious answer ("Yes.") that Tarantino lied to piss-off the naive interviewers.
Btw, you forgot the bit where she puts a "?" beside the criminal's name. It also happens in the ending credits of Vol. 2, when Elle's name appears on the screen.
I liked both movies. I love rip-offs.