Category: Tarantino Influences

The movies that inspired Quentin Tarantino.

The Tarantino Influences: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is a 1978 kung fu movie starring Gordon Liu. The movie’s beautifully designed fight sequences and vibrant look and sound were influences on Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin tells the story of San Te, a student who is coerced into resisting the brutal Manchu regime. After surviving a vicious Manchu attack, San Te escapes in pursuit of the Shaolin school, where he is determined to learn martial arts. After a year of performing menial tasks, San Te begins his training and gains wisdom and skills through enduring the school’s 35 chambers. Upon completing the 35 chambers, San Te is given a choice of which chamber he wants to lead. He breaks from Shaolin tradition by wishing to introduce a 36th chamber, one that would provide Shaolin teaching to the outsiders being victimized by the Manchus. San Te is forced from the Shaolin school and returns to his home, where he leads a band of rebels against the oppressive Manchu forces.

You can see the influence the movie had on Tarantino through its various training sequences. San Te progresses through the school’s 35 chambers and performs tasks and skills similar to Beatrix in Kill Bill. In particular, the knife skills shown in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin are a heavy influence, as well as starring actor Gordon Liu’s ubiquitous presence in both movies.

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I had no idea Gordon Liu played both roles in Kill Bill.

There’s a great scene early in San Te’s training where he is attempting to balance on logs floating in water. He is soaking wet and starving and his teacher taunts him with a bowl of rice, which is continually dropped. Hunger is a great motivator, as San Te learns his first lesson on the importance of speed, balance and weight. The scene is a great full-circle moment later found in Kill Bill, when Beatrix is struggling with the chopsticks and Liu’s Pei Mei throws her bowl to the ground in disgust. Liu is excellent as a young San Te, who is impulsive and clumsy, yet eager to learn. His personal growth through the movie is formulaic yet it’s rewarding to watch him emerge as a master.

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The Tarantino Influences – The Killing

The Killing is a 1956 crime movie directed by Stanley Kubrick. The movie’s style, tone and characters likely influenced Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs , Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown.

The Killing tells the story of Johnny Clay, a recently freed criminal, who orchestrates a plan to rob a local horse track of potential millions. He recruits five other men to help him pull off the job. However, one of the men tells his wife of the plan – which leads to another scheme and an eventual explosive ending, which sees everything go up in smoke.

It’s clear that this movie was an inspiration for Tarantino (and probably dozens of other writer/directors). The characters in Reservoir Dogs borrow their toughness and quirkiness from The Killing, along with some classic dialogue exchanges and a violent shootout towards the movie’s climax. A younger Tarantino could have also been influenced by the way Kubrick plays with the narrative structure and puts an emphasis on time during the movie’s second half. Along with Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and The Hateful Eight all employ similar linear storytelling traits.

The movie starts with Sterling Hayden’s Johnny Clay meeting up with Fay, his girlfriend. Hayden instantly commands the screen: it’s clear this is his story. He doesn’t allow Fay much intimate space and her only real dialogue points to her low self-esteem. She claims she isn’t smart or pretty and seems to only exist through Clay’s orbit. A similar relationship is shown with Marvin, the oldest of the criminal group, who initially appears to serve as a father figure. However, his actions are similar to Fay in that he appears in awe of Johnny’s presence.

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The Tarantino Influences: Lady Snowblood

Lady Snowblood is a 1973 movie that follows a young woman seeking revenge on her family’s murderers. From its female heroine to its style, setting and themes of vengeance and redemption, this movie is a clear influence on Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

It’s obvious that Lady Snowblood was a huge influence on Tarantino’s Kill Bill. The original features a female assassin out to avenge her family’s murder at the hands of an evil killer group. The idyllic snowy setting, use of animation and stylish flashbacks in Lady Snowblood are directly honored by Tarantino. You can quickly glance the following trailer and figure out which parts of the movie were Tarantino’s favorites.

The movie opens with a cryptic scene that shows Lady Snowblood’s mother struggling to give birth in a prison. We learn that her mother was raped by a group of criminals, who also murdered her husband and son a year prior. She conceives Lady Snowblood solely for her to be raised to exact vengeance. After a long struggle, the mother gives birth and then dies.

We later see a young Lady Snowblood receiving training from a priest and then becoming a dangerous assassin. She finds herself in a destitute village, where she enlists the leader of a beggar group to find the four criminals responsible for her family’s deaths. Eventually, she tracks down three of the four murderers.

Along the way, she is helped by a journalist who publishes sensational articles of Lady Snowblood’s exploits. This leads to a final showdown with Gishiro, who is the most powerful of the remaining criminals.

The film’s second scene establishes Lady Snowblood as a deadly force. She quickly defeats a local crime boss and his three henchmen – using her concealed umbrella sword. We immediately learn Lady Snowblood is coldly efficient and dispassionate. Or in other words, she’s an assassin. The setting is directly reminiscent of Tarantino’s House of Blue Leaves. It’s snowy, serene and if the scene had more time to develop, could probably be considered a beautifully meditative environment.

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The Tarantino Influences: The Great Silence

The Great Silence is a 1968 Western directed by Sergio Corbucci. Considered to be his finest work, the movie appears to have influenced Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained.

The uniqueness of a Western in a snowstorm is striking – the movie’s opening is an expansive shot of a snowy trek, which illustrates the struggle of all involved. The horse can’t find its footing and both animal and rider are defeated by the conditions. It’s a gorgeous opening not in a majestic way but rather because it signals a gritty, unpolished tone to follow. There is both a bleakness and beauty in the landscape – something that Tarantino emulates in The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained.

For a movie that’s ultimately defined by its viciousness, the opening is campy. A newly hired sheriff encounters a group of hungry bandits that have been pushed into the wilderness. The sheriff appears hopeless from the start – first in an odd one-off scene with the Governor of Utah and then as the bandit crew spares the sheriff’s life in exchange for his horse – which they solely want to eat. The bumbling, freezing sheriff is then picked up by a carriage, which carries the movie’s protagonists in Silence and Loco.

The plot’s origins are a bit convoluted as Loco and the town’s Justice of the Peace are engaged in a shady murder for bounty scheme. Silence arrives in town due to a letter sent to him by a young widow who wants to exact vengeance for her husband’s death at the hands of Loco. It’s a bit comical to see the protagonists in such close proximity and makes the movie’s first 30 minutes far-fetched. However, we know we’re headed for a showdown between the two leads.

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