One of the finest directors of our generation, Quentin Tarantino finally arrives in the Pinas to recieve a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Listen to his love and support of Philippine and Asian cinema.
- YouTube
That was fuckin’ cool. Thanks for posting that.
it wsn’t anything great at all.
A lifetime achievment award after only 15 years of being in the business?
He gave me more movies to look up. I already have Eddie Romero 's imdb page bookmarked so I didn’t need that.
I guess if they wanna give him a lifetime achievement award in the Pinas for a life devoted to film, let them. He’s probably one of the only influential American filmmakers who gives a shit about their cinema.
He mentioned Eddie Romero and Cirio H. Santiago. Gonna look directors those up.
Santiago
Cirio H. Santiago - IMDb
Romero
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0739388/
[quote=“moviemike”]
That was fuckin’ cool. Thanks for posting that.
[/quote]
u welcome!
[quote=“KILL BILL vol.3”]
it wsn’t anything great at all.
[/quote]
well, maybe it wasn’t great but it was interesting
Not only that but he revealed that the Hattori Hanzo character was not only based on the Hattori Hanzo of Shadow Warriors but a James Inglehardt character. I think that’s pretty interesting stuff.
And then we get this from an AICN correspondent. I was a little more concise, but what this guy says is more in-depth:
This is Quentin Tarantado again.
TARANTADO, not Tarantino. In Filipino, it means “idiot” or “fool” or worse, and I’m reporting on the opening of Cinemanila 2007 last August 8. So it’s apt to say that Tarantado is now reporting on Tarantino, because literally, Quentin Tarantino has been invited to Cinemanila to receive a lifetime achievement award for promoting Asian films.
I think the award is well-deserved because if it wasn’t for Tarantino’s love for the disreputable B-movies of Eddie Romero (“Mad Doctor of Blood Island” and he produced “Flight to Fury” starring ex-Philippine president and present jailbird Joseph Estrada and Jack Nicholson in a bit part.) or Cirio Santiago (“Caged Fury” and “Dune Warriors”) and his love for Hong Kong movies (“Reservoir Dogs” reputedly was based partly on Ringo Lam’s “City on Fire”) then his films just wouldn’t be the same. Since his name is now well-known, he’s lent his name to promote an occasional Asian film like “Hero” or “Oldboy”. Naturally, everyone crowded around him and since most people in this country is short, he stood out like a well-lit telephone pole that had just freshly impaled an ant hive. He was given the keys to the city by the mayor of Quezon City and he was given the lifetime achievement award (a heavy-looking gold statue of a sitting naked man, a.k.a. a “bulol”) His acceptance speech was very gracious, describing Filipinos as warm and welcoming, he mentioned his first Filipino film was Eddie Romero’s “Twilight People” with Pam Grier as the Panther Woman; his favorite version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. The Filipinos ate it up.
He eclipsed the two other awardees, Robert Malengreau, festival director of the Brussels International Film Festival (who also took the trouble to greet us in Filipino) and His Supreme Highness Chatrichalerm Yukol, a film director and a Prince of Thailand, to boot. Malengreau is significant because he’s been promoting Asian films in Europe for years.
The other awardee, His Highness Chatrichalerm Yukol directed the opening film, “King Naresuan” which he explained is part two of a planned trilogy. In part 1, Naresuan had been kidnapped and taken to Burma, where he learns fighting. In this installment, he becomes a prince, and he leads his armies in one successful campaign after another for his king until he learns of a plan to assassinate him, so he declares Siam as independent and decides to flee back to Ayutthaya.I guess part 3 would have the prince turn into a king and would be on how he protects Siam from its enemies.
The movie is roughly two hours long. The first part, where they establish the characters, seems a bit clumsy and tentative, like a first time director’s work (HSH Chatrichalerm Yukol has done 24 movies so I’m not sure why this is the case. If forced to speculate I feel maybe his heart wasn’t in this, because of what I saw later.) One strand sticks out, though, the love story between Rachamanu and Lurkin (Lurkin being the female). Maybe it’s the nature of their story, maybe it’s the actors, but the audience was clearly sympathetic to them. They overshadowed Naresuan’s love story because Naresuan is played straight, flawless and heroic, while Rachamanu is a second banana, and might suffer the usual fate of second bananas so I constantly feared for the safety of the loversI think this imbalance is a good thing because it kept our sympathies with the movie until the ending, where I can now believe HSH Chatrichalerm is a veteran director because suddenly he’s dealing with action and violence with aplomb and panache.
I might have added that they tend to make the hero too perfect: a combination of Saint and Heroic Warrior, but the director has managed to give the movie a tone that he’s recounting legends (actually it’s history probably liberally sprinkled with dramatic license) and we have heroes who have descended from the undergoing titanic struggles. So, the worshipful tone isn’t off-putting. I would recommend this movie despite the stiff acting and clumsy scenes at the start because it’s firstly a glimpse at Thai history, because of Rachmanu and Lurkin’s hot chemistry and because the ending is properly rollicking and spectacular.
[quote=“moviemike”]
Not only that but he revealed that the Hattori Hanzo character was not only based on the Hattori Hanzo of Shadow Warriors but a James Inglehardt character. I think that’s pretty interesting stuff.
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yeah, moviemike, I thought the same thing! a little more insight into QT’s writing/movie-making mind…
QT calls the movie “Last Samurai”, but I couldn’t find any movies directed by Cirio Santiago with that title (even as an alternate title…) … but I think I’ve narrowed it down…
the only 2 movies Santiago directed James Inglehart in were: “Savage!” aka “Black Valor” (1973) and “Death Force” aka “Fighting Mad” aka “Fierce” (1978)
James Iglehart - IMDb
although he also produced another called: “Bamboo Gods and Iron Men” (1974)
but I think the “Last Samurai” title QT mentions is in fact “Fighting Mad” aka “Death Force”…
Fighting Mad (1978) - IMDb
because of these plot descriptions from the user comments:
“Hi, Everyone, This film has Leon Isaac Kennedy billed as Leon Isaac. He is the rottenest villain in the story. He is superb as a likable monster.
James Inglehart is all things good, but still willing to smash a person’s head. The hero is part of a trio of bad guys who aren’t real bad at the beginning of this movie. James takes it personally when his buddies try to kill him. The scenes where our hero is learning martial arts are very well done. The casting is very true to character. A nice mix of an Asian martial arts pro who is believable and very funny and White and Black and Asian good and bad guys and girls in a 70s era story.”
“Leon Isaac Kennedy is Doug Russell, an American who steals a shipment of gold in the Phillippines with two Vietnam War buddies, who cut his throat and throw him overboard. Russell washes ashore an island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers stranded there since World War II. They nurse him back to health and he is taught martial arts and the art of the samurai. Back in the States, his treacherous pals, Marelli and Maghee, use their loot and viciousness to muscle their way into Los Angels mafia turf. Maghee sets his sights on Russell’s wife, Maria (Leon’s real-life spouse at the time Jayne Kennedy), a lounge singer who can’t get a gig because Maghee has her blackballed all over LA in his scheme to make her come crawling to him. Russell, samurai sword in hand, hitches a ride on a boat back to America and begins his search for his wife and son; he learns that Marelli and Maghee are the top men in town and he begins slaughtering their cohorts, working his way up the hoodlum food chain. Plenty of action and yucks, including a “touching” montage when Russell is reunited with his wife and son. FIGHTING MAD, not to be confused with the Peter Fonda revenge flick of the same name, is entertaining in a MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 kind of way.”
“Now this is more like it! When two crooks decide to bump off their partner and pocket all the loot from a profitable crime, little do they suspect that our man not only survives their murderous attempt, but is washed ashore an island where he is nursed back to health by two Japanese soldiers who have been stranded there since the second world war and who in addition, don’t even know that the war has ended! In fact not only do they nurse his wounds, but one of them additionally teaches him the way of the samurai thus paving the way for our man to return to the states and take a bloody revenge!
This is a great little film and very much a product of its time featuring cool seventies fashions, proud looking afros, some soppy romantic scenes (in glorious seventies slow motion obviously!), a groovy seventies soundtrack and last but not least some cool and gory action throughout including our hero cutting off one of his enemies ears, and later sending the same guy his crime lord associates head in a box!
Highly entertaining stuff and it even has a happy ending! What more could you possibly want?”
… so even though one guy seems to think Leon Isaac Kennedy is the hero and main guy, I think the rest show that James Inglehart is the protagonist with Isaac as the villain.
btw, I’ve found that the DVD of “Death Force” aka “Fighting Mad” is contained in a DVD boxset of 50 martial arts movies.
its here, under the “Fighting Mad” title, # 19 …
<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.amazon.com/Martial-Arts-Movi … B0007DBJUU”>Amazon.com</LINK_TEXT>
I’d really like to see this movie, sounds interesting, in a low-budget, exotic-locale, exploitation-y way…
also here’s an article where QT goes more in-depth on his love of Filipino cinema…
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=87566
excerpts:
“I’ll be staying through next weekend,â€
Good shit.
That is good shit.
Very interesting.
[color=red]Other directors have directed your scripts; would you ever direct a script written by somebody else?
Probably not.
Thank God. 8)
http://www.mb.com.ph/ENTR20070817100514.html
Tarantino enjoyed pedicab ride
By KAYE VILLAGOMEZ
Iconic Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino rode a pedicab from the foot of the Nagtahan bridge in Manila to beat the terrible traffic Wednesday afternoon and raced to the Malacanang Palace in time for the 2007 Cinemanila awarding ceremonies.
When asked by reporters if he had difficulties boarding the pedicab for a solid 15 minutes, Tarantino answered, “No, I’m not that fat!” then said, “In fact I got to see slices of Filipino ride on my way here.”
The amused filmmaker, who charmed a small group of attendees including President Gloria Macapagal–Arroyo (who presented the awards) at the Ceremonial Hall of the Palace added that the ride was, “a very interesting experience [and] it’s quite an adventure.”
Tarantino left his limousine ride and decided to give the pedicab a go after Cinamanila head and movie director Amable ‘Tikoy’ Aguiluz suggested that they board the pedaled tricycle fater having been stuck in the storm-caused jam in Manila.
The “Pulp Fiction” director even made a quick stop to a department store to buy leather shoes because he was wearing a pair of sandals to the event. Days leading to the Cinemanila awards, it was specified that guests in rubber shoes, jeans, flip flops and sandals would not be allowed inside Palace premises.
It was Aguiluz who bought Tarantino the new pair of leather shoes to go with his Barong Tagalog and jogging pants with white side stripes.
Aguiluz relayed to that press, “A funny thing happened when I asked Mr. Tarantino if he would like to ride the pedicab after being stuck in two hours of traffic. He agreed and here we are.”
The Cinemanila director continued, “The experience (of riding the pedicab) fits the festival theme of telling Filipino stories to the world and I’m sure he (Tarantino) will be telling it to his friends in Hollywood.”
Tarantino, who discovered the glory of Philippine cinema when was just seven–years old (and has since been a fan of local cinema), is bound to come out with a book about Philippine Cinema history. With this, he hopes to help the industry restore its golden years in the 70s and early 80s.
“The first Filipino film I saw was ‘Twilight People’ directed by Eddie Romero,” he revealed.
The Hollywood filmmaker behind the cult hits “Kill Bill” and its sequel arrived in Manila to be honored among other movers of international cinema industry. Tarantino was awarded a special trophy for his barriers–breaking take on stylized action and unconventional directing.
He further told the media at the Palace, “There were two kinds of Philippine movie industry: One is the one we all know, the one we enjoy here in Manila. Second are the films released in the 70s and I’m not just talking about festival releases. I mean commercially released movies done by Filipinos and watched by the average and even less than average Americans. I’m proud to tell you that the Philippines was among the few Asian countries that successfully brought more movies to the West during that era. And I’m hoping to help bring that back.”
Nice that Tiffany Limos dragged him all the way out to Manila. He really put a spotlight where it was needed.