Bram Stoker's Dracula

Bram Stoker's Dracula, one of the best gothic novels I have ever read but when it comes to movie adaptations very few have attempted to follow the plot including Count Dracula in 1970 starring Christopher Lee, Dracula in 1973 starring Jack Palance, Count Dracula 1977 a BBC adaptation starring Louis Jourdan and Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992 starring Gary Oldman.

I have the latter on ddv and I recently watched it yesterday, like the others it is flawed and deviates from the novel with some noteable errors and plot changes, mainly the additional and unsuitable romance between Mina and Dracula. In this movie Mina is the reincarnation of Dracula's wife Elisabeta who killed herself after being wrongly informed that he was dead. She is reborn in Mina Harker nee Murray who becomes torn between her love for Jonathan, her loyalties to her friends and her virtue and the memories and love for Dracula, who was once her husband Vlad III the Impaler in another life. In fact the movie in the opening sequence gives this as the reason for Vlad's transformation into a vampire as he turns his back on God after he is informed she will nto go to heaven due to her suicide and vows to avenge her. Of course none of this in the novel it is an embellishment to give the story a dark romance angle hence the tagline 'Love never dies' and whilst it sounds like a good idea on paper it does not really work.

In the movie Mina comes across as a biopolar character she jumps about with her emotions, leads Jonathan on, willingly betrays him and submits herself to become a vampire and then suddenly cries and calls herself unclean and yet later she is happy to defend Dracula and be there for him when he dies. This deviation in her personality ruins her character making her immediately dislikable, confusing and impossible to figure out, it may be possible to be in love with two men but she seems to show little regard for Jonathan and no sooner is she married to him than she is welcoming Dracula to her bed, the same Dracula who raped her best friend, drove her mad and turned her into a vampire ultimately leading to her damnation, something which apparently she did not click onto until Dracula actually identified herself. He is also the same man who imprisoned her would be fiance, left him to be raped and drained of his blood by his concubines and drove him half mad.

I feel that Mina and Jonathan were both horribly casted, it's this idea that Hollywood cannot make big budgeted movies with only an English class but there must always be some big name American actor to draw in the viewers, combine this with the foolish idea that all Americans can do a decent English accent and you have a disaster. You know more buy Winona and Keanu's accents than you buy their romance. I like both actors and I enjoy their other work but in this movie English actors would have been best, particularly ones who had some sort of believable spark between them. The romance, highlighted often in the novel, falls flat in the movie as an ignorable side point as the made up romance between Dracula and Mina takes precedence.

Gary Oldman is spectacular as Dracula presenting a tragic and yet evil figure, again the romantic side of him is just annoying, but is perfomance was still Oscar worthy, he is an amazing actor and his monstrous appearances were spectacular from his first aged decrepit form to his half-wolf and half-bat forms (again not in the novel). He presents a believably scary Count.



The brief appearances of his 'brides' is also noteworthy, particularly since one is Monica Bellucci, they are sufficiently sexy and horrific particularly when they are feasting on a baby. Although the novel never states they are his brides this has become a popular idea over the ages though their appearances are mostly kept brief and they are rarely named. The sex scenes are wild, vivid and disturbing and again, not in the novel, but a decent addition as they add to their frightening appearance.


I also loved the way the trio of Quincey Morris, Arthur Holmwood and Dr. John Seward were presented with wonderful performances by Billy Campbell, Cary Elwes and Richard E. Grant, the latter two being favourites of mine. They are all good characters in their own way, Quincey is brash and brave, Arthur a noble snob with a tender heart and Jack a bumbling genuis devoted to his work. They are best friends who do not even let their love for the same woman divide them, instead it strengthens them and even after she chooses Arthur as her suitor they still bond together in a valiant but failed attempt to save her life. They are tragic characters in a way and you cannot help but grieve for the loss of Quincey and sympathise with Arthur's loss of his fiancee so soon after they become engaged. This is one of the movies to show all three characters as they originally were without eliminating or combining them as is so often done. As Lucy's united suitors and in the case of Quincey, one of Dracula's eventual killers, they are important characters and it is a shame that they are so rarely portrayed correctly.

in the 1992 film to me they are best portrayed, their casting was perfect and they had enough on screen time to be noticeable. Cary Elwes did a great job of showing Arthur's depression, attempts to put on a show of bravado and denial and ultimate pain over Lucy's fate, Billy Campbell was excellent at portraying Quincey as a cowboy styled Texan who is blunt and over the top and yet full of heart and Richard E Grant was fantastic as the slight eccentric psychiatrist whose love for Lucy is unending and who often feels ignorant and overpowered when it comes to Van Helsing's knowledge of vampires.

The best performance by far for me was Sadie Frost as Lucy Westenra, she really deserved a nomination for it she went from flirty, light hearted and fickle but loyal to a sexually promiscuous half-mad woman full of wanton desire to a an undead horror effortlessly. Lucy is a young woman 'not yet twenty' caught between three men who have all proposed to her, given her youth her nature to toy with these men and lead them on is forgiveable in a way, she is a young woman who adores attention and affection but she is not malicious. Although one might suggest she is a gold digger picking Arthur because he is a lord with his father's title to inherit although neither novel nor movie directly suggest this. She becomes Dracula's victim as he slowly drains her life force from her, taking her blood and having disturbing sex with her in half-wolf form in the movie and turning her from a sweet, pure woman into a highly sexual creature going half-insane with thirst and desire. She is much more erotic and impish that her novel counterpart although her character in the novel is hard to accept as she is too pure and good.

Sadie Frost did a brilliant job portraying Lucy as a spoilt brat who despite her wealth, status and good looks is still a good friend to Mina she is a young woman who is awakening to the world of sex and has been overwhelmed by the attention of three suitors, which does go to her head in a fashion. You sympathise for her ultimately dismal fate as Dracula's victim who must be destroyed by her own fiancee for the sake of her soul. Though a bold young woman who derives pleasure from toying with her suitors she is still an innocent who suffers a drawn out fate of rape, madness and ultimately death before returning briefly as a wild undead bride.

It was both ironic and creepy seeing Lucy in her bridal outfit as she brings a child to her crypt for supper, given the common mentioning of Dracula's brides, and it was also horrific to see her in a Snow White styled glass coffin, hammering home the imagery of both horror and beauty in the form of an undead bride. Her undead appearance reminded me of Mina's in the 1979 Dracula film starring Frank Langella where Mina and Lucy's characters are swapped, Mina as a vampire as a similar ghoulish appearance and white outfit to 1992's Lucy.

I read Sadie had to dye her hair because she looked too similar to Winona and that initially she did not even audition because of their similar looks but when they struggled to find a Lucy she was picked after her role in Diamond Skulls. Dying her hair to a glorious idea was a stroke of genius it made her stand out all the more and had Winona paling in her shadow. I think she exciting and memorable and it's only a pity it did not lead to more for Sadie Frost, I read an article quoting her book and she said she gave up fame for her family which is touching. She was certainly better than the dull confusing Winona and the woefully miscast Keanu.

I will say this for Keanu apart from the accent his stiff demeanour follows Jonathan's rather than being a wooden performance as he said himself he is noticeably drained in this movie but he gives an admirable enough performance as Jonathan Harker as a stereotypical Victorian English gentleman who is a bit of a drip but when you compare him to Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman he's out of his depth and clearly just not into his performance. The deeper emotions of Jonathan including his grief, horror and love for Mina are somewhat lost but like everything else some of this seems to be lost due to the romance between Mina and Dracula more than anything else.

Overall this film is a treat of imagery, the sets, scenery and costumes are wonderful, extravagent and memorable, particularly the large rooms of Lucy's home, the film even received an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, deservedly so. It's infamous for trying to avoid modern techniques for special effects striving to use old school trickery and it succeeds presenting creepy images of Dracula's eyes in the clouds, his half-bat and half-wolf forms, Lucy's vampiric appearance, the rats crawling on the ceiling upside down, the vampire brides appearing out of nowhere and so forth. It's probably better known for being a visual treat rather than a serious production of Dracula.

It has a good mixture of horror and humour but the romance was forced and ultimately silly, Dracula might be as handsome, charming and tragic in this film as in many others but he is still a monster who puts Mina's fiance and best friend through hell even leading to her friend's death and yet we are still to believe that this seemingly pure, innocent woman still somehow falls for him despite all this because they are destined to be together. It's ludicrous, it makes no sense and it cheapens the romance between Mina and Jonathan. Dracula does have a tragic appearance in the novel too but the movie just takes it too far and you really don't know how to feel about him.

It is one of my favourite Dracula and vampire films of all time and I enjoy watching it every time particularly because of the varied characters, beautiful scenery and wonderful cast. It is sufficiently gory with enough action and horror to satisfy most vampire fanatics.

Pulp Fiction

So I seem to have a review every movie I watch thing going on, but hey if you don't want to read them don't. I just like to add my own opinions and I like to read others' reviews and articles because some are quite interesting and add more. So it's Pulp Fiction this time, which I saw on t.v by chance at my sister's house, of course we'd all seen it before and I have it on dvd but it's still a good watch.

It's just a brilliant movie, it's clever, funny, shocking, poignant, different and wonderfully casted. The intertwining tales weave with one another brilliantly and you're hooked from start until finish. Despite the fact that none of the characters are of a particularly good nature you still like them anyway, my favourites are Mia Wallace and Captain Koons and I wish they had been in the movie more. Mia comes across as a clever woman with a sharp wit who does genuinely love her husband. She is weakened by her drug addiction to cocaine and her obvious disappointment at a failure to become a t.v star and I think she wants more from life, although after nearly overdosing on heroin by accident she's probably curbed that want for excitement.

Though violent it's dark overtones are lightened with humour and good dialogue and you can never take the movie too seriously, it's the stories of seemingly ordinary people with less than ordinary lives- two hit men, their boss, the boss' wife, a corrupt boxer and his girlfriend, two robbers and the people who come into their lives including a drug dealer, his wife and her friend, a soldier returned from Vietnam, a 'cleaner', sadists and a taxi driver. Their world is full of corruption, violence, murder and drugs with only a glimmer of redemption via one of the assassins, Jules, who believes he has been given a moment of clarity thanks to divine intervention and seeks to leave his life as a hitman whilst the other hitman, Vincent, seems his opposite dismissing the intervention as a coincidence, even listing examples to support this. Vincent is one of the characters to receive his comeuppance, as does his boss Marcellus in a way whilst Butch and Mia receive warnings for their bad behaviour.

Vincent and Jules have the most on screen time as we follow them as they do their boss' bidding, collecting his suitcase during which they narrowly escape being shot by a man in hiding, meeting with their boss during his talk with Butch, Vincent taking Mia on a dinner date, Vincent death, the accidental death of Marvin and the attempt to dispose of the evidence, and the climax of the movie in the restaurant where Jules has his moment of clarity and Pumpkin and Honeybunny attempt to rob them. They keep the movie flowing with their frequent appearances and their links to all the other characters, being the only two who interact with all the main people (as far as I've noticed). Despite their dark ways and questionable jobs you still enjoy their presence and almost root for Vincent and Mia and indeed almost mourn for Vincent despite him getting what he deserved, he had the same warning as Jules but took the more dangerous path alas given a cold but clear comparison.

I find it hard to believe Jules will ever be anything other than wicked, his moment of clarity seems to borderlining on a moment of insanity and his idea of turning to the right path is by rewarding robbers, ironic really.



Mia is prominent as the female lead, the image of her smoking on a bed in a low cut black dress with a gun and an open book of pulp fiction before her is iconic, she has more lines than any of the other women and much more on screen time. The closest to her is Butch's girlfriend Fabienne, followed by the taxi driver Esmarelda, Lance's wife Jody and her friend Trudi and of course Yolanda/Honey Bunny. She seems like a willing trophy wife in one respect who after failing to land it big in the t.v world thanks a show that never took off past the pilot may have married Marsellus for the money and status, although I think there is some genuine affection there. She comes across as a sociable woman who is smart, witty and a risk taker, she does not interfere in her husband's business and indeed takes a cool, aloof attitude to it as seen with regards to Tony Rocky Horror's alleged fate, her brief appearance when she opens the door to Vincent and Marsellus and seems disinterested in what's going on and her scene after Marsellus gets off the phone and she seems to ask no questions about the conversation.

Pulp Fiction was ground breaking for its day, a movie without a hero it did not need a direct happy ending or unquestionably good characters to make money or gain fans. It was gritty presenting us with more realistic characters and it added a dark edge to things keeping the film from being mudane. It's not perfect, no film is, but is brilliant and worthy of being ranked among the best. It stands the test of age being just as enjoyable now as it was then and just as funny and witty even though we all know the lines by now.

Greek Myth

Double post this evening, linking to what else I did with my day, completed God of War II. Now I've completed all three, never played the in between games because I don't have a PSP and I'm not that interested. It was funny when I bought the PS3 remakes of the two games because they're so clearly aimed at guys and the guy at the counter evidently thought so too because I got the look I always get when I'm in a game store- this girl does not belong she must be one serious geek- and so I am. I'll be honest I'm not a major gamer and I don't own that many games, my PS3 is there to act not just as a game platform but as a hi-def dvd player to replace the non hi-def one that broke many moons ago. The games I love are Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Pokemon, God of War, Dragon Age and Assassin's Creed.

God of War intrigued me because of the Greek mythology setting, eventually I had to give it a go so I bought a used copy of the first one on a whim for my PS2, I liked it but I did not complete it. Saw the trailer for God of War III and I had to have it, so I got it next and completed it, it's the easiest of the three and for me the shortest too but it has the best graphics, the scenery and cut scenes are fantastic.

The series presents a bloody, dark and violent setting of Ancient Greeks with gods and goddesses that are petty, cold, cruel and, as we later learn, corrupted by Pandora's Box. In the case of Zeus and Ares they do not hesitate to destroy cities, crushing innocent people because, in Ares case he's so pent on destruction and in Zeus, because he's so afraid the cycle of son killing father will be repeated.

I love Mythology, Greek is my favourite in particular and I feel it's the most popular and therefore my love of it is better satisfied than my love for Norse and Egyptian mythology. I feel it's so popularised because when the Romans conquered Greece they saw a lot of similarities with their own mythologies and adapted them melding Greek gods with their own and with the spread of Roman domination so too the mythology spread. Also the Greeks were vivid story tellers and had numerous famous poets and writers who wrote down these popular myths that were preserved to our days, whereas the Egyptians and Norse, whilst having some written tales, weren't into the stories and poetry as much.

Also Egyptian mythology was so complicated and ever changing with the pharaohs and the division between Egypt that it's very hard to study and sort out, sure there's the basics but you will find so much is disagreed on and changed.

The Greek stories are so widely known that even people who are not deeply interested will know some- the Trojan War, Jason and the Argonauts, Odysseus' lengthy journey home, Perseus slaying Medusa, Theseus and the Minotaur- amongst others these stories have been worked into movies, novels, games and t.v series. Also, Greek myths are believed to have a lot of genuine history to them, Troy was a real city and there was indeed believed to have been a Trojan War and as for the heroes they too may have existed though of course it's highly doubtful that Medusa, Pegasus and the Minotaur did.

I personally am studying it as much as I can both out of love and as research for a novel I'm writing, which I hope will be as faithful to the myths as I can manage. of course that's tricky because whilst there is a basic template for all the tales the authors do differ on numerous things as well, so it's all up to the favoured interpretation plus, following the ways of Xena and Hercules I want to have my own creative license with my work as well, so there will be some intentional inaccuracies for it to work. Xena and Hercules managed to have all notable events, heroes and characters within their shows even though they did not all exist during the same time period and they emblished with certain things but that's what made the shows great. After all, you want to see these heroes that you know in them, it's great going 'oh that's Bellerophon or there's Troy and that's Autolycus' and it would have been disappointing to see people left out because they didn't exist back then and so forth. Sometimes accuracy can just make things boring, whilst documentaries and text books can be highly interesting they're not what you're looking for when it comes to fiction, that's why it is fiction.



Of course being me I will, despite this belief, still hiss in a hypocritical manner when for example the virgin goddess Artemis is given a son or when Perseus goes with Io instead of Andromeda (I notice Io isn't listed as being in the planned sequel Wrath of the Titans so I wonder if they're fixing that error) and yet I wasn't bothered with Perseus riding Pegasus even though he never did. I and others can grumble all we like but people are free to do what they want with fiction, if they would like Artemis or indeed Athena or some other virgin goddess to marry and have kids because they want their child in the story then why not? It could make for a fantastic best seller for all we know. Creativity is at its best when it is not restrained that said if you are trying to place something in a historical time or you're putting popular myths or fairytales in there you should have some accuracy if only so the familiarities that inspired you are obvious.

So when it comes to Greek mythology in true fashion I favour the lesser known and indeed less popular deities- Hades, Hypnos and Thanatos- though I love Artemis and Hermes too. Hades is popularly and incorrectly misrepresented as a villain for example in Disney's Hercules, The Clash of the Titans remake, the Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief movie (in the book he is not a villain) and the God of War games (but they do this for a reason).

In Greek mythology he was not really a villain, he was the god of the Underworld, brother to Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter and Hestia he was not viewed as one of the Twelve Olympians and he was rarely at events kept busy in the Underworld. He was not disliked by the gods or indeed mortals, though he was rarely worshipped either as his affairs were with the dead not the living. He is portrayed as having kidnapped Persephone as his wife (which Zeus her father consented to) but given Poseidon and Zeus were fond of abductions and rapes it does not make him any more villainous than them and he actually seems to be viewed as the most faithful husband as the three though two affairs are sometimes noted with nymphs (Menthe or Minthe being one). He shared power with Persephone, making joint decisions with her and even letting her sway his showing that he did respect her on some level and as the god of the Underworld he was the lord of the Elysium Fields, a beautiful land for those who had lived good lives, which means really he can't have been all that bad.

Whilst I do love Hades in Disney's Hercules (James Woods is amazing) I'm more fond of Hades in Xena and Hercules, particularly when portrayed by Erik Thomson who showed a neutral god who was overworked and understaffed, an episode of Hercules always showed his tender relationship with Persephone, showing that she did love him.

Hypnos and Thanatos have had no real prominence in the myths or in culture save for a few brief stories including Hypnos putting Zeus to sleep at the behest of Hera in exchange for her aid with him gaining Pasithea as a wife and with his brother Thanatos he carries Sarpedon's body from the battlefield. It is also thought that Thanatos and Hercules fought over the life of Alcestis and that Sisyphus tricked Thanatos and chained him to avoid death until Ares came to set him free. Thanatos had a role as the leading villain in the game God of War: Ghost of Sparta and both had some prominence in Saint Seiya as the loyal servants of Hades. In Xena Thanatos' role was replaced by the fictional character Celeste sister of Hades.

Vampires Now and Then

Vampires, say the word and numerous images are conjured ranging from the mostly forgotten nosferatu to the stylish Draculas and the unvampire like sparkling Edwards. Mixed in there are ideas of eternal youth, night time teenaged rebellions, angst, unending misery, gory bloodthirst and of course preying on virgins. Vampires have come a long way over the years starting off as bloated purple corpses that leaked with blood, tales of the vampire have ranged over the years and countries. No one can really pinpoint where the myths started there's Lilith of Biblical fame (supposedly Adam's first wife who then became the fallen angel Samael's consort and mother of his demonic offspring), the Greeks had lamia, a lover of Zeus' driven into killing her own offspring by Hera, she then sought out others' children. The stories are endless and too many for me to recount here.


Dracula is the most infamous of these vampires, created by Bram Stoker, very loosely based on his namesake Vlad Dracul, also known as the Impaler. Dracula has depicted by numerous actors over the decades, firstly by Bela Lugosi in 1931, in 1958 Christopher Lee infamously took on the role for the Hammer production Dracula, it was the first of 7 Hammer films to feature him in the role. In 1970 Christopher Lee redid the role in Count Dracula, this movie was an attempt to follow the novel more closely and was the first film to show Dracula getting younger as he feeds. In 1976 he also portrayed Dracula in the French comedy movie Dracula and Son.

In 1977 the BBC did a version that tried to follow the book with Louis Jourdan (of Octopussy fame) in the titular role Count Dracula. 1979 saw three releases including Frank Langella's wonderful sexually charged performance and a remake of Nosferatu where Klaus Kinski portrayed Count Dracula (known as Count Orlok in the original due to a failed attempt to avoid copyright issues).

Going right through the years we've also had Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 big budget Bram Stoker's Dracula, the best attempt to follow the book to date with Gary Oldman taking on the role. It added in the sub plot of Mina being the reincarnation of Dracula's wife, which was not in the novel and perhaps is one of the more famous movies to try and portray Dracula in a sympathetic light. It also made it clear that Count Dracula was Vlad Tepes something also not in the book.

In my opinion as the years have rolled on the movies have worsened, not just the Dracula movies but vampire movies in general. They have lost their ability to cause fear becoming something for teenaged girls to fawn over instead. Of course they weren't always the seductive, cold and magnetic Draculas I grew up with either, as mentioned they started out as bloated corpses no teenaged girl would be silly enough to drool over. So like many I don't prefer the original vampires, rather I feel the likes of Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi and Frank Langella's Draculas to be the best and Christopher Walken, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise, Stephen Dorff and Salma Hayek's vampire portrayals to be among the best.

Every fan of vampires has a different idea of what they should be and when it comes to rating books or movies people often lean different ways for example one list I saw mentioned Underworld in its top 5 whilst another rated it as one of the worst but both concluded the original Nosferatu was the best. I personally like the idea of a deceptively human looking creature that is a charmer but a predator, the sympathetic nature that became attached to Dracula in the later films is not without merit but the idea of a good vampire seeking redemption ala Angel and Edward does not cut it for me, not in the leading role. Vampires may have started out as human but they are essentially monsters who take blood and life so that they may continue with their undead existence and in some cases increase their powers. If you met one would you really want to be one? Is it just a goth's wet dream as some stereotype? A ridiculous notion in my opinion since not all humans are goths so why would all vampires be? It's unlikely they would be so picky as to only sire goths. Of course I'm digressing here and it's inconsequential since every novel and movie will do their own varied interpretations after all vampires are not real so there is no single format to follow.

Even in myth they vary from blood drinkers to child snatchers, some are spirits possessing dead bodies, some are more like zombies, some are only women. Dracula himself had no aversion to sunlight in the book, and he was not slain by a stake but rather a bowie knife to the heart. The later movies added the death by sunlight and stakes. However, the novel certainly introduced the elements of garlic, familars and animal forms.

One of the first vampires to start the trend of a monster disguised as a charming gentleman was Lord Ruthven, the character of John William Polidori's short story The Vampyre, published in 1819, though its creation began in 1816. Originally wrongly credited to Lord Byron, Polidori was inspired by part of a story Byron had written on the infamous night when Byron suggested to his companions that they write horror stories and Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein. Lord Ruthven was first a name for a character in Lady Caroline Lamb's novel Glenarvon, as a parody of her ex-lover Lord Byron. With this connection The Vampyre became popular and the idea of vampires as suave aristocrats became the blueprint for further vampire fiction, including 1897's Dracula.

Kill Bill

With news that the special release promised us long ago with the two movies reconciled into one might actually be on the horizon as Kill Bill- The Whole Bloody Affair my interest has been renewed. Kill Bill Volume 2 was on tv a few weeks ago and I decided to watch it having only seen it once before and last night I rewatched Volume 1, my favourite movie of all time.

Not only are the two very different movies but you don't even need to have seen one to follow two, not really as the plot turns from revenge to a reuniting between a rather twisted family. 2 is good but whilst it has all the plot and deep dialogue it lacks the bloody action and memorable characters that 1 delivered (not that Budd, Elle and Pai Mei are without their charm or Bill for that matter). 1 is a gritty revenge movie narrated coolly by the wronged heroine The Bride whose name is kept a mystery, it opens first with an action filled fight in a living room between Pasadena homemaker Jeanne Bell who is not the simple housewife and mother she appears to be. After the messy fight is interrupted by the return of Nikki Bell from school The Bride treats us to information that reveals why she is attacking this housewife and links up to the opening scene of The Bride being shot. Jeanne Bell was once Vernita Green codename Copperhead one of 6 members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who wronged The Bride.

Most people know the plot of the two movies by now and if you don't wikipedia it. As it is Volume 1 is a treat of chaotic sword fighting with implausible psychotic characters, an excellent anime interlude and action that mostly takes place in Japan. it follows The Bride as she wakes from the hospital without her baby and missing four years of her life and takes her on the start of her revenge journey first to O-Ren Ishii aka Cottonmouth the easiest member to find as she is now leader of the Yakuza clans.



O-Ren Ishii is my favourite character from the movie because we learn the most about her and her past is told in epic anime form courtesy of Production I.G (Blood: The Last Vampire, Blood+, Ghost in the Shell). She is a ruthless character hardened by a brutal childhood in which she witnessed the murder of her father and mother at the hands of Boss Matsumoto and his minions and then took her revenge at 11, when she was able to get close to Boss Matsumoto thanks to him being a paedophile. Naturally this violent upbringing led to her being one of the top assassins by age 20 and no doubt soon after she found her way to Bill.

There is several implications that O-Ren and Beatrix were once close friends, one being that Beatrix knows her colourful childhood history, another being the way they converse particularly with the 'Trix are for kids' line, which seems to be a thing they have then O-Ren's request for forgiveness for insulting Beatrix by making her fight all her minions and the sad expression on Beatrix's face. Of course if they did have such a close friendship why did O-Ren betray her? Despite her apology for insulting Beatrix she offers none for her past actions and shows no guilt unlike Vernita. Either she betrayed Beatrix because she felt Beatrix had betrayed herself and the others (certainly Bill felt this way), she was obeying Bill's orders because her loyalty was to him before Beatrix (he financed her uprise in Japan) or she simply did not care.

O-Ren comes across as a complicated ruthless woman on the one hand you have to feel somewhat empathetic to her cold, bloody nature given her horrific childhood but on the other hand despite such a past she's still an adult responsible for her choices including her role in the Two Pines Massacre. Her gang the Crazy 88 are cocky and immature, bossy around the management of the House of Blue Leaves, and show themselves to be immature and inexperienced given that despite their numbers none of them can best Beatrix or even show a real threat to her, not even their leader Johnny Mo. It shows that whilst O-Ren can govern numbers and discipline them to an extent (even after the first few die by Beatrix's blade the others still willing go to face their death on behalf of O-Ren) she is no good at teaching them manners or making sure that their skills are up to scratch. They are deliquents rather than swordmasters. Even their masks seem a childish show of playing the bad guys rather than a sign of mystery and threat.



O-Ren chooses Gogo Yubari as her personal bodyguard, a seventeen-year-old psychotic schoolgirl who participates in underage driving and drinking and wanton murder. She infamously wields the manriki or chain mace in a brilliant fight scene with Beatrix in which she comes out the loser thanks to an unfairly placed piece of wood with nails in it. Choosing a schoolgirl as your bodyguard seems a tad crazy but given Gogo's ruthless skills with both a tanto and her chain mace you can see why O-Ren trusts her. That and maybe she sees something of herself in her being a murderous schoolgirl once herself. Gogo is my second favourite character and it was good to learn a little more about her from the Kill Bill script, in the original script she had less dialogue and an older sister called Yuki and she was to die fleeing from Beatrix and having a chunk of her leg removed before being killed. Naturally I'm glad Gogo got to say the few words that she did and died a braver death. Yuki would have been nice to see, she was meant to be played by Kou Shibasaki of Battle Royale fame but Kou had to turn the part down.

It would be nice to learn more of Gogo's background and maybe with the rumoured prequels and sequels we might and maybe Yuki will get appearance after all. It would be great to learn more about the other Vipers as well, especially poor Vernita whose role is minimal at best and it would be great to see them altogether before Beatrix left them and they put her in a coma.

Taking a U-turn back to O-Ren Ishii it was pretty great to see her playing tribute to Lady Snowblood, wearing a white kimono and having her finale fight with Beatrix in the snow. Lady Snowblood inspired Kill Bill in that a woman is wronged and sets on a path of revenge chasing up a list of people. Whilst in Kill Bill it is the wronged woman herself going after revenge in Lady Snowblood it is the woman's daughter Yuki who takes up the sword to avenge her family. Kill Bill parallels some scenes from Lady Snowblood including the group shot of the villains, the geysers of blood and the leading sword wielding lady in white (Yuki and O-Ren), the surviving daughter of a slain villain and the ending song. There are more no doubt as one essay sums up along with general points about Kill Bill itself Kill Bill Essay.



Kill Bill like Quentin Tarantino's other movies is essentially a tribute movie, which helped introduce me to Lady Snowblood as one of the movies that inspired it. Kill Bill Volume 1 is a revenge movie with a simple straightforward plot mildly confused by being shown out of order, The Bride is a woman attacked on her wedding day, she is the sole survivor believing the other nine, including her unborn daughter, to be murdered and after waking up from a coma she is shown as a remorseless woman without forgiveness or compassion set on revenge. So she draws up a list- O-Ren Ishii, Vernita Green, Budd, Elle Driver, Bill and works her way through it first with O-Ren then Vernita.

Kill Bill Volume 2 complicates this with the twist that her daughter is alive, not that she knows this and when Elle deprives her of her revenge on Budd she leaves her blind but not dead, thus seemingly abandoning a certainty of revenge. Presumably Beatrix, as she has now been named, assumes Elle will die from the trauma or she thinks being blind is enough of a punishment and revenge for Elle murdering her master Pai Mei. Kill Bill Vol 2 offers more backstory on Beatrix, showing her training with Pai Mei, her close relationship with Bill, finding out she was pregnant and the infamous wedding party, which was actually a wedding rehearsal. We now realise that Bill's arrival to the wedding do was not the surprise we thought, yes it was a surprise but there was dialogue before the massacre, Beatrix knew he was there and talked to him, trusting that he had come in friendship. This shows us that Beatrix loved Bill enough not to see through this facade, and made the mistake of thinking he loved her enough not to kill her.

The conclusion is poignant and sad for all his evil deeds you almost want Bill to live and have a family with Beatrix and B.B and the idea is presented when Beatrix finds B.B with Bill and he is unsurprised to see her and unafraid as he thinks B.B will fix everything. For a while Beatrix stays with her daughter and the revenge is prolonged but the movie is called Kill Bill and he is the last to go so it is only right to complete the film in that manner.

Thus we have Kill Bill summed up as movie of revenge, revelations and broken hearts as Beatrix turns from wronged bride to deceived mother who goes from wanting to destroy everyone who wronged her to seeking a life with her daughter. A life which Kill Bill 3 will presumably ruin when Vernita's wronged daughter Nikki comes looking for her own revenge.

Red Riding Hood- Mainstream and Cult

So the past couple of posts haven't been about Little Red Riding Hood or Alice in Wonderland, although my blog is a general blog and I just use it to rant and review really so that's not so bad, but I thought I would go back to at least one of my two favourite topics for this post.

I've just finished reading Catherine Orenstein's Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked and in my fashion offered up a review. It is a good read for any Red Riding Hood fan though it can digress and grasp at straws looking for links that just don't exist, overanalysing things and going into too much depth with certain topics and not enough with others. It's a hard topic to write about with so many interpretations and so many adaptations to cover including movies, books, short stories, poems, adverts, cartoons and the vague referencing that others might ignore and Catherine Orenstein has certainly done a good job of working with the material.

Sadly whilst I was expecting lots about Angela Carter's short stories and Tanith Lee's Wolfland there were only a couple of mentionings of either and a little about the movie Angela Carter's works inspired- The Company of Wolves. As a major fan I was naturally expecting pages of ranting about these, discussions about interpretations, inspirations and so forth but I guess there was little to go on with the short stories and she felt she covered the main topics the movie offers. One interesting note in there was that Angela Carter disliked the ending of The Company of Wolves and preferred the ending of her same named short story where Red sleeps soundly between the paws of the wolf.

Sadder still is that obviously there is no mentionings of the recent surge of Red Riding Hood fiction as this novel was published in 2003, 8 years ago and therefore before the likes of Sisters Red, Low Red Moon and Amanda Seyfried's latest movie or indeed the nod to it in Trick R Treat via Anna Paquin's character. With this sudden surge of popularity for fairytales it would be good to see another up-to-date novel published, of course as I've said I imagined analysing such a topic is indeed difficult given the numerous times Red Riding Hood has cropped up in the world.



Speaking of Company of Wolves I really feel this film offers such a lot of wonderful imagery, pity it's so hard to find pictures of it. I often wonder would it have been better with a bigger budget and today's technology but honestly I feel Amanda Seyfried's Red Riding Hood movie proves that this simply would not be the case. Company of Wolves is amazing because it is a cult movie and it was never set out to be a big Hollywood blockbuster and therefore was not restrained by trying to fit into the norm, it could as dark and weird and twisted as it wanted without risking alienation of a mainstream audience and it did whilst Amanda's movie was very much held back probably by fears of narrowing the audience with too much violence or sexuality. Thus it became a very tame movie that was centred around whodunnit or rather who is it whilst with Company of Wolves you often know who the wolves are, the mystery of the film is whether Rosaleen will fall victim to them or not and will she be a willing victim.

It's a movie about growing up and discovering yourself and the dangers of the adult world, it's a struggle between letting go of your youth whilst maintaining your innocence. It's gothic, fantastical and mesmerising, really it's my favourite kind of movie, the rare kind that aren't so black and white but offer us more to think about it with numerous metaphors.

Whilst the latest Red Riding Hood movie is good enough there's no depth to it to compared to Company of Wolves, it's straightforward, a village is plagued by a werewolf with a strange interest in the central heroine Valerie who already has the problem of being caught between two men- Henry, her would be fiance who her mother approves of, and Peter, her secret lover, a woodsman who her mother feels is too poor to give her a future. So we follow Valerie whilst trying to figure out who the werewolf is as the body count grows and the added threat of Gary Oldman's Father Solomon comes to shake things up, and we watch as Valerie tries to pick who she wants to be with. It's fun but predictable (although I didn't know who the werewolf was until the end really) and it does offer up some of the original fairytale with the visit to grandmother's house, the quoting of the 'big eyes' etc and of course the trademark red hooded cloak.

It could have been up there with Company of Wolves, Snow White: A Tale of Terror or Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (it was similar to it in some ways) but it just did not go the distance and really fell short and even the mainstream audience it was tamely aimed at do not seem to have enjoyed it much (obviously some people did, but overall it's been given poor ratings).

Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is a great example of how you can do the gothic weirdness, the gore and horror and come up with a pretty successful movie. Tim Burton is never afraid to go out there with the weirdness and generally it works out for him (he's my favourite director naturally) so I don't really think Red Riding Hood really had to shy away from that.

Bright Lights Film Journal :: The Company of Wolves- a really great review and summary of Company of Wolves

The Less Popular Animation

I recently bought Dreamworks' The Road to El Dorado on dvd because it was cheap and I remember liking it when it was young and naturally I rewatched it quickly after and it's brilliant. Really the duo of Miguel and Tulio are fantastic and wonderfully voiced by Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline who apparently defied the norm by doing the voicework together instead of seperately. It's funny, the music is good (mostly Elton John numbers apart from one song by the leads who are actually pretty good and deserved more songs) and the plot is decent. The villain Cortés isn't seen much, there is a substitute villain if you like in the form of priest Tzekel-Kan voiced by the highly underrated Armand Assante.

It's a great buddy movie that apparently was the victim of scripting problems and the fact that Dreamworks had thrown its creative efforts into its first animation- The Prince of Egypt. According to one blog they couldn't decide whether to aim the movie at adults or make it a complete kiddy movie, personally I find the kids movies that have stuff for the adults are the best because when you grow up you can appreciate what you were naive to as a kid.

The Road to El Dorado is predictable but most kids' movies are let's be honest, particularly the Disney ones which are mostly based on fairy tales that were well known even when they came out. It's still a funny movie with loveable, adorable characters, admittedly I don't think there's much to female lead Chel, she just seems to be there for the sake of having a female, given the way she was drawn it's obvious at least one of the guys is going to go with her but there just seems to be no real purpose to her. I did like Rosie Prez's voice work however.

I've learned that sequels and spinoffs were planned but they never saw fruitation because this movie did not do well enough, which is a disappointment in a way because a cartoon series would have been great but in another way sequels are so rarely good maybe it's for the best.



Next is The Swan Princess, a 1994 animated film based on Swan Lake. It's a light hearted film with great voice talent, memorable songs and great one liners, particularly from the French frog who thinks he's really a prince, Jean-Bob. This movie did spawn two sequels, both of which aren't that good or memorable but they are watchable. The original is brilliant, Rothbart is a sufficently scary villain and Odette must be the first princess ever to be annoyed that her prince (Derek) can only say he likes her beauty and nothing else. Of course Odette quickly forgets Derek's shallow behaviour when she becomes Rothbart's captive swan.

The sidekicks of Speed the turtle, Jean-Bob the frog and Puffin the er Puffin really do add to this movie, they along with Derek's friend Bromley make for great comic relief and Derek and Odette do get some personality development, it's particularly wonderful seeing them forced together as children by their pushy parents and loathing each other.



The Pagemaster, a little live action with a lot of animation starring Macaulay Culkin and Christopher Lloyd with the voice talents of Patrick Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Frank Welker, Leonard Nimoy and Jim Cummings. I guess I love this because it's about books and has a dragon (two of my favourite things) and it references so many of my favourite novels (Alice in Wonderland, Moby Dick, Sherlock Holmes, to name a few) and I wanted my own Horror.

It follows a young boy called Richard who is afraid of everything until one stormy night when he is forced to take shelter in a library where he meets Mr. Dewey who gives him a library card. When he goes to use the phone however, Richard slips on water and is knocked out, when he comes to the painting above him is melting and turns him in an illustration. Over the course of the movie he is joined by the books Adventure, Fantasy and Horror who try to aid him on his adventure, ultimately trying to find the Exit to the library.

It's a cute movie, a little dated by today's standards, the few songs are forgettable but it's still a good movie making a creative use of books, it could have done more and been more, there are flaws but it still deserves a lot more love than it gets.

Not As We Know Them

Fairytale characters are often associated these days with a certain look mostly thanks to the infamous Disney portrayals for example Alice has the blonde hair and blue dress with the white apron, much like Dorothy who also has the additional ruby slippers. Even when getting a Halloween costume you will find that most of them are Disney oriented even if they don't explicitly say so, Snow White for example is usually labelled as Snow Princess Costume. Most likely they is because there are few other infamous portrayals of these fairytale characters, especially the princesses, so the Disney costumes are the ones we know best.


Alice was based on Alice Liddell a girl with dark hair and a fringe but is infamous now for the blonde hair and blue dress. In the very first coloured version, illustrations by John Tenniel of Alice, in The Nursery "Alice" this infamous dress was in fact yellow. However, his early illustrations did show her with that now memorable blue dress.



Then there is Little Red Riding Hood, the name says it all really, it's her outfit and her name, and yet the first telling The Grandmother's Tale does not mention any kind of costume, she's an ill fated girl on her way to visit grandma whose lovely visit turns dark thanks to a wolf (it's a more gory version of the popular one). It was Charles Perrault who gave her, her infamous name and costume- le petit chaperon rouge, chaperon being a type of hood. The Brothers Grimm later well known tale that introduced the happy ever after ending with the woodsman was actually called Little Red Cap and mentioned how her grandmother made her a red cap not a hood.

Are the costumes so important? Certainly I would think so, it's part of the way we identify a character and remember them and certainly for the likes of costume parties and Halloween if you want to go as a fairytale character it helps if they have one particular easy to identify costume rather than several, which would make you anyone's guess. Naturally this is where Disney as helped, as previously mentioned, if you want to dress up as Snow White chances are your costume will be some variant of the Disney one, the story mentioned her physical appearance rather than any particular costume.

These days people who don a brown wig and a dark blue dress for Alice are usually portraying the McGee version but before that intentional brown hair in a mimic of the original Alice Liddell would probably not have been recognised, nor would the yellow dress she was first coloured in. Equally, Red Riding Hood costumes with all their variants always have some form of a hooded cloak, if you went for the red cap instead chances are people might not get it.

Obviously there are other additions which would help your costume make sense but the main outfit does seem key. As stated it's how we identify these popular characters.