Big Harry in Gigantic China: Day 2 on the set of KILL BILL!!!

Sunday here in China was a very interesting day for me… I’ll put it in short for you, simply because it isn’t the meat that you came to chew, you want the KILL BILL double scoop with all the extras, well this is that sprig of parsley that you’ll just have to remove from your plate or appreciate as a nice palate cleanser… you being the deciding factor in the matter.

Friday night I had met a really wonderful girl from Mongolia and we hit it off like a pair of Tweedle Dees, and that was just way ok by me, because she offered to show me all around Beijing on my day off… which was Sunday.

Now Sunday wasn’t really a day of rest, because I had to file that last report for you good folks around the world that were brandishing the fine silver waiting to chow down on Chef Harry’s meal for the day. After about 4 hours of typing and recollecting, I called Sophia Khan (My name for her) and we set out on the town… Specifically we were headed to the set of THE LAST EMPEROR. For some reason they call it THE FORBIDDEN CITY here… Silly people, why they don’t just call it the ‘set for THE LAST EMPEROR’ I’ll never know, but what a set. I mean, you’d swear it had been around forever. Just beautiful, though I could really of gone without seeing a STARBUCKS in it… that was the sure give away that it was a set, because no real historically significant building would have a fucking Starbucks in it… would it? See, there’s my proof… Damn Hollywood’s Corporate tie-ins!

After that, she took me all over the more ‘common’ areas of Beijing. As we walked around, I began to experience something I had never really felt before… What it is to be a major minority. I mean, here I was walking alongside the beautiful Sophia Khan… and I could see eyes staring at me… And as my eyes peered back, I realized I was WALDO, I was the piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit. The round piece in a square hole. I saw millions of folks that day, I was the only white fat redhead in town. Didn’t spot another. Folks came up wanting to take a picture with me, I was indeed Lionel or Randion or Johnny Eck of the Orient. The feeling was more over-whelming than anything else. Must’ve taken 80 or so snapshots with folks that day, very interesting.

When we finished our walking and riding tour, we returned to the hotel where I offered to pay the exorbitant $25 dollars for a full body massage for the two of us. Now, I’d never received a ‘professional’ massage in my life. I’ve had the nice tender shoulder rubs that one gets from someone that loves you, but never the pressure point scalp to the soles of your feet to the palms of your hands to the inner ear type of massage before. So I was all for this extravagance, especially at such an insanely low low price of $25. Now, I call down to the spa, to get the details and they ask if we want the massage in the room or down in the spa, I figure the room would just be dandy, so I say the room.

About 5 minutes later this beautiful Chinese lady arrives at my room and points to me and Sofia and wonders who first (at least that was my bet from the look on her face) I look at Sofia and she says for me to go first, as I was majorly sore from those infernal steps of Pai Mei the day before. The masseuse wants me to disrobe, so I drop down to the ol boxers and lay face down on the bed. Next thing I know, she’s pulling my boxers off and I’m like… WHAT THE HELL? She smiles then grabs a note pad and writes the initial price of the massage down, and I nod my head in agreement. Then she writes down the equivalent to $75 dollars and writes TIP. I point at TIP and give the, "What for?" look of confusion. She stares at the stupid American and hits the palm of her hand against her head and smiles. Then she looks at me, sits on the bed, puts my hand on her breast, points at my penis and opens her mouth in the universal "O" shape and does her hand in the international JACKOFF sign. Now I may be dense, but I got the distinct impression that the tip was for sexual favors, and while she was stunningly gorgeous and the price was insanely reasonable… I just needed the massage. Besides, getting a jack and blow before a special lady friend just seemed out of line. So I point at the first agreed upon figure and make the – "This is what I wanted face." She looked quite surprised… and picked up the phone and said a whole lotta words I didn’t understand. About 4 minutes of her playing with my redhair later and being amazed by it, this new girl arrives. I had since reacquired my boxers, and she begins the greatest massage known to mankind.

Frankly given my fragile state, that massage was exactly what I needed. My precious bodily fluids did not need to be removed… I learned this from Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper a long time ago.

Now, let’s see… after the massages – all was better in the world and the night passed into day and I was ready for my next day out in the world of China. On this day, I would be going to the Beijing Backlot where KILL BILL was shooting.

This day I decided to take my laptop with me so I could write live from the set… So everything you are about to read was written as it was happening and in front of me. So, with out further ado, here ya go…

I’m on the set of a Beijing Backlot used for RAISE THE RED LANTERN, THE TAI CHI MASTER and many more… the sets are… frankly extraordinary. The sets look like those from IRON MONKEY and all the classic cool old Chinese sets of old… Carvings, filigree, and style everywhere you turn to look… There are bundles of dried sticks and bamboo… fruits, vegetables… and at every turn you expect the 3 storms to just start kicking ass.

As I round one corner in particular I see Quentin and his crew setting up a shot with David Carradine, Uma Thurman and some Chinese Extras. Now, I know that Michael Jai White is supposed to be around here somewhere, but I don’t see him yet.

This is a scene that I can’t remember being in the script. Uma is wearing the same blouse that she was wearing when Bill dropped her off at Pai Mei’s… Very cute, very soft, not the hardened killer look yet. She’s got 80’s era levis, where the stitching is all readily apparent ya know, yellow flip flops, a Oaxacan wove belt, a soft suede purse with yellow, red and green beads hanging from the fringe. The blouse is white with blue embroidery, if you remember I had described it before as looking very Vera Cruz in style… Today I especially want to stress that, because that is what it looked like.

Bill Is wearing an off white, almost tan loose woven Asian style shirt, black pants and some sort of… I think Adidas style shooes, black and grey. … oh wait, he’s changing shirts… ahhhh… much better, same color, definitely cooler…. This shirt has the traditional black ties where the buttons are supposed to go…. He has his Hanzo sword… it is awesome looking… David just came over to talk about the miracles of APPLE technology…. Then let me handle his Hanzo blade. On the black sheath is the image of a DEVIL head. Built into the sheath is a removable throwing knife. The sword he currently has is a real one. I must see if I can make off with it. I must own a Hanzo blade.

Ah, here comes Michael Jai White and he is wearing a loose cotton almost hospital gurney’s outfit. His blue outfit is universal… tops and bottoms… he has a CD player on a ‘tune Belt – black….with yellow and gray …. His head is shaved, and has an… evil goatee…. Michael’s sword is one of those wavy blades… a bigger more imposing Chinese blade… doomed before Hanzo steel, I know. As Michael walks by me he does one of those… double takes. Stares at me, "Harry right?" – "Yeah, Knowles… Hey man I really want to thank you for what you wrote about me in THICK OF THEIVES, that was very generous of you" Now, Michael is huge… I mean the man has that perfect superhero physique. I mean, all those muscles where there are not supposed to be any… And I know they aren’t supposed to be there because I don’t have them, and Moriarty doesn’t have em and Quint doesn’t have them. So that means that Michael is some sort of ungodly superfreak. I’ll just keep telling myself that. Mmmm, craft services offers smoothie… mmmmmm…. After a bit, they begin to put Michael in his actual costume for Michael’s character it is a silk kung fu Burgundy outfit with the white fold back cuffs, the black Nikes.

Behind Michael are four of his back ups. They are traditional Chinese ‘redshirts’ only wearing that traditional all black Chinese kung fu garb. Right now there is one of them with a blade stuck in the center of his forehead, for some odd reason, I don’t think he’s about to survive his attack on Bill.

This whole sequence was created by Quentin yesterday… He wrote it in his spiral notebook in Orange Felt Tip. I managed to make off with a Xerox copy of the page, because… well I found it in the dirt and possession is 9 tenths of the law.. wait that is ok back home… oh man, I’m gonna end up painting Uncle George’s action figures all assembly line fashion for sure now.

As the scene begins, a man on a bicycle rides by.. there’s a man behind Bill pushing an enormous cart with grain bags piled on it. Bill and THE BRIDE are laughing when suddenly they see Michael and his goons

BILL
Gentlemen, Can I Help you

Da Moe laughs, then spits out

Do Moe.
Bastard… all you can do for me is DIE.
You killed my master Da Moe…
and now I’m going to kill you too.

Bill you see, I’m with a lady friend..
Can’t we do this another time

Do Moe Nice Try, but today… is
the day you die.

Bill Kiddo, if you don’t mind …
this will only take a minute.

Bill hits this pose like, he couldn’t care less… it is the antithesis of an action pose… blade relaxed upon his shoulder Bill then gestures for the future dead people to attack.

Do Moe
You Arrogant Bastard, Get HIM!

Michael sends the first poor soul into battle… He’s going to be leaping and swirling his sword around like he’s some sort of talented badass, but due to the KNB appliance of an embedded blade in his forehead all BATTLE ROYALE style… he’s been rehearsing his blade movements and his death move… He’s very happy with himself, but serious at the same time. He’s got this great, "I’m fucked" face. Very expressive fellow.
Now, if you're curious where this fits... the Bill moment in the film where he does the whole L.F. O'Boyle gambling house bit... Quentin decided he didn't need that. Instead, as the chapter titled: THE BLOOD SPLATTERED BRIDE opens up, we'll find Uma on the road in her car on the way to Kill Bill... She has a narration over a good deal of this sequence which I was not privvy to. This narration apparently has the phrasing somewhere in it, "The first time I saw Bill Kill was..."

As they rehearse the shoot for the knife throw, behind the camera, Quentin is running at David with the blade acting like a madman to get David to crack a smile of bemusement at the ineptitude of the foes he faces. This is absolutely classic. I notice there is nobody DV-ing this moment. This is sad. Somebody should be archiving this. These are the moments we geeks die for.
Right now they are shooting THE BRIDE’s close up of her watching Bill beginning to kick ass…. Meanwhile off camera, David and Victim number one just practice killing and being killed. David says he and his doomed opponent are purely responsible for anything that is being elicited from Uma Thurman’s BRIDE here. In fact David says, "Of course it was great, it’s the brilliance of our off camera efforts paying off!" Fun guy.
Ok, back to master shots… The First guy is down…. After that, David stabs the hilt of his sword into the earth…. Then three bastards attack him with swords drawn. With one hand still in his side pocket, he suddenly unleashes his Hanzo sword, and in the first motion slashes the nearest victim/would be challenger from hip to shoulder… then on the return motion disposes of the other two. Leaving the street awash with blood bodies and his final opponent… Michael Jai White standing before him….
That was the first take, on subsequent takes Quentin works with Yuen Wo Ping’s General known to me only as Dee Dee. Quentin intimates to me that one of the most famous action scenes you’ve ever seen in a modern martial arts film… With a major major kung fu star was actually Dee Dee, because the star in question broke his leg one hour into the shoot, and Dee Dee took over. And you, me and the rest of us have always credited the original star for the stunts and amazing prowess, when it was actually Dee Dee. I really wanted to correct this injustice, but according to Quentin, this is a trade secret, and we pathetic fanboys will have to guess for the rest of time… Which sequence it is… What film it is… But he’ll never fucking tell. MUST GET QUENTIN BACK TO AUSTIN AND BACK TO MY STAPLE OF SHINER BOCK… I’LL GET THE TRUTH OUT OF HIM, OR AT LEAST A GOOD LIE! Now looking at Dee Dee, the closest big Martial Arts star I can imagine him subbing for without major make up is Jackie Chan… Btw… Dee Dee is wearing a damn MATRIX RELOADED crew shirt all day… No, he won’t answer questions about it. Drats.
This shot is a huge two camera shot, so I was cleared pretty far away from the coverage in a blind spot… Quentin is now directing the deaths of the various victims… acting out each of their particular deaths… their howls, their grimaces, their pained collapses. … Meanwhile, as Quentin does this, David is practicing classic Samurai motions. Elegantly swiveling and making all the moves that Warren Beatty would have looked plum stupid as hell doing. This is literally the part that David Carradine was reborn to play. For him, this is his UNTOUCHABLES Connery part. Where everything he had been before culminates into this performance, albeit a supporting performance, but a performance that haunts every moment of the film, because ultimately he is what the film is about… As the rehearsals continue, Quentin and Yuen Woo Ping hone the motions, and the actions. There will inevitably be KNB Blood splatter moments left to shoot, but these victims are dying in short order… that’s for sure……….
The Silk that is balancing the light over this long streetway of this backlot has begun to tear in the ferocious Chinese afternoon wind… reminding me of the disasters experienced by mariners in those unfortunate movies where the sail cloth tears dooming them to back in the unmoving water as the sun drifts across the sky. Here however, it is a matter of removing the existing silk, and getting Steel Reinforced silk in place… this being China… there is always extra silk around somewhere. Ya know what I mean.
David has gotten out of costume and into a muscle shirt to cool off… When the shirt came off the first thing you notice is… the very NON-sixty year old physique… 2nd the plethora of cool old school tattoos. Very cool.
Meanwhile on set is Yuen Woo Ping and his various generals… Dee Dee, Tony , Fish … These guys are the team, the badasses that make sure that everyone on the set is the badass they need to be. Dee Dee is wearing his MATRIX RELOADED shirt, Yuen is unassuming and all smiles in his baseball cap, Levi shorts with two water bottles stuffed into his right shorts’ pocket. Looking at him, I just can’t stop flashing to his wondrous characters in Stephen Chow’s KING OF BEGGARS and Sammo Hung’s EASTERN CONDORS. I remember when Quentin was originally going after him for Pai Mei, but Yuen had to bow out in order to better train the remaining cast members.
OH MY FUCKING GOD… STOP THE PRESSES!!! I just met Sonny Chiba!!! He is simply the most gracious and delightful manly man I’ve ever met. The Japanese John Wayne… Looking at his ungodly charismatic and charming face I look for a shred of the bastard that was THE STREETFIGHTER. The man that could just clean rip your balls off, that was the meanest most hardened martial arts fighter in film history. Ya know, for John Wayne, playing Ethan Edwards was a stretch… For Sonny Chiba, that’s a starting point. He’s dressed in his Sushi Cook Outfit… Looking everybit the Sushi God part… He’s got those really cool Japanese wooden sandals on the two slates… you know what I’m saying. Well… he just looks cool. He sits down on the other side of Hiromi (The Miramax Lady – now she commented that ‘The Miramax Lady’ sounded a bit old, so then I told her that I thought ‘The Miramax Woman or Miramax Shrew’ sounded much worse. She conceded that being known as ‘The Miramax Lady’ will be just fine! Hehehehe). The three of us talk for quite some time, Sonny being very generous with his time. I suddenly pull out my CHAMPION OF DEATH one sheet movie poster from 1976 and Sonny loses his friggin’ mind. Quentin comes darting over exclaiming he has one hanging in his house. I pull out my gold paint pen and have the immortal Sonny Chiba inscribe the poster to me. I don’t often do this on sets… But as I explained to Sonny.. He’s the type of star that I just never believed existed anywhere but on film.
Quentin takes over this theme to explain to Sonny that in the United States, a great deal of the Asian Stars from Japan and China are revered by movie lovers in the same way that we revere the silent actors of old, because we’re never likely to ever meet them. You don’t see them at premieres, you never bump into them while shopping or walking around Disneyland. They exist on that screen, on dvds, but never in the flesh. Quentin then points at me and says, "The reason Harry came all the way to China was to meet you and Gordon Liu!" Sonny then looks at me with near tearing eyes and bows his head in profound thanks… to which I respond… "No no no… domo arigato Sonny domo"
Holy shit… Sonny Chiba! I met him. There’s a part of me that is smiling so hard at this moment… that tears are welling up in my eyes. Never in my wildest dreams of a film fan. All those years ago as I sat in the folding seats beneath a Texas Sky at the Drive In watching Sonny Chiba double and triple features in Austin with my parents… As I collected those trailers… Could I imagine meeting Sonny. You see, the first time I wanted to meet one of the great Martial Arts stars it was Bruce Lee… when I heard he was dead already, I just didn’t think any of them were alive. NaÃ¯ve I know, but we’re talking about a 4 or 5 year old. That sort of associative linking is common in the pre-wrinkled brains of youth.
Sonny makes his exit to go back to his hotel to continue his training for his part. When suddenly…
Zhang Ziyi!!! WHAT THE HELL IS SHE DOING HERE!!! Wow, Zhang is just dropping by to check out the shoot. -- oh my god, I’m being beckoned to go meet her, be right back…
I’ve touched Zhang Ziyi and didn’t explode into a hail of blood and guts. She is wearing a black t-shirt with a calligraphy style white stallion upon it, a mid-calf Levi skirt, and an orange cap… Her English is very good, and soooo cute… That perfect broken English, where you can completely understand what she is saying, but the struggle is just excruciatingly adorable. A while ago, I was listening to her watch David Carradine dispatch 3 of Michael’s droogs… As the shot ends, she lets out the cutest delightful giggle of morbid delight, then she steps back and demonstrates the move that David Carradine did to her friends. Very cool. By the way, her friends are cute too! She’s just here to visit, doesn’t have a part in the film… but wow… I guess this is the sort of thing that happens when you shoot in China… Folks like Zhang Ziyi, just… um drop by to check it out and say hi! WOW! Ok, Watching David Carradine kick ass with a Samurai sword and throwing knife… Cool… Meeting Sonny Chiba – One of the greatest moments of my life…. Then to have the absolute film fan cherry on top of it all.. to hang out and talk with Zhang a bit… We briefly talked about MUSA which she says was very hard work. And she’s very much looking forward to seeing HERO finished. She’s most excited about working on 2046 for Wong Kar-Wai…. Oh man, can you imagine how beautiful that movie will be? Keep watching the ASIA-AICN columns for details on that!
After this shot, it’s finally time to turn around for Michael Jai White’s reaction shots to all this stuff, his lines, the various attacks and dispatches… Right now Michael is singing Dewey Bunnell’s THE HORSE WITH NO NAME as originally sung by that group AMERICA behind me as he gets into his Do Moe outfit… the Burgundy silk kung fu outfit covered in intricate design work throughout. .. He is also getting the right pair of Nikes on.
The shot is going to be a hard crash SHAW BROTHERS style zoom onto Michael Jai’s cackled threat. This is a Shaw Brothers ZOOM as shot by multi-Academy Award winning Cinematographer shot with a PRIMO ZOOM 11:1 lens from Panavision…. I guarantee you, there will never have been a higher class SHAW BROTHER zoom in history. The wonderfully youthful silver haired Robert Richardson looks like he’s having the most fun ever on this shoot… he told me a story yesterday about screwing Quentin’s shoe to the ground during a HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES sequence, because Quentin was so focused on the rehearsal, that he never knew Robert was doing it. So… beware of Robert Richardson on your sets… Personally having him deal with George Clooney would be the bomb… I’d bet on Richardson.
A bit later, Lawrence Bender and Tarantino come over and I tell them about what I was telling all y’all about this being the most ridiculously high class SHAW BROTHERS ZOOM ever, and that is when Quentin says… Oh you should have seen Bob (Robert Richardson) earlier on… He was making them zooms all perfect, so smooth that you never even knew you were in a zoom, and I had to tell him that I wanted my neck to hurt from the zoom… don’t worry about the focus, we’ll find the fucking focus alright." Then Bender said, "Quentin was saying, ‘what do you think this is some big budget flick, I want it cheap and raw like in those Shaw brother flicks’" Quentin then stresses that Robert has since mastered the Shaw Brothers crash zoom! Heh! How cool is that?
The knife head guy is getting his great performance moment… He’s wielding his blade like a badass… Very thrilling!
"One more because we love making movies" – Quentin Tarantino exclaims after a particularly good take!!!
Talking to the script supervisor, he wanted her to make note that on the last take the wind was exceptional, blowing the loose cloth of the pant leg… He knows this, not by a monitor, but because he is actually watching the action… Way Cool..
There is a break in the action here as it is time to remove all the silk, so they can capture the last few moments of the Magic Hour light, for the end of the day’s shoot. You ever wonder why Chinese films always look so beautiful? I can tell you. The secret is the ability to cover vast areas with silk for that perfect magic hour lighting. Not only that, but due to labor being as cheap as it is here, the rigging on these lighting set ups… Well, just looking at this breakdown, there are easily 40 or so folks yanking on ropes, gathering in the silk, moving bamboo ladders and catching falling objects. The magic of the beautiful Chinese film is solved. SILK and MANPOWER. That’s all there is to it. Oh and a great DP probably doesn’t hurt!
"Where whistling and skipping our way into darkness…" – Quentin Tarantino exclaims as the ticks of the sun dial he is living is coming to a close on this very hot day!!!
Now one of the things I haven’t mentioned about this day is Michael Jai White’s accent. He is performing his entire role in an exaggerated KIWI accent. The result is absolutely startling on set. It is like the most perfect dubbing ever for a Shaw Brothers film, because it isn’t a dub… it’s real, it is live and it is the actor himself doing it. I flash to this film I have in 16mm called THE TAE KWON DO OF KUNG FU which has a Black downed American pilot that speaks with a KIWI accent throughout. It adds an exotic sense of fun to the film and the scenes that really works. Michael is having trouble though… because he keeps wanting to deliver the lines with his lips not-synced to the sound he is delivering. When he demonstrates this to me, I nearly cry laughing, because it is better than even the work in POLICE ACADEMY – if you’re a geek, you know the scene, but it’s a bit much here.
However, Quentin comes over and does a candy bar commercial with Michael, with both of them doing their KIWI voices. I’m not going to repeat it here, but if you ever see me… ask me about it, I’ll perform it live. It’s killer.
Soon the sun is down, and it is time to wrap. There’s a couple of loose bits that I’ll leave you with. First David from Austin really wants Mexican Food. If you know David from Austin, please send him Mexican food… Just address the food to David in Beijing. He’s working on setting up http://www.DavidNeedsMexicanFood.Com but it isn’t up and running yet. Be patient though.
Next – Quentin told me that the rumors that hit the net about he and Yuen Woo Ping fighting pissed him off, because they were not true. He didn’t read the actual articles that popped up everywhere in person, but Yuen did and apparently the day after the articles hit, The Master came to set very angry exclaiming, "We are not fighting, we are friends, Quentin is my friend." I explain to Quentin what the gist of the article was… Specifically that allegedly Yuen thought the timing to music and the moves created by Quentin was absurd. Quentin laughed and said that it was actually the opposite. Yuen loved the music being there because it gave him something to choreograph to and for his people to time out just right.
Also, about the RESERVOIR DOGS dvd – Quentin hasn’t seen this DVD yet but is concerned about the allegations that it is desaturated and greenish. I didn’t really notice this on the copy I got, but apparently some other reviewers did. When I told him about the really lame intros to the documentaries on the disc he winced.
He has also not yet seen the finished DVDs for PULP FICTION and JACKIE BROWN, but was very heartened by the fact that I was reporting very very passing grades for both, but did pass on that you folks want COMMENTARIES at some future date… We’ll see.
Lastly, there was a profound bit of wisdom that Kwai Chang Caine imparted upon me at a very significant moment of sharing. He called these…
THE RULES OF SLURPS
1st one is an accident.
2nd one is just to be sure
3rd slurp is pure greeeeed.
There you have it, my 2nd Day on the set of KILL BILL