Harry here... One of the co-authors of my book that was released this year was the uber-movie fan Paul Cullum for the new magazine... FILTER. Just one of the best guys around and he's recently contributed an interview he did with David Carradine, while David was in training for Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL.
I'll never forget watching Quentin and David on stage at the Alamo Drafthouse during QT5 (fifth semi-annual Quentin Tarantino Film Festival) talking about the evolution of Kwai Chang Caine, when I turned my head to Patch and said... "That's Bill." She began slapping my arm and insisted that I tell Quentin, and the next time I saw Quentin, I told him. He cocked his head, smiled, and said that he wrote the part for Warren Beatty though, and Warren was really up to do it. And that was that.
Warren Beatty is cool, but there was just something magic about David Carradine that Quentin was touching on that stage that night, and it haunted me. When it was announced that Beatty was out and Carradine was in, there was a great deal of speculation as to how Tarantino could go from the A-list Warren Beatty to the cult actor David Carradine.
Carradine told Cullum:
"Later, I came back from Spain, and I had 3 messages from Quentin on my answering machine. My agent and my manager both said that I was up for a part in this Warren Beatty movie called KILL BILL. So, I went and met Quentin for lunch and found out that it wasn't a Warren Beatty movie, it was a David Carradine movie. But apparently, he had actually been writing for me all the time, while he was making a deal with Warren. The way Quentin put it, there was not exactly a falling out between them, but the romance was going out of the idea. I mean, there's a lot of training involved, and it's a very, very physical part. But apparently, there was a moment when Quentin was saying, 'What I want you to do with this movie is you've got to be like David Carradine.' And Warren said, 'Well, why haven't you offered it to David?' And Quentin took the opportunity to say, 'Well, maybe that's what I should be doing.' I don't exactly know how the conversation went, because I wasn't there."
So for David, that's how it happened. Quentin it seems is also planning two animated feature films using characters from KILL BILL. Here's what David told Paul:
"There is also going to be a movie about Bill's backstory that Quentin is planning. But it's not live action, it's a cartoon. He's doing one about the Uma Thurman character, and also doing one about Bill's background. When he was a little kid, Bill went to Japan and started studying with the greatest samurai warrior alive today. And he takes the whole course, and towards the end of it, the master realizes that Bill is a consummately evil person, without moral compunctions, and kicks him out. And when he kicks him out, he goes to China and studies with the evil Chinese Kung Fu master. It's always turning emotions upside down and totally surprising you."
In regards to the training, Cullum and FILTER magazine have David talking about stretching,wu shu training, samurai training,weight lifting, cardiovascular stuff. All this under the watchful eyes of Wu Ping and Sonny Chiba.
Carradine also confirms that Sonny Chiba will be playing the swordmaker / swordmaster that kicked Bill out, and that Quentin will be playing the evil Pei Mei as well. And that there is minimal wirework.
In additional casting Carradine says that Michael Madsen is there, Michael Parks is playing an ol sheriff, basically the exact same character he played in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. Mike Bowen is in the film as the orderly in the hospital that Uma is in a coma for several years.
There's tons more in this interview, and the magazine has the terribly expensive cover price of.... FREE, so you don't have any excuse to not try and find the damn thing. Carradine's enthusiasm for the project comes straight off the page and gets you excited beyond words. And right now... RIGHT NOW... the choreographing of the greatest fucking fight scene in future film history... HOUSE OF THE BLUE LEAVES is commencing in Beijing, China as you read this. The Bride versus those deadly Crazy Eighty-Eights. Your mind is going to reel. Yuen Wu Ping / Sonny Chiba choreographed fight.... And they're choreographing it.... RIGHT NOW.... On the actual set... In friggin BEIJING!!! God I wish I was there.... Don't you?
