The Hateful Eight has some interesting characters and scenes, but it's not exactly iconic.
I wasn't interested in The Hateful Eight from the trailer, and the reviews didn't make it sound like something worth watching. I've never been a fan of Tarantino's dialogue, but it actually wasn't so bad this time. The characters were pretty interesting. I sort of missed about 10 minutes when they first got to the Haberdashery, but it probably wasn't important.
Not
just for that reason, but it's one of the few movies I think I'd like
to watch again, knowing all the secrets now. Bob's accent was weird. I
didn't really buy him as Mexican. The British guy brought a lot of life
to things. Domergue was intriguing, too. And you can't go wrong with
Walter Goggins.
Miike's Hara-Kiri is beautifully directed, but
it's also depressing, boring in parts, and not terribly original.
I'm having a problem finding movies I'm interested in. I
was watching the trailer for Blitz seeing if I could get into it enough to
watch it, and I felt like I wanted to see something with swords. I had
Hara-Kiri on my list of movies to watch, so I watched the trailer for that. I
wasn't exactly sold, but I decided to go with it anyway. I wanted something
with a little substance, even if I was running the risk of being bored.
Apparently, according to IMDb, the original was better. I
didn't even know there was an original. I found out about the remake when I was
looking through Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's reviews. He liked it, and I've always
been interested in Miike's stuff. 13 Assassins was good, although everything
before that was pretty crazy. I can't even believe I watched that stuff
anymore. Supposedly the original draws you in more, and there's more dialogue
between the father and the clan guy.
That would've been good, because my suspicions were right:
I got bored, especially in the middle. I really lost interested when they took
the focus away from the present-day stuff and started talking about how Hanshirô
knew Motome. The cinematography was great, though. I loved the camerawork and
the sets. It really was beautifully directed. I don't know why Miike shot it in
3D. That probably didn't add much, although it would've been a good effect with
the falling snow.
I liked the slow, deliberate pacing of the camera and
people's movements, and the fact that we saw what happened to Motome and then
afterward learned why it happened made it more interesting.
