The Rotten Tomatoes Show | April 29, 2010 | Comment on this video (31)

Reservoir Dogs - Homage or Stealing?

Ellen_Fox
Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dog's was a jewel heist film like many people had never gotten witness before... unless they'd already watched City On Fire, starring Chow Yun-Fat, five years earlier.

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31 comments // Reservoir Dogs - Homage or Stealing? // Video

  • Ghislain_Shirambere
  • Sapience
  • danteglam
  • lordsbassman
  • chinese_democracy
  • HaloedGriot
  • HaloedGriot
    • +1
      HaloedGriot  

    • Its stealing. ALL of Tarantino's films are stealing...has the guy EVER written an original movie? Since when has Tarantino EVER said that Resevoir is homage to City on Fire? He's so full of shit, he just plays up to most of these peoples' hipster sensibilities...

      ...when he isn't stealing movies, he's challenging Jay Leno to beer can crushing contests, using their respective chins.

    • 3 years ago
  • likeamazing
  • Almibry
  • lordsbassman
  • WeBelieve
  • dusty_red_rivet_head
    • 0
      dusty_red_rivet_head  

    • Considering that the "slow walk" scene has been homaged all over the place, I'd say he took some thing good and made it great. I still talk about Reservoir Dogs to this day, I'm curious to see if the same is true of City On Fire. Is City On Fire as big of a cult classic in the East as Reservoir Dogs is in the West? I don't know, but since I'm a huge Tarantino fan and being that it took 18 years for us to hear about this other film, I'd like to speculate that it isn't.

    • 3 years ago
  • jfill
    • 0
      jfill  
    • dusty_red_rivet_head:

      ignorance of the other films existence is hardly proof that one did or did not rip the other one off.

      they are both heist films people get over it. lets leave the films that have been released years ago alone and worry more about the shit they are trying to pass for cinema these days.

    • 3 years ago
  • ozoneocean
    • 0
      ozoneocean  
    • dusty_red_rivet_head:

      Cult films, just like hit films don't just become that way because of quality. People have to know about them first- that means promotion and spreading the word. There are a lot of fantastic films out there that never even achieved cult status simply because they weren't ever lucky enough to have someone generate a buzz for them
      -A lot of people only came to Reservoir dogs AFTER Pulp Fiction, or only learned of it because certain clips are always played on TV: the walk scene, the stand-off scene, and the torture scene/

    • 3 years ago
  • dusty_red_rivet_head
    • 0
      dusty_red_rivet_head  
    • jfill:

      You misunderstood, I wasn't using that as evidence of it being ripped off or not. I was using it as evidence of it being a high-quality homage that took a good film and made it great. As evidence of it being a cult classic or not as well. That being said "ignorance" is a pretty strong word. I didn't have to find Reservoir Dogs, because the movie found me when I was lucky enough for a young friend to have had the DVD when I was in my early teens and had not yet heard of Tarantino.

      If Streets on Fire was anywhere close to being equally great, I would think that it would have made it's way to this country by now in some form of popularity like say, fellow Chow Yun-Fat movie Drunken Master, or an even easier example of Amelie.

      Geez people, chill out. I wasn't trying to step on your lollypop, just stating an opinion...

      ...and the flame suit goes back on.

    • 3 years ago
  • dusty_red_rivet_head
  • jfill
  • dusty_red_rivet_head
  • Mike_White
  • lordsbassman
  • dusty_red_rivet_head
    • +1
      dusty_red_rivet_head  
    • lordsbassman:

      Exactly, and if you're a real Tarantino nerd, you'll find similar names pop up throughout several different films who's plots are unrelated. Example: Scagnetti is Mr. Blonde's parole officer, and is also the crooked cop in Natural Born Killers.

    • 3 years ago
  • autonomatopoeia
    • +2
      autonomatopoeia  

    • I didn't "get" Tarantino until more recently. One could argue it's homage, but I think it's a little more than that. He takes what he loves--what many people love--and brings it to another level, giving it an audience it would never have had before. I think he very deliberately mirrors certain things; he knows the criticisms he'll get. He suffers in order to enlighten kids about a side of cinema they'd never have known about.

      And I say this, having seriously disliked him until Basterds. I used to call him the Puff Daddy of film. Now I see what he's about--not to mention his reverence for women. A lot of this stuff is totally lost on people who see his films. Maybe that's a good thing?

    • 3 years ago
  • jfill
    • +5
      jfill  

    • neither. all of Tarantino's films are throwbacks to the types of films he watched as a child/teenager.

      if you're going to "homage or stealing" anything you should compare avatar and fern gully. or avatar and dances with wolves, or pocahontas.

    • 3 years ago
  • theruinist
  • RebeccaAnais
    • -2
      RebeccaAnais  

    • Wow, who knew, A teacher once told me that in writing you need to "Lie and steal." I remember thinking that was way cool at the age of 18. I Personally consider it an homage, an elaboration upon an original, tweaked culturally and if I may say so, done better.

      After all, nearly all stories stem from the Bible or Billy Shakespeare.

    • 3 years ago
  • zphoenixdownz
    • +2
      zphoenixdownz  

    • "One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."

      http://nancyprager.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/good-poets-borrow-great-poets-steal/

    • 3 years ago
  • watchinu
    • -1
      watchinu  

    • "homage" in another market? ripoff/stealing here?......definitely stealing!
      unless he donated to QT's favorite charity...

    • 3 years ago
  • smurph25
  • lordsbassman
  • jfill
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