Remember the iconic animated scene in Kill Bill: Volume 1 that sent chills down your spine with its innovative style? Well, Oscar winner Quentin Tarantino, the master of non-linear narratives, admitted during a conversation with Anurag Kashyap that it was inspired by a Kamal Haasan movie.
IN PICS | 12 rare photos of Kamal Haasan
Speaking to Mid-day, Kashyap said film critic Naman Ramachandran had revealed to him this surprising inspiration which led him to quiz Tarantino in Venice. "I asked him whether the Manga sequence in Kill Bill was inspired from an Indian film and he excitedly remarked, ‘Yes, I saw this Indian serial-killer film which showed violence as animated.’"
WATCH KILL BILL VOL. 1. ANIME ACTION SCENE HERE:
Kashyap noted that there was only one Indian serial-killer film made before Kill Bill where animated violence was shown and that was the Kamal Haasan-starrer 'Aalavandhan' dubbed in Hindi as 'Abhay'.
A 2001 psychological thriller, Aalavandhan didn't add up to much for critics, some of whom called it "below average". Vijay Ramanan of Planet Bollywood even felt "as if Kamal Haasan and Suresh Krishna (director) were high on drugs while making this film."
WATCH AALAVANDHAN'S ANIMATED ACTION SCENE HERE:
Maybe breaking into an animation sequence smack in the middle of a feature film rubbed some viewers the wrong way.
But, three years later, Kill Bill Vol. 1 was received generously by critics and the public. A O Scott of The New York Times wrote that the "sincerity of his enthusiasm gives this messy, uneven spectacle an odd, feverish integrity."
It could have been the audience, the narrative, the cinematography or pretty much anything that rendered Aalavandhan subpar but Kamal Haasan in a quote to Mid-day maintains, “When I did the animation action sequence 12 years ago it was seen as self-indulgent and odd by a lot of people. Now that it has been endorsed by a filmmaker of such brilliance, critics will be kinder to some of the things I attempt in my films.”