Director Quentin Tarantino has enjoyed putting himself in many of his films over the years, and it turns out that he actually originally cast himself in a decent-sized role in Kill Bill Vol. 2. Tarantino was set to take on the role of martial arts master Pai Mei!
Pai Mei was the legendary master of the Bak Mei and Eagle's Claw styles of kung fu. He was the teacher of Bill, Elle Driver, and Beatrix Kiddo, and was also responsible for the removal of Elle's right eye. He taught Beatrix the fatal movement known as the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique and the Three-Inch Punch. The character was poisoned by Elle, as revenge for plucking out her eye. It’s also said that he was 1,000 years old.
I can see why Tarantino would want to play this character as it would have been a blast for him to bring this character to life. He even went through all of the training to prepare for it! But, once he started shooting, he decided to drop out of the role so that he could put all of his focus and attention on directing the movie. In an old interview with IGN, Tarantino said:
"I'd done all the training on him, and we shot for eight weeks in the House of Blue Leaves. And somewhere in the fifth week of shooting in the House of Blue Leaves, I was just like, 'You know, I'm just having, one, so much fun directing this. [...] And two, it's taking everything that I have to direct it, that all of a sudden I wasn't looking forward to playing Pai Mei anymore.'"
After Tarantino dropped out, he ended up casting Gordon Liu, who played Johnny Mo in the first film, and he was awesome in the role! He was one of my favorite parts of that movie. The filmmaker added:
"It seemed like a big pain in the ass [to play the character], and I just wanted to concentrate. And then I had Gordon Liu in the wings, who is just so perfect for it, and it was almost criminal not to cast him, so it became a very easy decision."
In the end, Tarantino made the right decision. It would have been interesting to see him in the role, but he wouldn’t have been as great as Lui.
Via: /Film
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