Kill Bill Anime Accused of Plagiarism

Self described “inner city African American youth” Dannez Hunter has filed a copyright infringement suit against Kill Bill film director Quentin Tarantino and his A Band Apart production company, and Kill Bill producers & distributors Bob and Harvey Weinstein, The Weinstein Company, Miramax, Disney, Carlos Goodman, Bloom Hergott, Visiona Romantica, and Lawrence Bender Productions. Hunter claims to have submitted a proposal for a movie entitled “Lotus” to Mr. Tarantino in May or June 1999. Hunter claims that Tarantino then “copied verbatim… every element” of the Lotus film proposal and adapted it into the character O-Ren Ishii in the Kill Bill volume 1 motion picture. Contrary to E! Online’s misreading of the lawsuit, the Lotus film treatment is not described as a proposal for an animated film.

Hunter’s suit charges that Tarantino and Miramax racially discriminated against Hunter by not offering him employment, by changing the ethnicity of the protagonist of his Lotus film proposal, and by killing the character in the Kill Bill motion picture, thereby symbolically persecuting a “black author” and preventing Hunter from franchising his character in sequel stories. Hunter charges that Tarantino’s refusal to acknowledge copying ideas from the Lotus proposal was motivated by racial discrimination. The plaintiff also charges that Miramax executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein timed their departure from Miramax and launch of The Weinstein Company around Hunter’s release from prison, in order to hinder the plaintiff’s ability to levy accusation.

Hunter’s lawsuit further claims that Mr. Tarantino expressed racial insensitivity by dancing on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival; that Mr. Tarantino manipulated actor Brad Pitt into illegally using a video recorder to bootleg a film during a theatrical screening; and that Mr. Tarantino and all “whites” have a false sense of entitlement and a “notion of White superior ability in writing compared to African American inferiority in this genre of film making.”

Hunter’s lawsuit requests a return of his “Lotus” film treatment, ownership of the animation footage created for the Kill Bill volume 1 motion picture, co-writing credit on the film, and monetary damages of no less than $5,075,000 plus legal expenses for the six counts identified in the lawsuit.

I’d share my opinion about this, but I don’t want to get sued for racial discrimination.

Source: E!