Quentin Tarantino (right) was in exuberant form on the set of his eagerly anticipated movie, Kill Bill, in Beijing this week. The man responsible for cult classics Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction was kept busy directing two of the film's stars, Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu, and scores of local extras drafted in for a number of sequences.
Our SAR spy managed to slip in to the closed set - 'No Pass, No Entry' declared an ominous-looking sign at the front gate - for a sneak preview of the action. Thurman, resplendent in an orange jumpsuit, worked patiently through several takes of a scene, which also involved Charlie's Angels and Ally McBeal star Liu, dazzling in white as a no-nonsense mafioso.
The film, due out next year, includes extensive martial arts sequences. Tarantino claims to have watched one Hong Kong kung fu movie a day for a year to help crystallise his ideas. Speaking in Beijing earlier, he said: 'This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.' Describing the film, he added: 'The story happens in four countries and the film is about revenge. Uma Thurman plays a girl who was traumatised by five men and starts to travel around the world to kill them.'