Not Cool: Tarantino Sued Over Kill Bill Character

Famed director is accused of ripping off another writer for a character in his Kill Bill movies

Quentin Tarantino didn't win an Oscar this week, but this wasn't exactly what he had in mind for a consolation prize.

The Inglourious Basterds helmer has been hit with a plagiarism lawsuit by a man accusing him and former Miramax chairman Harvey Weinstein of stealing his concept for what eventually became a deadly assassin in their Kill Bill double bill.

In the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday, Dannez Hunter claims he had submitted a treatment to Miramax back in 1999 featuring a character named Ren Short who hails from a historical Samurai lineage and watches his mother brutally murdered "in a cartoon format."

Sound familiar?

It just so happens that four years later Tarantino dreamed up an Anime sequence for his Kill Bill flicks in which a sword-wielding assassin, played by Lucy Liu, codenamed Cottonmouth, otherwise known as O-Ren Ishii, witnesses her parents killed on orders from a Japanese mob boss. In his vision, O-Ren eventually becomes a member of the Deadly Vipers and takes her revenge by assuming control of the Tokyo Yakuza.

The parallels were just too much for Hunter who felt he had to take legal action. In a separate allegation, the plaintiff, who describes himself as a minority and former "inner-city youth," also alleged the Disney subsidiary passed him over for employment and hired Jews and whites instead (In the words of Col. Hans Landa, "the Juden!")

So aggravating matters further, he felt particularly shafted when Miramax never got back to him about his application.

"[Plaintiff] was never given a return phone call, as numerous similar situated less qualified Jewish and White people were bestowed job after job after job," Hunter alleges.

Maybe Tarantino should bring in the Bear Jew for this one.

No word why he waited seven—count 'em seven—years to go to court.  But the California native is seeking $1 million in damages.

Reps for the director and Miramax did not return phone calls seeking comment. No doubt they're thinking it's just a bunch of pulp fiction.

—Additional reporting by Claudia Rosenbaum