From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

"Sin City," a movie adapted from a comic book, is unlike any superhero film, and indeed, unlike any ordinary film.

This movie consists of three loosely connected stories, featuring three men with distinct personalities, all possessing a fearless tenacity and a beloved woman. They are drawn into criminal narratives for different reasons and in different states, with violence and bloodshed permeating throughout, yet it's not a simple revenge story.

All three stories unfold in a decadent, desolate, and extravagant Sin City, with only a few minor characters linking them together.

The only recurring scene in the movie appears at the beginning and end—Nancy dancing in a bar. She connects the first and third stories in terms of time and place. The entire film employs a narrative template similar to "Pulp Fiction," creating a cyclical, fate-driven structure.

The story isn't new; what truly immortalizes the film is its filming technique and narrative style.

The movie is entirely in black and white, using this to highlight intensely rendered reds, yellows, and greens. Whether it's the blood-red sky, the golden-yellow monster, or the emerald-green eyes of a beauty, these colors stand out vividly in the monochrome world, delivering a powerful visual impact.

Simply put, it presents the visual texture in a comic book style.

This approach, perfectly matching the visuals of the original comic, also appropriately reduces the negative impact of violent and bloody scenes on the audience without losing visual impact, even imbuing some gory shots with dark humor.

Despite this, the film's gore level remains among the highest, with blood splattering and limbs flying. The movie seems to disregard the then-popular aesthetic of violence—"Kill Bill" was all the rage—instead opting for a rougher, more brutal way to visually render the violence of Sin City.

This expressive technique is indeed unique. Later, "300" also attempted to use the same technique to showcase the impact of blood spurts and received widespread praise; however, it still falls slightly short compared to "Sin City."

Perhaps it's not unprecedented or inimitable, but whether in the twenty years before or the twenty years after, the experimentation, innovation, and narrative language brought by "Sin City" remain unique among countless Hollywood films, prompting the exclamation:

So, that's how movies can be made!

The film is the work of three directors: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, and Frank Miller.

Although credited to three directors, the entire concept, style, visual design, and so on were created primarily by Robert Rodriguez.

Robert Rodriguez is a quirky director, and he and Quentin Tarantino are close friends. Quentin's aesthetic already has a very personal touch, but Robert goes even further off the beaten path.

"El Mariachi," "From Dusk Till Dawn," "The Faculty," and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" are all works by Robert Rodriguez; but at the same time, family-friendly comedies like "Spy Kids" also originated from his ideas and designs, which is quite surprising.

Throughout his career, Robert has been passionate about researching the visual language of combining computer effects and film shots.

Generally, in Hollywood production teams, computer effects have no language of their own; they simply present the special effects as required by the director, and that's it.

But Robert believes that computer effects are also a shot, or part of a shot, and should be integrated with the film camera, becoming part of the lens's narrative language.

Therefore, even when filming typical commercial genre films like "Spy Kids," Robert's research into integrating computer effects into the language of the lens remains unique, which is also why Robert is so fond of the "Sin City" project.

Of course, the process was not easy. Such a project would be shocking even in 2024, let alone in 2004.

The original "Sin City" comic book was created in 1991 by comic master Frank Miller.

Over these ten years, Frank Miller has received adaptation proposals more than once, but he has rejected them all.

In Frank's view, adaptation is not feasible. On the one hand, the film format is not suitable for expressing these stories; on the other hand, the Hollywood film industry will inevitably distort his work.

However, Robert was enthusiastic.

Robert really, really, really liked "Sin City," even to the point of being obsessed with it. He decided to bring the original work to the big screen unchanged, but with a distinction:

He believed that his job was to transform the comic book into film visuals, not to adapt it.

Based on his years of understanding and research into computer effects, Robert believed that he could faithfully present the visuals of the original "Sin City" comic book.

The key was, how to convince Frank?

Frank was a tough nut to crack. Anyway, he wasn't short of money, and he never wavered in front of the producers and film companies coming and going in Hollywood.

Robert was a determined and motivated young man. He funded and shot a sample film himself, completed the digital shooting with computer effects, and then personally went to Manhattan, where he played it for Frank on a laptop in a bar. The unique visual style perfectly restored the comic, making Frank rave about it.

To further dispel Frank's concerns, Robert also handed Frank a script he had written.

Strictly speaking, it was not a completely new script, because Robert completely replicated the plot of Frank's original comic, only integrating the three short stories, authentically presenting Frank's depiction of Sin City.

Moreover, Robert said, "We don't need to finalize the cooperation now. We can find my actor friends and my crew on Saturday to shoot the opening credits, combine actual shooting with computer effects, and I will also be responsible for the soundtrack. Within a week, you will see the completed opening credits, and then decide whether I have the ability to complete this filming work."

In the end, this opening sequence was completed in just ten hours.

Sure enough, Frank was fascinated by this opening sequence. He finally realized Robert's creativity. For the first time, Frank released the adaptation rights—

"300," also Frank's comic, was only able to have its adaptation rights released later because of the success of "Sin City."

After obtaining Frank's authorization, Robert still hoped that Frank could play a key role in the filming of the film. In the end, Frank, with a comic background, also unprecedentedly served as a director for the first time, truly participating in the production of "Sin City."

Achieving a classic.

However, for such a work, with Frank Miller's name, and with Quentin and Robert, two Hollywood veterans, as directors, film companies should be scrambling for it. How could the investment opportunity fall to Forest Film?