Quentin Tarantino cast his net far and wide when he conceived of the idea of Dogs, though it is recognised that most of his inspiration came from the Asian market, more specifically City on Fire (1987) from which large chunks are ‘homaged’ wholesale. And adding his own personal thoughts on the world (tipping, Madonna’s Like a Virgin etc) by giving his characters their wit and snappy dialogue; and

Cast:Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Chris Penn, Edward Bunker, Kirk Baltz, Quentin Tarantino, and Lawrence Tierney

Free Digital Copy - Join Mailing List

Reservoir Dogs tells us the tale of a group of hardened criminals brought together by old gangster Joe ( Lawrence Tierney– Born To Kill, Dillinger) for a simple diamond heist. The men are mostly strangers to each other, with the exception) of Joe’s son Eddie ( Chris Penn– Footloose, Starsky and Hutch) and Mr. Blonde ( Michael Madsen– Kill Bill Vol. 1, The Hateful Eight), a close friend of the family. As the film opens we see our crew sitting together dissecting the songs of Madonna and discussing the relative merits of tipping. Lionsgate are releasing Reservoir Dogs in a limited edition 4K steelbook on the 21st November. Any 4K release of a Tarantino film is an interesting proposition, as the director himself has professed a preference for watching films on VHS. In a recent Sight and Sound article, he stated that a higher resolution isn’t always desirable, criticising the ‘clean’ digital look of modern restorations compared to the more dirty, yet organic feel of the film prints used on many VHS masters. An amazing start to a highly succesful career and no doubt we will see more of Tarantino’s genius converted to 4K in the future. A must own for fans and a great start for anyone who has yet to sample his work. Of course, we don't know how many films Tarantino has in him, originally claiming he would only ever make ten films in his career. Thankfully for his fans, he has a charming but self-indulgent habit of moving his own self-imposed goalposts. It's quite funny really, were he to make an eleventh it's unlikely anyone would hold it against him. Simply being glad of his own bizarre ultraviolent take on some other period of history. Lionsgate

From this simple premise, however, Tarantino works wonders, elevating what could have been a conventional criminal tale into one with so much idiosyncratic style and originality that it couldn’t help but inspire and influence a whole generation of filmmakers who arrived in its wake. For a film debut, Reservoir Dogs is remarkable. Supremely confidant and self assured in its mould breaking risks, it often feels like the work of a veteran filmmaker as opposed to a kid from LA who hadn’t even hit his thirties. Rarely has there been such a self assured cinematic debut, where confidence can be found not just in the story being told, but far more importantly, in how that story is told. The whole point of Reservoir Dogs, and its simple plot was to give Tarantino an opportunity to display his skills at writing dialogue. It certainly does that.There is very little film grain throughout, but don’t worry, the transfer hasn’t been DNR’d to death. It looks wonderfully rich, filmic and organic, with a very good encode to boot. Overall, the 4K presentation of the film is absolutely beautiful.