Quentin Tarantino faces plagiarism lawsuit over Kill Bill 1 and 2

Quentin Tarantino is being sued for more than $1m by a man who claims the Oscar-winning film-maker's martial arts-themed double feature Kill Bill was partly based on his ideas, according to US reports. Celebrity website TMZ.com says Dannez Hunter filed a suit on Monday, claiming he submitted a concept for a movie to studio Miramax, the company which produced Kill Bills 1 and 2. He says his 1999 story outline posited the idea of a character named Ren, who witnesses her mother's murder: 2003's Kill Bill Vol 1 features a character named O Ren Ishi, played by Lucy Liu, who suffers a similar fate as a young child. Hunter goes on to claim he applied for a job at Miramax but "was never given a return phone call, as numerous similar situated less qualified Jewish and white people were bestowed job after job after job". Miramax was run by siblings Harvey and Bob Weinstein until 2005, but the pair have since left to run new firm The Weinstein Company. It was speculated last month that they might be in the running to buy back the troubled film-making unit, which they founded in 1979, from Disney. Tarantino has made no comment on the case filed against him, but he did say on the red carpet at Sunday's Oscars that he might have considered shooting parts of Kill Bill in 3D had the movies been made today. "I liked Friday the 13th in 3D," he said. "Actually, one of my favourite movies of the year was My Bloody Valentine 3D. That was a great 3D movie! If I had to do Kill Bill all over again, I probably would do Volume 1 in 3D."