Released in 2005, Sin City became a critical success and audience favourite, with Frank Miller’s hugely successful black and white graphic novels brought to life in a writing and directing collabor-ation between the author and director Robert Rodriguez.
Miller’s stylised and hyper-violent world of taciturn heroes, strong women and evil villains, played by a large ensemble cast, was filmed entirely on green screen.
The breakthrough movie was hailed by all, so it was no surprise that a sequel would eventually be made. Here it is, nine years later, with Sin City - A Dame to Die For.
Having used green screen to such wonderful effect the first time around, Rodriguez now wanted to create the Sin City universe in 3D, believing the technology would be a perfect vehicle for the black-and-white visuals of the story.
“If any movie could lend itself to 3D, it would be the Sin City books because of the graphic novel quality,” says the co-director in the film’s production notes, adding, “with the 3D, you feel like you are inside a graphic novel.”
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For features characters from the original Sin City, even those that were killed off. Some of the events are actually prequels to stories from the first movie.
Returning favourites include Marv (Mickey Rourke), Goldie (Jaime King) and Hartigan (Bruce Willis). Miller explains that this is not a device to simply bring characters back to life.
“I tend to play around in the Sin City books,” he says. “I bounce from one point in time to another so characters can seem to come back to life when actually all I’ve done is go back in time.”
A Dame to Kill For follows four main storylines. While the first film was sourced from stories Miller had already published, he and Rodriguez decided to incorporate new stories in the sequel, hoping to surprise fans with the new material.
A story that involves a lot of betrayal, a lot of darkness and a lot of guilt
The background remains unchanged, and Sin City is a town where justice doesn’t prevail, and the good, the bad and the ugly characters cross paths in the city’s famous Kadie’s Club Pecos.
One of the new stories is The Long, Bad Night, which tells the tale of Johnny, a cocky young gambler (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who takes on the villainous Senator Roark (Powers Boothe).
A second new segment is Nancy’s Last Dance, which follows Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) who, driven insane by grief and rage, will stop at nothing to avenge John Hartigan (Bruce Willis).
The segment Just Another Saturday Night shows Marv (Mickey Rourke), who finds himself in the centre of carnage as he tries to remember the preceding events.
The central story which gives the film its title is based on Miller’s acclaimed A Dame To Kill For.
It features Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin) in his final confront-ation with the woman of his dreams and nightmares, the beautiful and deadly Ava Lord (Eva Green), described as one of Sin City’s most evil creatures.
Of this particular segment, Miller comments: “Built around a tragic romance between a man and the love of his life, it’s a story that involves a lot of betrayal, a lot of darkness and a lot of guilt… all the great stuff that goes into film noir.”