In 1994 I saw a film that made a profound impact on me. Fantastic story, great characters, stirring cinema. It's a film I have watched several times since, profiting in some manner from each viewing experience. I love The Shawshank Redemption. 1994 in our cinema was also the year of Hum Aapke Hain Koun, 1942--A Love Story, Andaz Apna Apna, Krantiveer and Bandit Queen. And then, Quentin Tarantino suddenly stood on a table and shouted. Everybody cool this is a robbery. And the Misirlou track kicks in.

Pulp Fiction on the big screen is definitely one of my best movie viewing experiences. Tense, violent, funny, suspenseful, bloody, shocking, tender, unsettling, hypnotic, thrilling..... I came out wishing I had made it. It wasn't envy as much as love. I remember making notes on the structure, rearranging the scenes in chronological order....and reading every QT interview I could lay my hands on.

In one of them he talks about his hang out films. Movies like Rio Bravo, which he likens to friends he'd like to hang out with.In that sense, Pulp Fiction is one of my hang out films. I saw it last night and once again got sucked into the lives and situations of the now iconic characters.

The lovey-dovey Bonnie and Clyde couple who impromptu decide to hold up the diner they are drinking coffee in. The hitmen Jules and Vincent on a mission to retrieve a mysterious suitcase stolen from their fearsome boss Marcellus. The boxer Butch, ordered to take a dive in a fight, who decides to double cross the boss. And Marcellus' wife Mia....who is as beautiful as she's hazardous to health.

Sergio Leone said it's not the story but how you say it. In lesser hands, the same lurid tales would result in plotty and predictable fare but Quentin Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avery create an intensely character driven story. It's a bullet-proof script that deservedly won an Oscar. I remember buying a copy from Mumbai's now extinct Lotus Book Shop. Reading the script is as much fun.

A prologue, three interlinked stories told non-linear and an epilogue. It had been done a few times before and many times after PF. It can get gimmicky and confusing but when skilfully used like here, it absolutely enhances the story-telling, making the film much more than the sum of its parts.

Each time I watch the last scene, I start thinking ....Hey this is actually not the climax....it's the middle of the story. And yet, as Jules and Vincent walk out of the diner, in their T-shirts and trunks, it's a great, emotionally satisfying end to the film. Oh yes, it's a film about drugs and murders and many horrible things but it's also very strongly about redemption.

Tarantino's gift for dialogue is well known and we all have our favourites. The opening diner hold up is suddenly interrupted by two men in business suits in a car. We don't know who they are but we listen to them talk about a variety of topics including the drug rules in Amsterdam and the ethics of giving a foot massage and more.

Tarantino characters don't speak to advance plot. They speak to advance character. A crucial Boxing Competition, what many directors would consider a thrilling set piece, is junked and instead we have Butch the double-crossing boxer talking cute with his girlfriend in an extended scene that could be out of a Richard Linklater film. The Christopher Walken Gold Watch monologue is my personal favourite. It's not just a seriously funny scene. It's vital for us to believe that Bruce Willis would risk his life going back to retrieve the watch where the mobsters are surely waiting. How easily it could have turned into a standard shootout action sequence. Instead we are treated to a Hitchcockian suspense sequence in which even a brief shot of a toaster popping makes me want to stand up and applaud.

There are certain films that suddenly pop up and change cinema almost overnight.Citizen Kane, Psycho, Goodfellas.....some more. Pulp Fiction was an indie made on a low budget that went on to make more than $200 million worldwide on its first run. And convinced the studios that a small film can make serious money. If it resurrected John Travolta's career, it also convinced a star like Bruce Willis to cut his paycheck and be part of a project he believed in.

QT has famously said, 'I steal from every film ever made.' His influences range from Sergio Leone, Scorcese, Brian De Palma to many obscure exploitation and B-movies that are a treasure trove of cinematic nuggets. Don Siegel's Charley Varrick, Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, Jean-Luc Godard and more. And yet it's a fiercely original work and considered a modern classic.

If QT is influenced by a vast number of filmmakers, he has possibly influenced ten times more. PF inspired and continues to inspire ambitious and talented filmmakers who have their own stories to tell, stories that don't necessarily fit into the corporate rules of the game.

PF also spawned a lot of lazy imitations. Mixing long dialogue pieces with sudden violence seems easy till you try it and fall flat on your face. Referencing can be fun but also indulgent and juvenile if your story doesn't have heart and soul in the first place. To conclude with a quote from Quentin Tarantino, though I don't know the context in which he said it. “Movies are not about the weekend they are released and in the grand scheme of things that's probably the least important time of a film's life.“

The writer is a Mumbai-based filmmaker