KILL BILL: VOLUME 1 (2003)
&
KILL BILL: VOLUME 2 (2004)
The Fourth Film Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah,
Michael Madsen, Julie Dreyfus, Sonny Chiba, Michael Parks and Gordon Liu.
MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence, some sexual content, brief drug use
and language.
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama/Thriller
A Film Review by Joe Pfeifle
Following the ultra-cool gangster cult classics Reservoir Dogs, Pulp
Fiction and Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino has returned to the movie radar
screen after a six-year absence with his magnificent opus, an epic mythological
revenge story about the deadliest woman in the world. Also making an
unexpectedly awesome comeback is Tarantino alumnus Uma Thurman (aka Mrs. Mia
Wallace), who is catapulted to a Bronson - nay, Eastwood - nay,
Schwarzenegger-like position as Zhe Bride, a death-dealing justice-seeker.
She's out for revenge, but unlike Man on Fire or The Punisher, this is classic
material.
In the first volume, we are introduced to The Bride (she will remain
nameless until the second volume) after she is shot in the head by a man named
Bill on her wedding day, in a church somewhere in or outside El Paso, Texas.
Her entire wedding party is massacred, including her groom-to-be, and she loses
her baby (yes, she was pregnant during the attack, and with Bill's baby). She
survives the bullet to the brain, and is in a comatose state for seven years.
During which, she is the unknowing victim of sexual predators, rapists (a
reference to Pulp Fiction?) that take advantage of women in comas. Needless to
say, she awakes and escapes, but none of it is easy.
While recuperating from useless limbs, she makes a death list of the
people who tried to kill her. In one of the first scenes immediately following
the attack in the wedding chapel, The Bride travels to the suburbs of Pasadena,
California and confronts the second person on this list (the whole timeline is
non-linear, don't be surprised, it's Tarantino!), named Vernita Green (Vivica
A. Fox), aka Copperhead. As you will learn, the attackers knew The Bride well.
They were all members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, assassins paid
"vast sums of money to jet around the world and kill people", I think is how
Bill describes it. However, The Bride has been comatose for seven years, and it
appears that the group has been disbanded since her "falling out". For example,
Copperhead has already become a productive member of society, the wife of a
doctor and the mother of a little girl. This means nothing to The Bride, aka
Black Mamba, and a big rumble erupts, interrupted after the aforementioned
daughter returns home.
The only good reason for showing a non-linear timeline is for proper
climax readjustment, which is exactly the case here. Instead of seeing The
Bride go down the list one by one, the film skips around, starting with Vernita
Green, and then proceeding to O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), aka Cottonmouth, easily
the coolest character of both films and number one on Thurman's hit list. This
half-Japanese, half-Chinese/American character was a natural born killer ever
since the death of her parents at the hands of a Yakuza klan boss. Since
avenging her parents' deaths at the age of 11, she has made a name for herself
as one of the top female assassins in the world. Yet since the disbanding of
the DVAS, she has now become one of the most powerful Yakuza klan bosses in
Japan, making her the most prevailing of the group, and all with the assistance
of Bill. Always by her side stands her personal gang of Japanese swordsmen, the
Crazy 88, headed by Johnny Mo (Gordon Liu in a Kato mask) and Go-Go, a
psychopathic schoolgirl wielding a mace and chain laced with razors.
Volume One is pure entertainment at its most excellent, with action
sequences that defy the odds of reality (actually, you're going to need
suspended disbelief for both halves) as Thurman tears through an entire Yakuza
clan, chopping off heads and limbs as she goes, taking down every last barrier
between her and Lucy Liu until the ultimate fight between the two deadly women
runs its course, easily the best fight of both volumes. Not to be forgotten is
Vivica A. Fox, whose brawl with The Bride is raw, unnerving, and in-your-face.
Tarantino tests his abilities as an action director, forbidding the use of
digital effects and "professional" gags and squibs. Actually, he insisted that
the over-the-top violence be done in the popular Chang Cheh fashion of Chinese
martial arts films of the seventies: Chinese condoms full of fake blood that
would splatter on impact. Chris Nelson, who worked on the special effects, told
in an interview that over 450 gallons of fake blood was used on the two Kill
Bill movies.
The set pieces are stunning and the musical selections chosen by the RZA
(yes, the Wu Tang record producer) couldn't have been better. The dialogue is
undoubtedly funny and reminiscent of Tarantino's earlier scripts. The fights
are amusing and poetic at the same time; e.g., the gore is hilarious, but when
a main character dies, it is solemn with dramatic music. So it's all there:
funny, solemn, beautiful and gross at the same time. Tarantino evidently pours
his heart and soul into Volume One.
Of course, QT leaves his trademark signature all over the face of this
movie, making uncountable references to influential cult films, television, and
even his own to boot. Just to name a few: the unconventional narrative method,
the black humor, and even the storyline is taken almost verbatim from Uma
Thurman's Fox Force Five speech from Pulp Fiction. Tarantino has never been
innovative or original, but that's never a bad thing in his case. He takes what
he loves from his favorite movies, re-stylizes them with his own violently
twisted touch, and makes them enjoyable for everybody, not just film geeks such
as himself. In this instance, he chooses to pay homage to two kinds of films:
in the first volume, he pays tribute to samurai movies from the 70s (look for
resurrected characters Hattori Hanzo from the TV show "Shadow Warriors" as well
as the character Pai Mei (meaning White Eyebrow) who appeared in several Shaw
Bros. Kung Fu films from the 1970s-80s). In the second half Tarantino
compliments spaghetti westerns from the 60s. Sergio Leone (king filmmaker of
spaghetti westerns) is obviously the most influential director on Tarantino as
far as the revenge theme goes, drawing inspiration from but never equaling the
showdowns of commanding suspense followed by above-satisfactory climaxes of the
Leone Dollars Trilogy, starring Clint Eastwood.
The first volume is mostly setting up the legend of The Bride, more
precisely, the mythology, because of the impossibility of her actually
succeeding in a showdown between just herself and an entire Yakuza klan. The
second volume is more like a sobering look at what really happened. And there's
the rub. There are few who would enjoy both halves together, as they are very
different from one another, both in style, sound and in execution. While some
may enjoy the cartoonish violence and bloody carnage of the first half and be
turned off by the extremely slow pacing of the second, others will take
pleasure in the time Tarantino takes to develop more realistic characters in
Volume 2. Some like both equally and think they would flow well together if
combined into one theatrical experience.
In one of the first scenes of Volume Two, we travel back to the wedding
chapel in El Paso to see two things for the first time: 1) the face of Bill and
2) the depth of the relationship that exists between The Bride and Bill. What
we know from the first movie is this: that The Bride was pregnant with Bill's
baby and Bill shot her in the head and wiped out her wedding party, her husband
and her seed. Now, in this quiet moment before the inevitable storm, we see
Bill speaking to The Bride in a friendly manner, not even angry or showing a
hint of jealousy. He doesn't make a scene or start wielding a sword at any
given moment. He is calm and cool as a cucumber as he waits for them to turn
their back.
In the second volume, The Bride faces two more enemies before getting to
Bill. And the struggle is much more real in this volume, much more difficult.
The fight for survival becomes less and less easy with each challenger.
She must first go through Budd, aka Sidewinder (Michael Madsen, in an
unpredictable performance). Madsen was considered a Tarantino classic-act since
Reservoir Dogs, defining, embracing and rewriting the word cool in modern
gangster movies. Remember that singing, dancing psycho? Well, forget it,
because you won't find any of that here. If anything, he is the most
sympathetic character of both movies because he's so helpless. So vulnerable,
in fact, he may have to cheat. Since the disbanding of the DVAS and some sort
of falling out between himself and Bill, who is his brother, (surprise!) has
become so pathetic he has sunk to the bottom of the barrel. Now he lives in the
deserts of the west, isolated to his own alcoholic lust inside the confines of
a trailer home. This treatment of Budd's character is a smack in the face for
any hardcore Tarantino fan, but go with it. The pairing is perfect; who better
to cast as the brother of Sadist #1 (Bill) than Mr. Blonde himself? This is one
of Madsen's better performances, up there with Donnie Brasco and Reservoir
Dogs.
And the fourth person, right after Budd and just before Bill is Elle
Driver, aka California Mountain Snake (Darryl Hannah), a one-eyed blonde who is
evil to the core (you see her briefly in the first volume, and the conflict
between the two characters leaves you just itching to see them go at it). She
is apparently Bill's new girlfriend, and not to mention, no friend of Budd's.
The fight between Elle Driver and The Bride is the main (meaning only) action
sequence of the second volume, so cherish it. It gets dirty, crowded, and
disgusting.
And finally, Bill. It's not hard for her to find him, because he has set
it up to make sure that she does find him. He knows of all the people she
killed and the war she has had to fight to get to him, and he is expecting her,
waiting for their fates to collide. They come face to face, but instead of
going right into the fight, they... sit, and talk. Anti-climactic? Perhaps,
but what do you want them to do? Whereas before, everyone that she challenged
was an enemy, a betrayer. Now, she must face her ex-lover, the father of her
child. Not to mention, you learn much from Bill in the few minutes that seem to
go on forever as he describes, in detail, the reasons for the break-up between
himself and the Bride, and a few other things.
As it turns out, Bill and The Bride were in love, and by trying to leave
the life and start a family with someone else, a new life, she broke his heart.
As Bill says himself later on, "there are consequences to breaking the heart of
a murdering bastard. You experienced some of them." You learn that as charming
as Bill may be, he is a manipulator, a deadly, evil enthusiast. He has
protégées up the yin-yang, because he preys on people (mostly children from
what I can gather) and turns them into killers. He is called the Snake Charmer,
and he seems to fool everyone. Even The Bride, who was (and still is, as it
turns out) in love with Bill, which makes it harder to do what she has to do.
When the two characters part ways, you can tell that it is painful for the both
of them (especially Bill) but it was also something that Bill knew would
eventually have to happen. Even though The Bride may have been a stone cold
killer, she still harbored feelings for this evil man because even though she's
deadly, she's still human. If anything, Bill reinforces the lesson we all
learned about the life in Goodfellas: murderers come with smiles.
"The essence of a Tarantino movie is the inside look at the heart and
mind of violent people." David Carradine said that, and he couldn't have been
more right. This is Carradine's best performance since he was last seen on the
set of The Long Riders. Even though his dialogue is a little lengthy, you can't
deny that he is an eloquent speaker who makes every word seem warm and caring.
Tarantino's knack for giving an adrenaline-rush to stars of old is undeniable;
it worked for John Travolta and Pam Grier, and now David Carradine and Darryl
Hannah.
QT has once again made a masterpiece, this time, a four-hour long homage to
everything he likes about movies practically gift-wrapped for himself, and
anyone who likes what he likes. The editing could have been much better in the
second volume, because some scenes that I could have done without entirely
could have been replaced by the only action sequence with Carradine that was
sacrificed, probably because Tarantino couldn't figure a way to tie it in (it's
off subject and its violence is goofy like the first one). So there is rhyme
and reason for why some scenes are too long and why some scenes have more
dialogue than action. As the viewer, you'll either wish you never wasted your
time with such an outrageous movie or you might eat it all up, but either way,
you'll never have an experience like this one ever again. That is, unless you
watch both movies together, as they were meant to be viewed.
Below is a list of some other Tarantino movies that are referenced in and
influential to KB:
Jackie Brown (written and directed by QT)
From Dusk Till Dawn (written by QT, directed by Robert Rodriguez,
who scored KB2)
Pulp Fiction (written and directed by QT)
Natural Born Killers (written by QT, directed by Oliver Stone)
True Romance (written by QT, directed by Tony Scott)
Reservoir Dogs (written and directed by QT)
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