|
Kill Bill is the fourth film by writer-director Quentin Tarantino. Originally conceived as one film, it was released in two separate "volumes" (in Fall 2003 and Spring 2004) due to its running time of approximately four hours. The movie is an ambitious, epic-length revenge drama, notable for its homages to earlier film genres, such as Hong Kong martial arts movies and Italian Westerns; for its extensive use of popular music and pop culture references; and for its deliberately over-the-top bloodletting. Its stars include Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Michael Parks, Sonny Chiba, and Gordon Liu.
Plot Describing the narrative of either volume is complicated, because the sections of Kill Bill (called "chapters" in the film) are not presented in chronological order (see the Structure section below). Unlike Pulp Fiction, in which Tarantino included three separate but interrelated stories, Kill Bill is one story, but it is told with extensive use of flashbacks and flash-forwards, along with a few asides relating the backgrounds of secondary characters. Taken as a whole, Kill Bill is the story of Beatrix Kiddo, a professional assassin in the employ of her lover, Bill. Discovering she is pregnant with Bill's child, and despairing of the life the little girl will lead if raised by her father, Beatrix arranges her own disappearance. But Bill hunts her down, and on the day before she is to be married to an El Paso record-store owner, he directs the massacre of the entire wedding party. Bill shoots Beatrix in the head, but she survives, emerging from a coma four years later, her memory of the incident intact. She travels to Okinawa where she convinces a famous swordmaker to make her what turns out to be his finest sword. She then makes a numbered "death list" of the five wedding-party assassins, ending with the name "Bill". Beatrix manages to kill the first two assassins on her list in a staightforward, if spectacular, manner. But the third, Bill's brother Budd, bests her and buries her alive in a Barstow cemetery. He in turn is killed by a black mamba planted by Elle, the fourth name on the death list. Beatrix escapes from the grave and defeats Elle, leaving her blinded in Budd's trailer along with the black mamba. Only Bill's name remains on the list, but when Beatrix arrives at his hacienda, she is shocked to discover that her daughter, whom she assumed had died in the wedding massacre, was actually delivered while Beatrix was comatose, and is being raised by Bill. After a family evening together that is emotional yet tense, Bill and Beatrix fight, and Bill is killed. Beatrix takes her daughter, and they begin their new life together. Structure Kill Bill is divided into ten chapters, five chapters per volume. As is common in Tarantino films, they are not arranged in chronological order. Cinematic order: Chronological order: Volume 1 details A black-and-white sequence introduces us to The Bride (Thurman). She lies on a wooden floor, dressed in a wedding gown. Her face is covered in blood and bruises. A hand comes into frame, holding a handkerchief marked "Bill". Bill wipes some of the mess from her face, and he speaks to her softly, explaining, "this is me at my most masochistic." She replies, "Bill, it’s your baby," but as she says the "y" of baby, Bill shoots her in the head. The story continues in the first chapter, "2". The Bride, alive and well, drives up to the suburban California home of Vernita Green (Fox), codenamed "Copperhead", one of the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Copperhead answers the door and a vicious knifefight ensues, demolishing most of the living room. In the middle of the fight, Copperhead’s daughter, Nikki, arrives home from school and the two women conceal their knives in a truce, pretending that nothing has happened. Over coffee, The Bride and Copperhead plan a final battle later that evening, but Copperhead tries double-crossing The Bride using a gun concealed inside a box of cereal. Her shot misses, giving the Bride the opportunity to impale her with her knife. Unfortunately, Nikki witnesses the death of her mother. The Bride sheathes her blade, speaking calmly to Nikki and offering her a chance for revenge should she want it. The Bride returns to her car, a big, yellow pick-up truck named the "Pussy Wagon." Here, she looks at a notepad with the names of five people, including Copperhead’s, written under the title "Death List Five". She crosses out the name Vernita Green, and one can see that "O-Ren Ishii" has already been crossed out. It is during this chapter that the audience first hears the Bride's former code-name as a member of the Deadly Vipers--"Black Mamba". The second chapter, "The Blood-Splattered Bride", returns to a time shortly after the Bride's apparent death. A local lawman, Earl McGraw (Parks) surveys the crime scene, at which time it is revealed the Bride wasn't Bill's only victim - an entire wedding party has been massacred. McGraw discovers the body of the Bride, and it becomes obvious to him that she is still alive. Cut to a local hospital, where the Bride lies comatose. She is confronted by another member of Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, Elle Driver (Hannah), codenamed "California Mountain Snake", who, it is implied, has replaced her as Bill's lover. Elle plans to kill the comatose Bride, but at the last minute Bill phones her and orders her to abort the mission, since it would be beneath professional warriors to creep into a room "like a filthy rat" and murder a sleeping victim. The story jumps ahead four years, as the Bride awakens with her memory of the assassination attempt intact. She bursts into tears on realizing that her unborn child is gone. At that moment, two men enter the room and the Bride fakes her unconsciousness. As it turns out, Buck, a hospital orderly, has been charging visitors to have sex with the comatose Bride for four years now. After killing Buck's customer, she then kills Buck and steals the keys to his pick-up truck - the Pussy Wagon. From the back of Buck's truck, the Bride works to revive her atrophied legs as she narrates the story of the next chapter. Chapter three, titled "The Origin of O-Ren", serves as the introduction of O-Ren Ishii (Liu), codenamed "Cottonmouth". This entire chapter is shown as an anime sequence. As a young child, both of O-Ren's parents were killed by members of Japanese Yakuza, led by Boss Matsumoto, right before her own eyes. She takes revenge on same Yakuza boss, slicing him open as she reveals her identity. So begins her career in crime. From this point, she earns a reputation as a very successful and ruthless assassin. The story returns to the "present", as the Bride regains use of her legs. In the fourth chapter, "The Man from Okinawa", the Bride boards a plane to Okinawa. There she searches for Hattori Hanzo (Chiba), a famous sword-smith. Hanzo has taken an oath to never make another sword, but is persuaded by the justice of her cause. It takes him a month to make her the best sword ever crafted, which she takes to Tokyo for her showdown with O-Ren. In volume one's final chapter, "Showdown at House of Blue Leaves," O-Ren Ishii has become the first female leader of the Yakuza council. To kill her will require every skill and tactic the Bride possesses. The Bride gets into O-Ren’s current hangout, a club known as the House of Blue Leaves. She follows Sofie Fatale, O-Ren’s best friend, lawyer and another former protege of Bill, into a bathroom, taking her hostage to lure out O-Ren. In the huge, main room of the club, she slices off Fatale's arm. O-Ren dispatches her body guards to deal with the Bride, who proceeds to take on O-Ren’s henchmen, including O-Ren's personal bodyguard, the seventeen year-old girl named Gogo Yubari, who wields an altered meteor hammer with retractable blades. After killing the subordinates, she is confronted by the bulk of O-Ren's army, the "Crazy 88s." They all suffer grisly death or mutilation at the edge of her sword (with the exception of one very young "soldier", who is literally spanked with the blunt end of the Bride's sword and told to go home to his mother) in a sequence of sustained, graphic violence. The House of Blue Leaves sequence employs a variety of visual styles including color, black-and-white, a kabuki-like blue-background silhouette, and an overexposed, flashing black-and-white style which seems to suggest an old martial arts movie. The accompanying soundtrack is an eclectic collection of musical styles. At the end of this frenetic sequence The Bride, looking for O-Ren, slides open a door which unexpectedly reveals the quiet of a snowy, Japanese garden in back of the club. After a dramatic swordfight, during which O-Ren's contempt for the Bride's skills changes to quiet respect, the Bride succeeds in scalping O-Ren with her blade, killing her. She deposits the dismembered Sophie Fatale at a hospital after extracting information from her. Sophie is patched up and later returns to Bill. In the Volume's last line, Bill asks Sophie if the Bride knows that her daughter is alive, a fact of which the audience has thus far been kept unaware. Volume 2 details Note: It is revealed in Volume 2 that The Bride's real name is Beatrix Kiddo. Beatrix is the name used throughout this section. Kill Bill: Volume 2 opens with a brief recap of Volume 1, narrated by Beatrix herself: she was betrayed and left for dead by the other members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and is now hunting them down one by one. She states that Bill is the only one she has left to kill, indicating that this scene is out of chronological order (at the end of Volume 1 she still had three targets left). The first chapter of Volume 2 takes place at the now-notorious wedding chapel (like all the chapel scenes, it is in black-and-white). Beatrix and her friends are there for her wedding rehearsal when Bill shows up unexpectedly, and for the first time the audience gets to see his face. Though disappointed to see his lover marrying someone else, he is polite and mild-mannered, and even consents to being introduced to the groom as Beatrix's father. Throughout these scenes, the director exploits the creepy tension between Bill's pleasant demeanor and the violence that we know will occur next. Once Beatrix believes she has convinced Bill not to cause any trouble, she takes her place at the altar with her groom, a local record store owner. The camera then pulls back out the door of the chapel, revealing the other four Deadly Vipers waiting outside with their weapons. They walk into the chapel and we hear them firing as Beatrix screams at Bill and the scene fades to black. Moving to the present, we see Bill paying a visit to his estranged brother Budd (aka "Sidewinder", played by Michael Madsen), another former Deadly Viper. Bill warns him that Beatrix will come for him next, but Budd, now overweight and alcoholic, his assassin days apparently behind him, seems either to not take him very seriously or blatantly not care much for his life. Bill departs, and Budd goes to his job as a bouncer at a topless bar, where his boss reprimands him for being late. After Budd returns to his secluded trailer home that evening, we see that Beatrix has indeed come for him. But as soon as she opens the door, Budd blasts her in the chest with a shotgun shell filled with rock salt, incapacitating her. He then phones Elle Driver, tells her he's captured Beatrix, and offers to sell her Beatrix's Hanzo sword for one million dollars. Elle agrees, on the condition that Beatrix "must suffer to her last breath." In a horrific scene, filmed from The Bride's point of view, Budd ties Beatrix up, puts her in a wooden coffin, and buries her alive at the local graveyard. The movie leaves Beatrix, cliff-hanger style, in the coffin and moves to what proves to be a flashback set in China, many years before. Bill is taking Beatrix to the temple of legendary martial arts master Pai Mei (a classic example of the elderly martial arts master stock character). After warning Beatrix to be humble and obedient, Bill convinces Pai Mei to accept her for training. The training is extremely rigorous, with many hardships, but she becomes a formidable warrior under his tutelage. Back in the coffin, we see Beatrix call on this training, as she uses one of Pai Mei's techniques to smash her way out of the coffin and claw her way up to freedom. She hikes back to Budd's isolated desert trailer in time to see Elle pulling up in her Trans Am, and Budd standing in his doorway. Inside the trailer, the eyepatch-wearing Elle makes small talk with Budd, and presents him with a suitcase full of cash in payment for the sword. As Budd counts the money, a highly venomous black mamba that Elle had hidden in the suitcase attacks, biting him several times in the face ("Black Mamba" is Beatrix's Deadly Vipers codename). Elle lights a cigarette and takes great pleasure in lecturing Budd on the black mamba as he dies, noting that Black Mamba also means Death Incarnate, lamenting, "maybe the greatest warrior I have ever met, met her end at the hands of a bushwhackin', scrub, alkie piece of shit like you." Bill calls her cell phone, and she feigns sympathy as she tells him that his brother Budd was killed by a black mamba left in his camper by Beatrix, but that Beatrix herself is now dead and buried. At first, it may seem disappointing that Beatrix did not kill Budd directly. However, as her codename is Black Mamba, she did kill him after a fashion. Likewise, if she had not hunted him down in the first place, he would not have been killed. Elle takes both sword and money and prepares to leave, but as she opens the door, Beatrix attacks her, kicking her back inside. The two fight ferociously in the enclosed space, clobbering each other with various items within the trailer; among them a lamp, a radio antenna, and a strategically placed spittoon. The brutal fight progresses with neither gaining a clear advantage until Elle manages to unsheathe Beatrix's Hanzo sword. Beatrix, however, serendipitously discovers Budd's Hanzo sword hidden in a golf bag, despite Budd's claim to have pawned it years ago. Elle and Beatrix have a brief conversation, in which we learn that it was Pai Mei who snatched out Elle's right eye as punishment for her insolence. Elle maliciously tells Beatrix that she got her revenge by poisoning Pai Mei's food, killing him. The two continue to stare each other down in a scene reminiscent of showdowns in western cinema until they simultaneously attack one another with their Hanzo swords, hampered somewhat by the extremely close quarters. With their swords locked together, Beatrix's hand suddenly darts out and snatches out Elle's remaining eye, then proceeds to squish it flat with her bare foot. Elle shrieks and falls to the ground, and thrashing about wildly, cursing and threatening Beatrix. Beatrix calmly collects her Hanzo sword and departs, limping, leaving Elle blind and alone (except for the still-hissing mamba) in the secluded trailer. The last chapter, which runs nearly an hour, is set in Mexico, where Beatrix first visits an old pimp named Esteban Vihaio (Michael Parks again, in a second role), who turns out to have raised Bill from childhood. He forthrightly tells her Bill's whereabouts, despite knowing her intentions, explaining to an incredulous Beatrix that Bill would have wanted him to. Beatrix drives to Bill's home, prepared to kill him. She finds that Bill is not alone, however: B.B., their four-year-old daughter, who she had thought was murdered during the wedding chapel attack, is alive and well, apparently delivered while Beatrix was comatose. Met with a family scene rather than aggression, Beatrix is overcome with emotion, creating a tension which envelopes the remainder of the movie: will Beatrix complete her mission? The family spends the evening together peacefully, and B.B. falls asleep watching the chambara film Shogun Assassin in her mother's arms. With B.B. safely in bed, Beatrix returns to the living room and verbally confronts Bill, who explains he has some unanswered questions for her. Beatrix takes note of Bill's Hanzo sword proudly displayed above his television, and leaps forward to grab it before Bill shoots the television causing Beatrix to jump back. He then shoots her with a dart filled with truth serum, which he describes as "one of his finest inventions", similar to Sodium Pentothal, "but without the druggy after effects". He then makes her tell him why she ran away. In a somewhat humorous flashback, we learn that she realized upon becoming pregnant that she must put her daughter's future above Bill, and leave behind the assassin's life. Bill deprecates her attempts to find a "normal" life, and compares her with Clark Kent (Superman), saying that she was trying to hide her true identity behind a ridiculous facade. He explains his own actions toward her, saying, "There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard... I guess I overreacted." The tension between their lingering feelings for one another and their desire to kill one another finally comes to a head when Bill draws his sword and attacks Beatrix. Although he appears to gain the advantage by disarming her, she disables Bill using the fatal Five-Point-Palm Exploding Heart Technique, taught to her without Bill's knowledge by Pai Mei. Bill realizes he is beaten, and says a tender goodbye. He then walks unsteadily away, collapses, and dies in silence. Beatrix sheds a few tears for the death of her lover, and returns to the house to collect her daughter. The final scene shows Beatrix on the floor of a hotel bathroom, overcome with conflicting emotions, alternately laughing, crying, and repeatedly whispering, "Thank you." Regaining her composure, she goes to her daughter to start their new life together. Budget & box office The production budget for Kill Bill (volumes I and II combined) was US$60 million.** This does not include marketing and distribution costs. Kill Bill: Volume I was released in the United States on October 10, 2003. Its US gross box office receipts were US$70,099,000; its box office receipts for the rest of the world came to US$110,850,000, for a total of US$180,949,000. Kill Bill: Volume II was released in the United States on April 16, 2004. Its US gross box office receipts were US$66,208,000; its box office receipts for the rest of the world came to US$85,951,000, for a total of US$152,159,000. Since box-office rentals (the percentage the distributor receives for a movie, normally negotiated individually for each movie and normally highly confidential) for a film made by a brand-name talent such as Tarantino were probably in the 45% to 50% range, Miramax probably received somewhere in the US$160 million range. Factoring in production costs, and allowing for US$70 million in world-wide distribution and marketing expenses (roughly twice the norm, considering there were two releases), Miramax in all likelihood cleared a net profit of at least US$30 million on the theatrical release alone. Acclaim and criticism Much-anticipated by fans and critics (it appeared after a six-year hiatus of Tarantino movies), Kill Bill generated a tremendous amount of discussion. Reaction by film critics was largely positive, though by no means unanimous. Both volumes did well at the box office. A movie in two volumes Though released as two movies, the film differs from multi-part "franchise" series like Star Wars. The short duration between the releases of the two volumes, and the film’s history and internal structure, strongly recommend that it be regarded as one movie. The dual-release strategy, ostensibly due to the film’s length, has been criticized as an attempt by Miramax to sell two tickets to one movie. The two-volume format also amplified what some saw as a structural problem with the film: most of the action occurs in the first half, while most of the dialogue is in the second. Thus, the two volumes are significantly different in style and tone, causing some amount of confusion and disappointment in fans who came to Volume 1 looking for Tarantino's trademark dialogue, or who expected more flashy action sequences in Volume 2. Of Volume 2, Sean O’Connell of Filmcritic.com writes, "The drop-off in energy, style, and coherence from...Volume 1 to its bloated, disinteresting counterpart is so drastic and extreme that you can hardly believe they come from the same director, let alone conclude the same storyline." Other critics preferred Volume 2: "...Characters actually talk to one another here rather than the stilted samurai movie-speak of the first film," wrote Jeffery M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid. * Violence Much criticism concerned the amount and presentation of bloodshed and general mayhem (the film’s R rating also derives from profanity, depicted drug use, and a couple of non-explicit sex scenes). “A cocktail party in an abattoir,” complained one critic. The violence is not just incidental to the film’s narrative, it is a conscious part of the telling of the story—an aesthetic element, for better or worse. An example is the decapitation of Boss Tanaka prior to the House of Blue Leaves battle, in which an amount of blood seemingly greater than what a body could hold sprays upward from the headless trunk, like a dancing fountain. Style and substance Much of the controversy over the film reflects the differing expectations of those who admire a movie for its style and craftsmanship against those who look primarily at story and substance; as a tribute film and revenge saga, the movie is at a disadvantage with the latter group. “You never forget that ‘Kill Bill’ is an exercise in genre-sampling,” writes the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Caro. However, the opinion that the movie appeals mainly to film buffs looking to spot obscure pop culture references is a minority view. Most critics found it well-constructed, with tightly-edited action scenes, strong performances, often-clever dialogue, and an effectively exciting soundtrack which draws on an astonishing selection of (mostly post-1960) music. DVD release In the United States Kill Bill: Volume 1 was released as a DVD on April 13, 2004 while Volume 2 was released August 10, 2004. As of August 2006, only the basic DVDs have been released, with almost no special features. No further DVD releases have been announced. In a December 2005 interview, Tarantino addressed the lack of a special edition DVD for Kill Bill by stating "I've been holding off because I've been working on it for so long that I just wanted a year off from Kill Bill and then I'll do the big supplementary DVD package." The United States does not have a DVD boxed set of Kill Bill, though box sets of the two separate volumes are available in other countries, such as France and Japan. Upon the DVD release of Volume 2 in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive boxset slipcase to house the two individual releases together. Sequels Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly in April 2004 that he is planning a sequel: It is also worth noting that in the credits at the end of the film, each actor portraying a now-deceased DiVAS member has their name crossed out — but Elle Driver's name has, instead, a question mark over it. Prequels Quentin Tarantino said at the 2006 Comic Con that, after the completion of Grind House, he wants to make two anime Kill Bill films. One will be an origin film about Bill and his mentors, and the other will be an original tale with The Bride. The latter may be a prequel, or may follow the rumored (sequel) plot reported in Entertainment Weekly in April 2004. General The overall storyline of Kill Bill - a woman seeks revenge on a group of people, crossing them off a list one by one as she kills them - is adapted from Lady Snowblood (1973), a Japanese revenge film in which a woman kills off the gang who murdered her family; The Guardian commented that Lady Snowblood was "practically a template for the whole of Kill Bill Vol. 1".• The storyline also has strong similarities with Francois Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1967), which also features a bride hunting down the murderers of her husband and crossing them off a list. However, Tarantino has claimed this is a coincidence, since he has never seen the film.* Kill Bill pays tribute to film genres including the spaghetti western, blaxploitation, Chinese "wuxia" and Japanese martial arts films, and kung fu movies of the 60s and 70s. This last genre, which was largely produced by the Shaw Brothers, is given an obvious nod by the inclusion of the Shaw Scope logo * at the beginning of Kill Bill Vol. 1. The Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub series of Manga and films are echoed in the characters of the Bride and her daughter. The Americanized version of this series, Shogun Assassin, is actually viewed by the two characters. Specific allusions to other works Tarantino features direct nods to many of his influences in his movies. Here are some examples of this in Kill Bill: Specific allusions to other Tarantino films Quentin Tarantino also includes many references to his own previous works. Music The following are the tracks from the released Kill Bill Soundtrack CDs. Some tracks are not music, but are lines of dialogue from the films. Also, this is only a list of music on the soundtrack CDs, not a list of all music appearing in the film; for example, "I'm Blue" by the 5.6.7.8's is not included. Volume 1 Volume 2 Trivia
Cast | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
| |