Right well this is a chance for me to redo and extended another of my posts, which was on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 1 and Volume 2, which I did as one post. But this time I thought I would split it into two separate posts for Volume 1 and Volume 2, so that's what I'm going to do with Tarantino's masterwork. So without further ado let's get the samurai swords out and get ready for battle.... (well not literally!).
So beginning with a bit more about the plot of Vol 1, which
starts with the blood spattered "bride" (Uma Thurman) who lies on the
floor of a church in El Paso Texas, after her groom to be and her
friends have been ruthlessly gunned down, by her former lover Bill
(David Carradine) and his team of assassins, the Deadly Viper squad
(Lucy Lui, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen and Daryl Hannah). Just before
Bill puts a bullet in his bride's head, she tells him that she is
pregnant with his baby. The story then cuts to four years later where The Bride arrives at the house of one of the Viper squad, Vernita Green (Vivica Fox) where they both engage in fierce hand to hand combat, which is interrupted by the arrival of Vernita's young daughter, after which they both stop fighting and talk. The Viper gang has since been disbanded and now Vernita lives a more ordinary suburban life and Vernita persuades the Bride into having a knife fight at night. Vernita however then tries to kill the Bride with a gun hidden in a breakfast cereal packet, but the Bride manages to dodge the bullet and kills Vernita by throwing a knife into her chest, which the daughter witnesses and the Bride apologises for doing so in front of her and if she still feels raw about it later on, she will be waiting.
The story then shows in flashback that the Bride had indeed survived the
bullet, as she lies in a coma for four years in a hospital and one night one of the Viper gang, Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) tries to kill her by using a lethal injection, but is called off by a phone call from Bill. One
night the Bride suddenly awakens from her coma, just before a hospital worker, Buck (Michael Bowen) enters with a trucker and offers him to use the Bride for sex (for money of course) only then for the Bride to spring to life, killing the trucker and then Buck, after which she steals Buck's truck. The bride then travels to Okinawa to find the
legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba) and she asks that he
make her a sword, which he eventually does after she drops Bill's name.
After a month or so, Hanzo finishes the sword and the bride leaves with
it, to start her bloody revenge against the Deadly Viper squad,
starting with O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) who is by now the leader of the
Tokyo yakuza and she follows them to a Japanese restaurant. What ensues is a very bloody (not to mention very
spurty!) fight sequence as the bride takes on O-Ren's bodyguards, her
crazed 17 year associate Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama) and also the
"crazy 88" who are O-Ren's hit squad, and ultimately O-Ren herself who she faces in the film's final confrontation....
Overall for me I think Kill Bill has
to be Quentin Tarantino's best film, as it is such a brilliant
combination of different styles of film, from action to thriller, to
western, to eastern to anime and Volume 1 really pulls the viewer into that world straight away with its dazzling and violent imagery. And the film opens in such a dramatic way with the bride panting heavily as we see her bloody face as Bill stands over her he wipes her face before he puts a bullet in her head it sets the tone of the film perfectly as we know already its a revenge tale and its going to get very messy (and bloody!).
And performance
wise there are plenty of good ones with Uma Thurman giving a terrific performance in the main role as the Bride and she must go through just about every emotion there is an actress during both films, but in Volume 1 she is also for the most part very stern, steely and focused in her quest for revenge despite one or two moments where she allows for the odd bit of levity. And Thurman has several highlights throughout both Volumes and one of the first scenes that comes to mind is the one where she
wakes up from her coma, she looks down at her stomach at a wound where
presumably her aborted child was taken from, and she screams and sobs
uncontrollably. Its a great moment in Uma's performance and the most distressing moments in the film and for that
brief moment the Bride has to deal with her grief all at once, before she is
interrupted, by the scumbag hospital worker, who has used her inert body
for sex. This also does of course lead into the moment where the Bride kills the trucker and then stabs Buck and jams his head in the door and slams it several times and she notices the tatoo of his name on his knuckles and she says "Your name is Bud, right? And you came here to fuck, RIGHT???!!!" before finishing him off. Uma also get's some good lines as the Bride such as the scene where climbs into Buck's truck and looks at her inert feet (one thing I have to say is Uma has ugly feet!) and she says to herself "Now wiggle your big toe" and then she narrates "As I sat in the
back of Buck's truck, trying to will my limbs out of entrophy I could
see the faces of cunts that did this to me and the dicks responsible!".
Another good scene for Uma is at the start where the Bride engages in an intense fist fight with Vernita and they have to stop the fight when Vernita's daughter arrives home from school. And after they talk in the kitchen and Vernita tries to kill the Bride, who kills her with a knife, the daughter walks back in, impassive, the Bride says to her "It was not my intention to do this in front of you, for that I'm sorry. But take it from me, your mother had it coming! If later when you're all grown up, if you still feel raw about it.... I'll be waiting". Also there is moment where the Bride narrates and says of O-Ren "Four years ago she played her part in the massacre of 9 people in El Paso, Texas. But she made one fatal mistake. She should have made it ten!". And then there is her great fight scene against the Crazy 88 where the Bride slices and dices O-Ren's men and as she deals with the last one, who is a small guy, terrified, in a fun moment she cuts down his blade and grabs him and bends him over and whips his ass with her blade yelling "THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR FUCKING AROUND WITH THE YAKUZAS!!! GO HOME TO YOUR MOTHER!!!". Then there is the scene where Uma as the Bride get's to show a little of her human side where she travels to Okinawa to meet Hanzo and Hanzo asks why she came and she said she is here to meet "Hatori Hanzo" which sends a shiver down Hanzo's spine. And the two of them talk in Japanese and the Bride says "I need Japanese steel!" and Hanzo says "Why do you need Japanese steel?" and the Bride coldly says "I have vermin to kill!" and Hanzo "You must have some big rats if you need Japanese steel" and Bride says "Huge!".
David Carradine is especially good
as Bill, the man himself, who has a world weary charm but also shows
that he's a killer and a vicious bastard through and through. You never of course see Carradine in Vol 1 as you only sees his hands and hear his voice and Carradine's voice really lends a weighty gravelly tone to the character, which works perfectly. Carradine's best scene comes where he talks with Elle on the phone, whilst she is at the hospital ready to kill off the Bride. And Carradine get's some good lines in the scene where Bill says to Elle "Y'all beat the hell out of that woman, but you didn't kill her. And I put a bullet in her head and her heart kept on beating. We've done alot of things to lady and if she ever wakes up, we'll do whole lot more. But one thing we won't do is sneak into her room in the night like a filthy rat and kill her in her sleep. And the reason we won't do that thing is because.... that thing will lower us!".
Lucy Liu is also great as the deadly and foxy
O-Ren Ishii, and her best scene is where she stampedes down the table
in her conference room and beheads one of her impertinent associates
(complete with blood fountain spurting!) and calmly tells her people
that if you have problem with her, tell her so, before she shouts "So if
any of you sonsabitches has anything else to say NOW'S THE FUCKING
TIME!!!". Later on Lucy has a good fight scene with Uma, as O-Ren and the Bride engage in battle, also before the Crazy 88 arrive we hear the sound of their motorcycles grow louder from the distance after the Bride has killed off a handful of O-Ren's bodyguards. And O-Ren smiles and says to the Bride looking down from her balcony "You didn't really think it would be that easy did you?" and the Bride smiles back saying "You know for a second there, I thought it would". And O-Ren says "Silly rabbit!" and they both say together "tricks are for kids!".
Sonny Chiba's cameo appearance is also very entertaining as
Hattori Hanzo, once a great swordswith, who vowed never to make another
sword again, and now spends his time as a Sushi chef, arguing with his
suborindate employee. And his scenes with Uma are fun to watch, especially when she first arrives in Okinawa and he demands he assistant to get the Bride some sake, who says he's busy, and Hanzo sighs saying "Lazy bastard! Get your ass out here!". And later when Hanzo shows the Bride his collection of swords and she takes one of them out of its sheath and he says to her "Funny you like Saumrai swords... I like baseball!" and he throws a baseball at her, which the Bride slices in half with precision. And the Bride then reminds him that her vermin is a former student of his and "given the student you have a rather large obligation!" leading Hanzo to quietly go over to the window and writing Bill's name in the frosted window before telling her "You can sleep here. It will take me a month to make the sword. I suggest you spend that time practicing".
And lastly Daryl Hannah also is very good in her brief role as the evil and sly Elle Driver, who wears and eyepatch on one eye and her character appears more in Volume 2. And after seeing Daryl give some pretty so-so
performances in films from the 1980s such as Roxanne, and Wall Street,
what she does do really well in this film is ham it up, and shows that
she is in her own way a capable actress. Hannah only really has one scene in the film which is a memorable one where Elle attempts to kill off the Bride while she is in her coma in hospital but Bill phones her and calls it off. And after Elle says to the inert Bride "I bet you thought that was pretty fuckin funny didn't you?! Word of advice, shithead. Don't you ever wake up!".
As for Quentin Tarantino
direction wise I don't think he has made a better film as his mix of skilfull camera work, and
brilliant use of Japanese anime, and superb photography from Robert
Richardson all add up to a visual treat for the viewer. And
without a doubt, his choice of soundtrack is as ever terrific,
especially in volume 1 where it opens up with Nancy Sinatra's "Bang
Bang", the cheesy but highly effective use of the theme from "Quincy". I
also can't forget to mention the infuriatingly catchy 5, 6, 7, 8's
"Woo-hoo" which is annoying but at the same time it is also strangely quite enjoyable. In general Tarantino has a like for 1970s funk music, and
plenty of it permeates throughout the whole film, abd he uses it very
well, especially tracks like "Ray Fan Ray" by Isaac Hayes in the anime
scene with O-Ren killing one of her targets as an assassin. Also he can't resist throwing in the theme from the "Green Hornet" during the scene where the Bride drives the streets of Tokyo as she follows O-Ren and her entourage. And lastly there is of course the track "Battle without honor or humanity" by the Japanese musician, Tomoyasu Hotei, which became very popular as a result of the film and is used well in the slo-mo scene of O-Ren and her bodyguards walking into the restaurant where the Bride will later do battle with O-Ren and her men.
Getting onto the flaws of Volume 1.... well its a great film so overall nothing too glaring but what I would say is from a character point of view, what the bride has to endure is pretty horrendous, and Tarantino seems almost delight in putting his characters through the unbearable and the downright harrowing. This is perfectly highlighted in the scene where the Bride is being used for sex whilst she lies in a coma in hospital, which is quite horrific in itself and it again it kind of highlights a rather mysognistic tone to the film, which could be levelled at some of Tarantino's other work. I also felt in a way that the Bride's character was less likeable in the first film and more difficult to relate to as she is largely more as a remorseless killer than anything else, who is consumed with revenge and its only in the scene where the Bride meets with Hanzo in Okinawa we get to see some of her charm start to emerge. Volume 2 would however go on to address this but in a way it does serve to potentially alienate some viewers. Another concern could also come from the level of violence in the film as it is pretty OTT in terms of the blood spurting as in the big bloody fight scene with the Crazy 88, its almost like the actors were fitted with sprinkler attachments so the blood could fly anywhere at all! Despite that though Tarantino does somewhat succeed in making it all entertaining and overall it isn't too disturbing to watch but the Crazy 88 bloody battle is certainly not a scene for those with a weak stomach. And Tarantino also skilfully cuts between colour and black and white once it starts to get really bloody (and then back again) and he amusingly uses the catchy song "Nobody but me" by the Human Beinz, which undercuts the harshness of the violence onscreen, which again highlights Tarantino's maxim that he sees violence as a form of entertainment.
But that put aside Kill Bill Volume 1 is a great film and remains one of Tarantino's career highlights.
And I will be back soon with the new post for Volume 2.
See you soon!
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