Kill Bill
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.
Like other Tarantino films, the sections of Kill Bill (called "chapters" in the film) are not presented in chronological order (see the Structure section below). A pre-credits, black-and-white sequence introduces us to The Bride (Thurman), a one-time member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad commanded by the Bride's former lover, the violent and mysterious Bill (Carradine). The pregnant Bride is bloody and bruised, having just been beaten by her former colleagues (although we are not told this explicitly at this time), presumably at Bill's behest. The Bride is heard telling Bill, "It's your baby," but as the words leave her mouth, Bill shoots her in the head.
Four-and-a-half years later, we see The Bride, alive and well, stopping at the suburban California home of
Vernita Green (Fox), codenamed "Copperhead", one of the members of the Deadly Vipers. Copperhead answers the door, and a vicious knifefight ensues, demolishing most of the living room. There is a dark-humored moment when Copperhead's daughter, Nikki, comes home from school, and the two women hide their knives and try to pretend that nothing happened. Over coffee, The Bride and Copperhead plan a moonlight battle later that evening, but Copperhead instead tries to shoot The Bride. She misses, and the Bride is able to impale her with her knife, sadly witnessed by the young girl. The chapter ends with The Bride looking at a notepad, featuring the names of the five assassins on her hit-list and crossing off Copperhead's. We see that it is not the first name to be crossed off, clueing us in to the out-of-sequence nature of the movie.
The second chapter is a flashback to a time beginning with the wedding assassination. A local lawman (Parks) surveying the crime scene, at which the entire wedding party has been massacred, discovers that The Bride is not dead. In a coma at a local hospital, she is confronted by fellow Deadly Viper
Elle Driver (Hannah), codenamed "
California Rattle Snake", who persumably has replaced her as Bill's lover, but this was not verified. Elle plans to kill the comatose Bride, but at the last minute Bill calls and tells her to abort the mission, since it would be beneath professional warriors to creep into a room 'like a 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 at the realization that her unborn child is no longer in her womb. At that moment, two men enter the room and the Bride fakes unconsciousness.
Buck, a hospital orderly, has been charging visitors to have sex with the comatose Bride for four years now. She kills Buck and his would-be customer before stealing the keys to Buck's pick-up truck, dubbed the Pussy Wagon.
From the back of Buck's truck, where the Bride works to revive her atrophied legs (in voice over, the bride speaks of willing her limbs out of 'entropy', a
solecism), she narrates the story of another Deadly Viper member,
O-Ren Ishii (Liu), codenamed "
Cottonmouth". This story is presented as a long and bloody anime sequence. As a young child, both of O-Ren's parents were killed by Japanese
Yakuza, an act witnessed by the hiding child. Carrying her anger onward, she later took revenge on the Yakuza head before becoming a very successful assassin herself.
The story returns to the "present", as the Bride regains use of her legs and boards a plane to Okinawa. There she searches for
Hattori Hanzo (Chiba), a famous maker of swords. 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 the years since the assassination, O-Ren has become the first female leader of the Yakuza council, and her sensitivity toward her Chinese-American heritage is demonstrated when she decapitates a man for mocking her nationality. The Bride gets into O-Ren's current hangout, a club known as the House of Blue Leaves. She cuts off the arm of Sophie Fatale, O-Ren's lawyer, and then proceeds to take on O-Ren's henchmen, including O-Ren's personal bodyguard, the seventeen year-old girl named Gogo Yubari, who wields a weapon known as a 'flying guillotine'. After dispatching the subordinates, she is confronted by the bulk of O-Ren's army, the "Crazy 88's." They all suffer grisly death or mutilation at the edge of her sword (with the exception of one "soldier", who is literally spanked with the blunt end of the Bride's sword then told to run away) in a sequence of sustained, graphic violence. The 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, the Bride succeeds in scalping O-Ren with her blade, killing her. She deposits the dismembered Sophie 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.
Note: It is revealed in
Volume 2 that The Bride's real name is Beatrix Kiddo. Though this does not occur until past the halfway point, Beatrix is the name used throughout this section to avoid confusion. It is also revealed that
Budd is Bill's brother.
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 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 chews him out 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 codename). Elle lectures Budd on the black mamba as he dies, noting that Black Mamba also means Death Incarnate, lamenting that "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 and 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 the Bride did not kill Budd directly. However, as aforementioned, Black Mamba is her codename...therefore, she killed him after a fashion. Likewise, if she had not hunted Budd down initially, he would not have been killed anyway.
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, with neither gaining a clear advantage until Elle manages to unsheath 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.
 |
The Bride vs. Elle. |
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 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 falls to the ground and thrashes about wildly, cursing and threatening Beatrix. Beatrix calmly collects her Hanzo sword and departs, leaving Elle blind and alone (except for the still-hissing mamba) in the secluded trailer.
 |
The Bride vs. Bill. |
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, whom 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 that 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.
 |
Beatrix and B.B. |
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, then shoots her with a dart filled with truth serum. 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 towards her by saying "There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard… You experienced some of them…"
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 saying "Thank you". Regaining her composure, she runs to her daughter to start their new life together.
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:*Chapter One: (2)
*Chapter Two: The blood-splattered BRIDE
*Chapter Three: The Origin of O-Ren
*Chapter Four: The MAN From OKINAWA
*Chapter Five: Showdown at House of Blue Leaves
*Chapter Six: Massacre at Two Pines
*Chapter Seven: The lonely grave of Paula Schultz
*Chapter Eight: The Cruel Tutelage of
Pai Mei*Chapter Nine: ELLE and I
*Last Chapter: Face to Face
Chronological order:*Chapter Three: The Origin of O-Ren
*Chapter Eight: The Cruel Tutelage of
Pai Mei*Chapter Six: Massacre at Two Pines
*Chapter Two: The blood-splattered BRIDE
*Chapter Four: The MAN From OKINAWA
*Chapter Five: Showdown at House of Blue Leaves
*Chapter One: (2)
*Chapter Seven: The lonely grave of Paula Schultz
*Chapter Nine: ELLE and I
*Last Chapter: Face to Face
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.
[Kill Bill (Volume 1) A Film Review James Berardinelli, movie-reviews.colossus.net, 2003, accessed August 7, 2006]The two-volume format produced another result: the partitioning ended up putting most of the action in the first volume and most of the dialogue in the second, creating a subtle but noticeable difference in tone. 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."
[Kill Bill: Volume 2, a film review Sean O'Connell and Jeremiah Kipp, 2004. accessed August 7, 2006] Others preferred Volume 2, perhaps because of the relative paucity of sharp, Tarantino-trademark dialogue in its predecessor.
A bloody affair
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.
[a Rotten Tomatoes review by Paul Arendt, Teletext UK, accessed August 7, 2006] 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 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. This treatment of human beings as apparent high-pressure vats of blood has its roots in both Japanese live action and anime films. (See Kurosawa's
Sanjuro, or chambara films of the 70s such as
Shogun Assassin.)
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. [
1] However, the opinion that the movie appeals mainly to film buffs looking to spot obscure pop culture references could be considered a minority view. [
2][
3] 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. [
4]
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NECA action figure released 2004. |
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.
Before the release of
Volume 1, Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax, commented on future multiple releases of the
Kill Bill DVDs: "This is the beauty of having two volumes—
Vol. 1 goes out,
Vol. 2 goes out, then
Vol. 1 Special Edition,
Vol. 2 Special Edition, the two-pack, then the Tarantino collection as a boxed set out for Christmas. It's called multiple bites at the apple. And you multiply this internationally."
However,
as of August 2006, only the basic DVDs have been released, with almost no special features. No further DVD releases have been announced.
In March 2005, Tarantino explained , "It's the Japanese version, that's why I call it that, you know, it should probably come out in the next few months. It's going to be NC-17 in America. We couldn't do that when Disney owned the place but now Disney's the fuck outta there we can do anything we want! It's gonna be off the hook!"
[Focus On: Tarantino Talks, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, by Joe Utichi, FilmFocus.co.uk, date unknown, accessed August 77 2006]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."
[1 ContactMusic.com Tarantino Brings Kill Bills Together ContactMusic.com, December 21, 2005, accessed August 7.006]Though the United States doesn't have a DVD boxed set of
Kill Bill, other countries carry four disc boxed sets of both of these movies combined. Japan, for example, has limited-edition boxed sets of Vol.1 and Vol.2, Uncut, with lots of special features. The Vol.1 boxed set includes a t-shirt, a model of the Hattori Hanzō Sword, and a collectable booklet. There is also a French DVD set which has four discs. including both versions of the film).
Sequels
Tarantino told
Entertainment Weekly in April 2004 that he is planning a sequel:
Oh yeah, initially I was thinking this would be my Dollars Trilogy. I was going to do a new one every ten years. But I need at least fifteen years before I do this again.I've already got the whole mythology: Sofie Fatale will get all of Bill's money. She'll raise Nikki, who'll take on The Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as The Bride deserved hers. I might even shoot a couple of scenes for it now so I can get the actresses while they're this age.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.
[Rodriguez and Tarantino Present Grindhouse!, Blake Wright on ComingSoon.net, July 22, 2006, accessed August 7, 2006][SDCC '06: Tarantino Confirms More Kill Bill!, Bloody-Disgusting.com, July 22, 2006, accessed August 7, 2006]General
The plot to
Kill Bill is in some ways an elaborate extrapolation of the
television pilot to the non-existent television show described by Uma Thurman's character to John Travolta's character in
Pulp Fiction.
Kill Bill also relies heavily on film influences that Tarantino wished to pay tribute to. These include the
spaghetti western,
blaxploitation and
kung fu movies of the 1960s and 1970s,
Chinese "
wuxia" and
Japanese
martial arts films,
revenge-themed movies such as
Lady Snowblood. There are also several references to other films either written and/or directed by Tarantino. Some elements of the story and the character Elle Driver in particular are inspired by the
Swedish movie
Thriller - en grym film. Tarantino also used the Japanese
Lone Wolf and Cub series of Manga and films as an influence on the Bride and her daughter.
Lady Snowblood
Out of all the works Tarantino drew upon, the links to
Lady Snowblood are perhaps the easiest to see. The most significant is that the idea of Uma Thurman's character in
Kill Bill having a "list" of four enemies to kill is exactly the same as in
Lady Snowblood. Another instrument adopted for Tarantino's film was the use of chapters to structure the film. Even in the film itself, one can pick out specific scenes that can show the relationship between the two films. The scene where Sofie Fatale writhes on the floor after her arm is sliced off is mirrored to a similar one in
Lady Snowblood, including the blood that splashes on the camera lens. The
Kill Bill review in the
UK newspaper The Guardian commented
"Lady Snowblood, in particular, is practically a template for the whole of Kill Bill Vol. 1.."[
5]
Specific allusions to other works
Tarantino also features direct nods to many of his influences in his movies. Here are some examples of this in
Kill Bill:
*The Bride describes her vendetta as "what the movie advertisements call 'a roaring rampage of revenge'." This was the tagline to the 1972 B-movie "biker-chick-flick"
Bury Me an Angel, about an angry, sexy blonde who sets out to kill the bikers that murdered her brother. The full alliteration-heavy tagline was
"A howling hell-cat humping a hot steel hog on a roaring rampage of revenge!"
* During the scene where the Texas Ranger is driving to the chapel, the view from the car with the pilot glasses on the dashboard is taken from the 1974 film Gone in 60 Seconds by H.B. Halicki.
* Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, played by Michael Parks, appeared in the opening of From Dusk Till Dawn, which was written by Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez. One could infer that the Texas Ranger's scenes in Kill Bill take place before the events of Dusk
, since his character dies in that movie. Parks is rumored to be playing the character again in the Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration, Grind House.
* "Revenge is a dish best served cold.- Old
Klingon Proverb
" " This proverb as it is referenced is from Star Trek VI, as well as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It is also used in the spaghetti western Death Rides a Horse
(1968) (Kill Bill
used music from Death Rides a Horse
). Lee Van Cleef's character paraphrases the quote saying, "Somebody once wrote that revenge is a dish that has to be eaten cold. Hot as you are, you're liable to end up with indigestion." However the origin of the proverb is difficult to determine (See Quotations on revenge for its history). In addition, Don Corelone tells Michael this statement in the Godfather novel, perhaps the first to use it in mass media.
* The siren-like music (actually the theme from the television program Ironside
) is an homage to Five Fingers of Death, in which the siren-like music is played during fights.
* The use of music and stylish flashbacks when the Bride is about to deal out vengeance recalls John Phillip Law's flashbacks in Death Rides a Horse.
* Death Rides a Horse
is also referenced in the animated sequence in which a young O-Ren witnesses her parents' murder, where the last man to leave the room shoots a bottle of alcohol and kicks a cigar butt, causing the house to set on fire. In Death Rides a Horse
, a young boy named Bill hides as he watches the death of his parents, and the last attacker shoots a lantern, setting the house ablaze as he leaves.
* Chapter 2 is entitled "The Blood Splattered Bride," a reference to the movie La Novia Ensangrentada
(1972) (released in the US as The Blood Spattered Bride
).
* The Bride's yellow jumpsuit is based on one worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death.
* The masks worn by the members of the Crazy 88 are the same style that Bruce Lee's character Kato wore in the TV series The Green Hornet. The music played during the Yakuza and Bride's heading for the teahouse before the en-masse swordfight is also a nod to the series, which used Al Hirt's jazzy trumpet rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" as its theme. These two homages to Bruce Lee's work combine in the Crazy 88 fight to pit Bruce Lee's first screen incarnation (Kato) against his last (Game of Death
). Bruce Lee was snubbed for the lead role in the Kung Fu
TV series in favor of David Carradine (Bill). Kato usually had to wear his black mask and did not get many lines or close-ups with his mask off. Tarantino, paying homage to the success of Asian cinema with Kill Bill, has the vindicated "Game of Death" incarnation of Lee defeating the "Black Mask" version of Lee. And, of course, the film ends with the defeat of David Carradine's character.
* Several songs from Italian composer Ennio Morricone appear throughout the two films. These include tracks from A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Navajo Joe, The Mercenary, and Death Rides a Horse.
* The use of the rock song "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" is both an allusion to the Yakuza film Battles Without Honour and Humanity (directed by Kinji Fukasaku) and Samurai Fiction. The song's composer/performer, Tomoyasu Hotei, both acted in and contributed music to Samurai Fiction
, which in its own way refers back to Tarantino's Pulp Fiction
and Reservoir Dogs
.
* The kung-fu film Master of the Flying Guillotine is paid homage to by the brief use of the film's droning theme music, an excerpt of the song "Super 16" by Neu!, during the House of Blue Leaves sequence. Many kung-fu sound effects are taken from this movie as well.
*Just before Beatrix walks out from the chapel to meet Bill during her wedding rehearsal, there is a shot of a highly illuminated desertscape through an open doorway; this is a shot made famous from the 1956 John Ford/John Wayne feature The Searchers.
*The move the Bride utilizes with two katanas (when she is surrounded by Crazy 88 members in the House of Blue Leaves) is a reference from Bruce Lee's The Chinese Connection. The way she attacks low and disables her opponents is a mirror reference to the way the surrounded Bruce Lee used nunchucks against his opponents. There is even the same air of suspense before each fight scene.
* The scene in which O-Ren Ishii walks down a hall followed by some of the Crazy 88 is similar to a scene in A Clockwork Orange in which Alex is walking with his "droogs".
* The phrase "My name is Buck, and I'm here to fuck..." has a striking resemblance to the phrase "My name is Buck and I'm ready to fuck!" from Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive.
* The scene in the House of Blue Leaves in which the three bodyguards fall simultaneously after the Bride strikes the hilt of her sword with her fist is almost identical to a scene in Shogun Assassin
when the titular character and his son confront female ninja.
* The end of the duel between between Beatrix and O-Ren is very similar to the duel between Musashi and Kojiro in the third picture of Samurai Trilogy starring Toshiro Mifune. Both have the two enemies running parallel to each other, a simulataneous strike, a blood spatter without showing who was cut, and then the loser falling. This same scene has been replicated and imitated countless times in various other Japanese forms of media, especially anime.
* The blue lit silhouettes during the House of Blue Leaves fight are very similar to scenes using colored light and contrast in Samurai Fiction, as well as the climactic scene from Highlander.
* The film has a very similar plot to Five Deadly Venoms.
* The Elle Driver characters is influenced by the character Patch from Switchblade Sisters which Tarantino has released under his Rolling Thunder imprint.
* During the scene where The Bride
discovers she is pregnant, a shot of her foot bent is a reference to Pulp Fiction as a similar shot is taken when Mia Wallace (also played by Uma Thurman) prepares to dance at the Jack Rabbit Slim's.
* The character of Pai Mei, priest of the White Lotus Clan, has appeared in other movies. Actor Lieh Lo played him in Executioners from Shao Lin (Hung Hsi-Kuan)
, Abbot of Shaolin (Shao Lin ying xiong bang)
, and Clan of the White Lotus (Hung wen tin san po pai lien chiao)
, which also featured Gordon Liu. The character is based on Bak Mei, a historical martial artist from China.
* The character of is based on a historical figure who has been depicted in film many times. Actor Sonny Chiba played the role in the television series . Actor Kenji Oba (aka. Kenji Ohba) also played the role in the television series Kage no Gundan
; the character of bald guy (Sushi shop) is based on who appears in that work. Sonny Chiba and Kenji Ohba are actually teacher and student's relations. They played together also in Uchuu Keiji Gavan and affected Paul Verhoeven's Robocop.
* The scene in Kill Bill Volume 2
were David Caradine plays his flute, while sitting near the fire and talks to Beatrix is almost identical to a similar scene in Circle Of Iron, which Caradine also stared in.
* In Volume 2, Bill tells the Bride that she is a 'Natural Born Killer'. Quentin Tarantino wrote for that movie.
* A Japanese character in this film is dubbed Charlie Brown for his resemblance to the cartoon character. In the film Lost in Translation'', there is a Japanese character called "Charlie Brown", although he does not resemble his namesake.
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.
#"Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" "
Nancy Sinatra #"That Certain Female" "
Charlie Feathers #"The Grand Duel (Parte Prima)" "
Luis Enrique Bacalov#"Twisted Nerve" "
Bernard Herrmann#"Queen of the Crime Council" "
Lucy Liu/
Julie Dreyfus#"Ode to Oren Ishii" "
RZA#"Run Fay Fun" "
Isaac Hayes#"Green Hornet" "
Al Hirt#"Battle Without Honor or Humanity" "
Tomoyasu Hotei#"
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" "
Santa Esmeralda#"
Woo Hoo" "
5.6.7.8's #"Crane-White Lightning" " RZA/
Charles Bernstein#"The Flower of Carnage" "
Meiko Kaji#"The Lonely Shepherd" "
Zamfir#"You're My Wicked Life" "
David Carradine#"Ironside" "
Quincy Jones#"Super 16" "
NEU!#"Yakuza Oren 1" " RZA#"Banister Fight" " RZA#"Flip Sting"#"Sword Swings"#"Axe Throws"
#"A Few Words From The Bride" "
Uma Thurman#"Goodnight Moon" "
Shivaree#"Il Tramonto" "
Ennio Morricone#"Can't Hardly Stand It" " Charlie Feathers#"Tu Mirá [Edit]" "
Lole Y Manuel#"Motorcycle Circus" "
Luis Bacalov#"The Chase" "
Alan Reeves,
Phil Steele And
Philip Brigham#"The Legend Of Pai Mei" " David Carradine And Uma Thurman#"L'arena" " Ennio Morricone#"A Satisfied Mind" "
Johnny Cash#"A Silhouette Of Doom" " Ennio Morricone#
"About Her" "
Malcolm McLaren#"Truly And Utterly Bill" " David Carradine And Uma Thurman#"Malagueña Salerosa" "
Chingon#"Urami Bushim" " Meiko Kaji
*When Vernita Green shoots at the Bride, the gun is in a box of cereal named "Kaboom!" Tarantino is known for his love of cereals that are no longer manufactured, and it is likely he purposefully chose that particular brand due to its final use.
*Budd falsely claims to have pawned his
Hattori Hanzō sword in
El Paso, Texas. In
Pulp Fiction,
Butch Coolidge finds a samurai sword in a
Los Angeles pawn shop.
*In Chapter Five: "Showdown at House of Blue Leaves", before the fight scene when Beatrix Kiddo walks over a clear glass tiled floor, the phrase "FUCK U" forms the tread pattern on the soles of her sneakers.
*Upon arriving in Japan in Volume 1, Beatrix walks past a large sign advertising Red Apple cigarettes. In
Pulp Fiction, Butch Coolidge asks a bartender for a pack of Red Apple cigarettes after speaking with Marcellus Wallace. The character Jackie Brown also walks past a similar sign in the airport from the opening scene of
Jackie Brown.*Two of the Crazy 88 swords were later used by Miho (
Devon Aoki) in the screen adaptation of
Sin City.
*During Bill's interrogation of Beatrix, he says that she is a "natural born killer," a reference to the movie
Natural Born Killers, for which Tarantino wrote the initial screenplay.
*The flute which Bill is seen playing both outside the chapel and prior to Beatrix's training is the same flute carried by another of David Carradine's characters, Caine, of
Kung Fu fame.
*"Run Fay Run", a song from the first film, was also featured in the cult classic
Gayniggers From Outer Space.
*When facing the shotgun-wielding assassin, Karen, Beatrix calls herself "the deadliest woman in the world." In
Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace describes her character in the failed television pilot "Fox Force Five" as "the deadliest woman in the world with a knife." Interestingly, Karen is able to block Beatrix' knife with her shotgun.
*Quentin Tarantino has confirmed that the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS) was based on the unnamed characters of "Fox Force Five" in
Pulp Fiction.
*When Beatrix is buried alive in Chapter Seven: "The lonely grave of Paula Schultz", the razor she pulls from her boot to escape is a reference to Michael Madsen's character in
Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Blonde, who used an identical razor to cut off a police officer's ear.
*In the videogame
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, the player is tasked with completing a mission called "Crazy '69'" (an allusion to the 'Crazy 88'). In the mission, the player must use a katana to kill rival gang members; upon completion, a jumpsuit identical to Uma Thurman's (yellow with black stripes) is awarded to the player, also the main character of the game, Toni Cipriani, was originally acted by Michael Madsen.
*The Japanese release of
Volume 1 begins with a dedication to
Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku, director of
Battles Without Honour and Humanity.
*The film also features an
anime sequence explaining O-Ren's
tragic backstory. It is directed by
Kazuto Nakazawa, who also directed the
Linkin Park video for "
Breaking The Habit", with the animation studio
Production I.G, producers of
Ghost in the Shell among other works.
*
|
The Bride's boarding pass (click for a larger view). |
During
Volume 1, The Bride's real name is bleeped out when characters say it. However, The Bride's real name is present on her boarding pass for her flights to Okinawa and Tokyo. Before Bill shoots her in the head, he refers to her as "Kiddo", which turns out to be her actual last name rather than a simple
nickname.
*The name "Beatrix Kiddo" is also hinted at in an exchange between O-Ren and The Bride. They quote the long-running
Trix cereal slogan "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids". This plays on The Bride's real name, Beatrix Kiddo (rab-BIT TRIX...KIDS), and may also be a reference to the author of
Peter Rabbit,
Beatrix Potter.
[Smith, J. Tarantino. Virgin Books Ltd. pp. 212. ISBN 0753510715]*While the American cut of the movie shows the violent battle at the House of Blue Leaves in
black-and-white, the Japanese cut shows it in
color. The "Color Cut" of this film segment is highly sought after by fans, but has not been officially distributed outside Japan. Parts of the color version
are available in the original trailer for the film, back when it was going to be a single movie, along with the deleted scene featuring
Michael Jai White.
*The Crazy 88: in China, "
88" is an auspicious number, much like 7 in the west. See
8 (number) for more on the luck factor associated with it. In Japan, it is most often associated with the 88-temple Shikoku pilgrimage. While Bill claimed in Volume 2 that "There aren't really 88 [members in the groups], they just thought it sounded cool", Quentin Tarantino contradicted this in an interview with
Eiga HIHO magazine, stating "because O-Ren is half-Chinese and half-Japanese, so is her army. So there's 44 Chinese people and 44 Japanese people! But that's part of the mythology I would only go into if I wrote a book."
Four, in China and Japan, is a homophone for death and is considered a very unlucky number. However, 44 and 44 make 88, a lucky number.
*In contrast to her murderous rampage in Volume 1, The Bride kills only one person in Volume 2, and not with her sword.
*The alias she used on her marriage certificate is 'Arlene Machiavelli'.
Niccolò Machiavelli advocated faking one's own death as a strategy to fool enemies. The Bride is presumed as good as dead until she wakes up from her 4-year coma and goes after her enemies. The name may also be a reference to
Nicoletta Machiavelli, an actress from
Navajo Joe.
*Both volumes are rated
R in the
U.S., and
18 in the
UK. In
Australia,
Volume 1 is rated
R18+ in the cinema and on home video, but rated
MA15+ on television, and
Volume 2 is rated MA15+ in cinemas, home video, and television.
*At the beginning of
Volume 1, the
Shaw Brothers logo and music is played after the Miramax logo. Tarantino explained that he wanted to pay tribute to the studio, which produced many kung fu movies in the 60's and 70's.
*In the
CSI episode, "Grave Danger" (written and directed by Tarantino), Gil Grissom says, "Any other time you would be 100 percent right, but this time you're 100 percent wrong." This same quote is spoken by the Bride to assassin Karen Kim in
Kill Bill Volume 2. "Grave Danger" also featured a character trapped and buried alive in a coffin.
*The extreme close-up of the bride's face as she looks down upon Budd's trailer in
Kill Bill Volume 2 shows the reflection of the cameraman in her eyes.
*The ending of the film is an homage to the ending of
Oliver Stone's 1994 film
Natural Born Killers based on a screenplay by Tarantino.
*
Official web site — Adult language
*
Kill Bill in 120 Seconds*
Everything Tarantino unofficial fan site
*
The Quentin Tarantino Archives international fansite and community
*
Production I.G on the Kill Bill Anime Sequences Article from CGSociety.org
