OK time for another change of post, after all that sporty yellow balls bouncing around a square court game taking up too much blog space (almost 85% I'm sure!). This one is about another modern day classic: Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2, but for the sake of argument its all the same film, so I'm covering them together, so none of this, vol 1 is better than vol 2 because they are both the same film! And forgive me but THIS DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS!
Anyway with that out the way here's a bit more about the plot, 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 bride however miraculously survives the bullet, as she lies in a coma for four years in a hospital where one night just after that, she finds a big redneck trucker straddling her. The bride instantly kills the trucker and then kills the hospital worker "Buck" who has been pimping her out during her comatose state to people he knows for money. 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. 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. So cue part two....
And the bride carries on in the second part of the film in her journey to kill bill, where she seeks out Bill's brother, Budd (Michael Madsen), who shoots her full of rock salt and buries her alive in a coffin. But of course with the luck of a handy straight razor tucked away in her boot, and her incredible punching skills she learned from her former master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), the bride manages to break free of her coffin and crawl her way up out of the earth back up to the surface, ready for more revenge. After this Budd calls up one of his ex-viper squad members Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah, complete with cool eye patch) and asks if she would want to trade the bride's Hanzo sword for a million dollars. Elle comes along to Budd's cabin the next day and secretly stashes a black mamba snake in the suitcase of money, which kills of Budd. Then the bride, who by now, Elle has given away her real name as Beatrix Kiddo, confronts Elle in an intense fight, which Beatrix eventually wins by plucking out Elle's only remaining eye (the other one was plucked out by Pai Mei during her instruction). This now only leaves Bill and well you can imagine what goes on there........
For me 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 so on. And at the centre of it is a terrific performance from its lead actress Uma Thurman, who plays the part of the Bride (or Beatrix) so brilliantly. In fact one of the interesting aspects of the film is how the character of the bride develops, as in the first volume, we see her as a remorseless killing machine, who is purely on a mission of revenge, but in the second film, we get to see her become more human as a person. And in a way if I had to pick a favourite part it would be volume 2, simply because it is more character driven, and it helps to humanise Beatrix as well as rationalise Bill as a person too (well perhaps not rationalise but we do get where he was coming from in his actions). But both volumes add up to the same film and overall it is some achievement from Quentin Tarantino.
On a technical level I don't think Tarantino has made a better film either, 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 as well. 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", and in volume 2 his effective use of Ennio Morricone's western music, and "About Her" by Malcolm McLaren which is used to great effect also. 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 you can't help but listen to it. 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. I also love the way Tarantino particularly in the scene where Beatrix receives the cruel instruction from her kung-fu master Pai Mei, how uses the typical camera zoom-ins like you get in the old martial arts films. Its a great touch.
The film also has several harrowing scenes which stick in the mind also, and while the over the top bloody scenes in Volume 1 are never disturbing, in fact they are quite silly if nothing else, its the scenes where we see Beatrix suffer so much herself. A couple of scenes in particular are firstly 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 for that brief moment she 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. Which I have to say is one of the film's more disturbing aspects is the misogyny that it occassionally displays particularly in this scene, it reminds me of the scene from Pulp Fiction where Marcellus Wallace is being raped in a basement by hillbillies. Its almost like Quentin is going for the shock effect once again, just by making you think of the unthinkable. Another harrowing moment is when the bride, after she has been put in a coffin by Budd, we see her reaction from the inside as her coffin is trundled into the grave, and we hear the heavy sound of the dirt crash against the outer side of the coffin itself, with Beatrix panicking and crying each time she hears the dirt being shovelled on top. Its probably the film's most potent and distressing sequence, and it definitely captures that sense of intense claustrophobia too. One of Uma's best scenes though is when she enters Bill's house near the end of Volume 2, armed with a gun and she finds Bill, much to her amazement with their daughter, she almost falls to her knees, with shock, its a great moment in her performance.
But that's not to say that Kill Bill doesn't have any fun moments in it, of course it does, its a Tarantino film! The action sequences in particular a spectacular to watch, especially the bloody showdown at O-Ren's House of the dead leaves, with Beatrix/The Bride slicing and dicing her way through her enemies, and her fight with Elle in the second film is a particular highlight also. Another favourite for me is Beatrix's training under the cruel old Kung-fu master, Pai Mei, as he rides her hard in instructing her on the ways of kung-fu. There are some amusing characters along the way and plenty of enjoyable and crude dialogue, one of me favourite lines from the Bride is "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!".
Performance wise there are plenty of good ones, 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. Michael Madsen puts in a decent performance also as Bill's younger brother Budd, who once a high paid assassin, is now subjected to working in a third rate strip bar as a bouncer. And Daryl Hannah also is very good as the evil and sly Elle Driver, 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 a capable actress. 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!!!". 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 ("lazy bastard, get your ass out here!").
Perhaps though the only poor scene in Kill Bill is the end credits with Robert Rodriguez's fairly annoying Mexican music playing in the background, and how it shows all the character's over the music and his final caption for Beatrix's charcater that says "Beatrix Kiddo, aka Black maba, aka the bride, aka Mommy". Its just a bit cheesy. But its just one scene out of the film, the rest is grand.
However Kill Bill is definitely one of my favourite films and one of the best films in recent times of modern cinema. Tarantino has definitely contributed a great deal to American cinema over the years and here he gave it his masterpiece.
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