Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2

Kill Bill is a two part story by a man famous for his unique style of film making – Quentin Tarantino.

We’re introduced to ‘The Bride’ (Uma Thurman) – a woman whose name is kept secret throughout the most of the story, with a very obvious ‘bleep’ being played over any character who mentions her real name.

The Bride was, quite obviously, getting married when a group of assassins under the command of ‘Bill’ (David Carradine – lead actor in the Kung Fu series pioneered by Bruce Lee) march in and kill everyone in the room.  What they didn’t realise was that the Bride, although shot in the head, is still alive.

Having been pregnant at the time of the shooting, The Bride wakes up 4 years later from her coma, realising to herself that her unborn child is dead.

She then escapes, and carefully plans her vengeful martial arts rampage to kill everyone who was involved in the shooting 4 years earlier.

A Simple Revenge Story

Like the very best of martial arts and action films (in my opinion), the simpler the story the better.

The reason for this is that action junkies can follow a simple revenge plot like this, and soak up some cool action at the same time.

Another reason is with a simply storyline you can weave in a lot of reference and deeper meaning throughout, and like all great art provoke a lot of thought with something very simple.

Kill Bill is a good example of this as it is a simple revenge story but touches on a lot of themes as The Bride encounters each new obstacle.

The maternal instinct of a woman plays a pretty big role in this film as the Bride later tells of how she was a killer serving Bill, until the pregnancy strip turned blue (signifying that she is pregnant) and that she was no longer a killer but a mother.

Once her child is taken and (what she believes) killed, she goes wild on her rampage to kill Bill and take revenge for her daughter.  The movie then takes an unexpected Twist and when she learns her child is alive and living with Bill!

A Tribute to Martial Arts Cinema

If you’re looking for movie references – these 2 movies are packed!

The first movie showcases a very obvious Bruce Lee theme with the yellow and black striped jumpsuit that The Bride wears, while she fights of a heap of Henchmen wearing Kato masks (as referred to in the movie!), as Kato was a Japanese fighter played by (the Chinese) Bruce Lee in The Green Hornet.

Aside from the Bruce Lee references, I found the first volume to centre mostly around Japanese themes.  With the Bride getting herself a Samurai Sword made by Hattori Hanzo ( who is played by Sonny Chiba, star of Streetfighter, one of Tarantino’s all time favourite films) and fighting the end battle in Japan, this first chapter seems to revolve around Japanese martial arts a bit more heavily.

Even the Anime scene is colorful little nod to fans of Japanese Animation.

The second movie seems to have more Chinese references in it.  Especially when The Bride tells her story of training with Pai Mei – an evil Kung Fu master (referred to as ‘sifu’ – the Chinese term) played by Hong Kong martial arts legend Gordon Liu (who also played Johnny Mo of the Crazy 88 at the end of the first film).

Pai Mei’s character was absolutely brilliant and ruthless and will stick in my head as a role truly owned by Gordon Liu.  The way he moves and fights is so reminiscent of the old Shaw Brothers movies.  They even started the movies off by showing the old ‘Shaw scope’ screen! (like below)

Another top Chinese themed martial arts scene was one that was deleted! The scene with Michael Jai White and David Carradine, which is a top scene showing some good martial arts action.  Unfortunate it didn’t make the final cut.  But the references don’t stop there and I can’t possibly cover all of them.  All I can say is it’s packed and is awesome to watch for Martial Arts movies fans who’ve seen their fair share of classics.

The Action

The action wasn’t the best I’d seen, but it fit the feel of the film perfectly and had a good balance of various aspects of Martial Arts.

The best action in my opinion would have been the Bride fighting off the Crazy 88 at the end of Volume 1.  Although it seems quite obvious there’s a lot of scenes where a Uma had a stunt woman (or man, whatever!) step in, it was mixed in well and made for a excellent scene to watch.

The rest of the fight scenes weren’t too bad, and all had a Tarantino feel about the mood.

All in all it’s a decent martial arts movie but what really makes it is the references and classic characters – like my favorite Pai Mei.  That dude is just so friggin’ cool!

Would I Recommend it?

It’s not for kids, but otherwise it’s a great and unique movie paying homage to the classics.  A solid yes!