Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and some sexual content (Volume 1)
Rated R for violence, language and brief drug use (Volume 2)
There's really no way to talk about Kill Bill as two separate movies. The two volumes are two halves of one story, that story was originally planned and filmed as one movie before it was split in two (which meant that no scenes had to be cut), Quentin Tarantino has screened the original, four-hour cut as one movie titled Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, and last week, Popcorn Frights screened the two volumes back-to-back, treating them as a single movie for all intents and purposes with the time between the two volumes used as an intermission. If you're gonna talk about 'em, you may as well talk about 'em as one big movie, arguably Tarantino's magnum opus in terms of just going wild with every cool idea he's had in his career and making what would be, to a '90s film geek raised on '70s kung fu flicks, grindhouse sleaze, and the aisles of the video store he once worked at, the ultimate action movie: an explosion of gorgeous women in leather outfits, razor-sharp samurai swords, East Asian martial arts, neo-Western atmosphere, cameos from '70s legends, an out-there crime thriller plot and universe that feels like John Wick more than a decade before John Wick, and a flurry of sweet, sweet bloody action sequences.
(And feet, because Tarantino.)
It's a big, sprawling epic rooted less in the gritty realism of "serious" crime movies than in the gonzo, go-for-broke mayhem of Hong Kong action cinema, only here with a much bigger budget than any Shaw Brothers flick ever had. It's obvious just from the runtime why they split this movie in half for its theatrical release, but watching the two halves together, it still felt perfectly paced, with an immediately iconic heroine, a slew of creative scumbags for her to cut through, and a second half whose slower pace felt like exactly the downshift the film needed as I got back in my seat to start my third hour in the theater. The locations, spanning the world from Texas to California to Japan to China to Mexico, felt exotic without feeling exoticized, the action scenes were outstanding, Tarantino's dark humor did a lot to get me in the mood for more, and while the story wasn't particularly deep, it was still a very well-told ode to some of Tarantino's favorite movies. The John Wick comparisons may be unavoidable watching it today, but if I had to decide between them, I'd say that, while those films have the better action scenes, this one offers the superior story and the better all-around package. The fact that I hesitate to call it Tarantino's best comes down less to any faults it might have and more to Tarantino's high standard of quality throughout his career, as this is still a classic.
The plot is surprisingly simple for a movie that takes two movies to tell it. Four years ago, Beatrix Kiddo was a highly skilled member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, a team of assassins feared throughout the criminal underworld... until, upon finding she was pregnant, she decided to retire and settle down with her fiancé. Bill, the leader of the DVAS, responds by showing up at her wedding with her former co-workers -- the Japanese yakuza boss O-Ren Ishii, the murderous housewife Vernita Green, Bill's brother Budd, and the one-eyed Elle Driver -- in tow to make it clear to her that there's only one way out of this business, and that's the grave. Everybody at the wedding is killed with the exception of the Bride herself, who survived her injuries but spent four years in a coma, during which time she lost her baby. When she wakes up, she gets right back to work, this time aiming at taking out the rest of the DVAS who destroyed her one chance at a normal life, concluding with Bill himself.
Standing proudly at the center of this movie is Uma Thurman as Beatrix. Thurman is playing a simple character motivated by revenge and loss, but she makes her immediately compelling, a crafty, snarky, and creative badass who manages to feel intimidating even when she's laying in a pool of her own blood looking up at the man who's about to finish her off with a headshot, or trying to get her legs working again after four years in a hospital bed. She doesn't just look the part of a hot babe with a sword, she put in the work to convince me that she really could use that sword to slice my head in two. This is a role that, had it not been for an injury she suffered on set thanks to Tarantino's carelessness, likely would've given Thurman the career second wind as an action hero that Charlize Theron has enjoyed more recently. It's not all action, though, and while Thurman is tough as hell, she also does great work showing how Beatrix mined that toughness out of her losses and vulnerability. I bought how pissed she was at losing her daughter, and her determination to go through her training in a flashback at the hands of a strict martial arts master (played by Gordon Liu) who routinely dismissed and insulted her for her race and gender. She may have been a professional killer, but in various moments, she's not completely comfortable with doing it, between her decision to retire in the first place when she got pregnant and the fact that she knows her revenge mission means killing several people she once considered close friends. She often puts on the image of an airheaded blonde ditz for people who don't realize why she's actually there. Between Tarantino's writing and Thurman's performance, Beatrix sprung to life as one of the most awesome action heroes I've ever seen on film, somebody who did not feel invincible (especially whenever guns came into play) but otherwise felt not only tough as nails but also deep, fleshed-out, and fully understandable in her motives, with a lot of layers beneath a simple exterior.
The rogues' gallery of bad guys she slices through with her Hattori Hanzo katana were also creative and larger-than-life while still feeling grounded within this film's sense of logic. Lucy Liu's O-Ren could flip from congenial to terrifying, her sympathetic backstory paired with an absolute ruthlessness that lets you know right away how a woman of mixed Japanese-American and Chinese heritage managed to take control of a patriarchal, ethnically chauvinist criminal organization (as one poor fucker finds out the hard way). I could've easily seen her as the main character of her own movie with how much she figures into the film's first volume. Vivica A. Fox's Vernita gets the least screen time out of all of them and exists mostly to be the Bride's opening victim (second chronologically, but placed at the start of the first volume), but in her brief time on screen, she's a compelling presence as a soccer mom who wants to put her criminal past behind her -- and sets up a tantalizing idea for a sequel, if Tarantino ever makes one. Daryl Hannah's Elle is characterized as an evil version of Beatrix, albeit one who still has her own sense of honor, hence why she didn't finish Beatrix off when she was in her coma. Michael Madsen's Budd is the lone man among the DVAS barring Bill himself, framed as a redneck living in a trailer in the desert who, despite his slovenly appearance and lifestyle, shows Beatrix the hard way why he should never be underestimated. Finally, David Carradine's Bill, the Charlie to these fallen Angels, spends most of the film looming over it like an ominous presence, shown only in a few flashbacks until Beatrix finally arrives at his mansion, yet he earns his status as the film's big bad.
Between them, they gave the film a particular kind of retro '70s atmosphere where it was clear that it was shot in the early 2000s, but nevertheless felt like the kind of thing an exploitation filmmaker from back in the day might've made with access to $60 million and all the Hollywood production values that money could buy. The overwhelmingly female nature of the DVAS, their one male member being their boss' brother, felt evocative of old chicksploitation flicks and shows about beautiful young women kicking ass and taking names (you think my Charlie's Angels reference up there was just random?), like Tarantino finally got to make the film adaptation of Fox Force Five, the failed TV pilot that Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction starred in. Its portrayal of East Asia is a love letter to Japanese and Hong Kong action films of that period, from the presence of Sonny Chiba and Gordon Liu as key players in Beatrix's journey to a flashback to her training that's shot like an old Shaw Brothers movie (complete with film grain). The famous "Kill Bill siren" (lifted from the theme to the '60s/'70s cop show Ironside) may have become an overused meme in the twenty years since this movie came out, but there's a reason why it's so iconic, and it's just one of many great musical cues on this film's soundtrack.
Splitting the movie in half also gave Tarantino room to spend each volume tackling a different genre, in a way that still felt cohesive. The first half is a more straightforwardly action-packed martial arts movie, its big action set piece in a Japanese nightclub where Beatrix singlehandedly takes on the Crazy 88, O-Ren's army of goons, not only standing as one of the best and most stylish action sequences of its kind but also firmly establishing precisely why you do not fuck with Beatrix. Make no mistake, for all that Tarantino is known for his dialogue, he's also a legitimately good action filmmaker on top of it. The second half, meanwhile, feels like a more contemplative neo-Western thriller as Beatrix slows down, takes stock of her remaining mission, and starts to encounter serious and tricky opposition that she can't just cut through so easily. It was a shift in tone that served the film well, whether you're watching it as two separate parts or watching it as one movie, as by the halfway mark you're probably in the same position that Beatrix is in, increasingly weathered after the big burst of energy in the first half. This movie is still committed to Beatrix's journey, as evidenced in her battles with Budd, Elle Driver, and finally Bill himself, but it's taking its time now to flesh out its world and give the viewer some room to breathe. I felt like I was with Beatrix every step of the way, all the way up to a satisfying finale.
The Bottom Line
In any other filmmaker's filmography, Kill Bill would be their pinnacle. It ain't a very deep movie, but it sets out on a mission to deliver four hours of throwback martial arts spectacle, and it succeeds with flying colors. Even people who aren't fans of Tarantino can probably enjoy this two-parter simply as one of the finest action spectacles of the 21st century.
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