Kill Bill: Volume 1
Kill Bill: Volume 1 is a 2003 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who swears revenge on a group of assassins (Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Vivica A. Fox) and their leader, Bill (David Carradine), after they try to kill her and her unborn child. Her journey takes her to Tokyo, where she battles the yakuza.
"Kill Bill" redirects here. For other uses, see Kill Bill (disambiguation).
Tarantino conceived Kill Bill as an homage to the 1973 film Lady Snowblood, grindhouse cinema, martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation and spaghetti Westerns. It features an anime sequence by Production I.G. Volume 1 is the first of two Kill Bill films made in a single production. They were originally set for a single release, but the film, with a runtime of over four hours, was divided in two. This meant Tarantino did not have to cut scenes. Volume 2 was released six months later.
Kill Bill was theatrically released in the United States on October 10, 2003. It received positive reviews and grossed over $180 million worldwide on a $30 million budget, achieving the highest-grossing opening weekend of a Tarantino film to that point.
Plot[edit]
In 1999, the Bride, a former member of the Deadly Viper assassination squad, is rehearsing her marriage at a chapel in El Paso, Texas. The Deadly Vipers, led by Bill, attack the chapel, shooting everyone. As the Bride lies wounded, she tells Bill he is the father of her unborn child, just as he shoots her in the head.
The Bride falls into a coma. In the hospital, Elle Driver, one of the Deadly Vipers, prepares to assassinate her via lethal injection. Bill aborts the mission at the last moment, considering it dishonorable to kill her while she is defenseless. The Bride awakens four years later, horrified to discover she is no longer pregnant. She kills a man who intends to rape her and a hospital worker who has been selling her body while she was comatose. She takes the hospital worker's truck and gets herself back in shape, vowing to kill Bill and the other Deadly Vipers.
The Bride goes to the home of Vernita Green, a former Deadly Viper who now leads a normal suburban life. She and the Bride engage in a knife fight, which is interrupted when Vernita's young daughter arrives home. When Vernita tries to shoot the Bride with a pistol hidden in a box of cereal, the Bride throws a knife into her chest, killing her. Vernita's daughter happens to notice the Bride standing over her dead mother's body, bloody knife in hand, for which the Bride apologizes.
The Bride goes to Okinawa to obtain a sword from the legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzō, who has sworn never to forge a sword again. After learning that her target is Bill, his former student, he crafts his finest sword for her. The Bride travels to Tokyo to find another Deadly Viper, O-Ren Ishii, now the leader of the Tokyo yakuza. After witnessing the yakuza murder her parents when she was a child, O-Ren took vengeance on the yakuza boss and replaced him after training as an elite assassin.
The Bride tracks O-Ren Ishii to a restaurant, where she amputates the arm of O-Ren's assistant, Sofie Fatale. The Bride defeats O-Ren's squad of elite fighters, the Crazy 88, and kills O-Ren's bodyguard, the schoolgirl Gogo Yubari. O-Ren and the Bride duel in the restaurant's Japanese garden. The Bride kills O-Ren by slicing off the top of her head. The Bride tortures Sofie for information about the other Deadly Vipers, and leaves her alive as a threat. Bill finds Sofie and asks her if the Bride knows that her daughter is alive.
Production[edit]
Writing[edit]
Quentin Tarantino and Thurman conceived the Bride character during the production of Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction; Kill Bill credits the story to "Q & U".[4] Tarantino spent a year and a half writing the script while he was living in New York City in 2000 and 2001, spending time with Thurman and her newborn daughter Maya.[4][5] Reuniting with the more mature Thurman, now a mother, influenced the way Tarantino wrote the Bride character. He didn't realize that her child could still be alive until the end of the writing process.[4]
Tarantino developed many of the Bride's characteristics for the character of Shosanna Dreyfus for his 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, which he worked on before Kill Bill. Originally, Dreyfus would be an assassin with a list of Nazis she would cross off as she killed. Tarantino switched the character to the Bride and redeveloped Dreyfus.[6] Thurman cited Clint Eastwood's performance as Blondie in the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as an inspiration. In her words, Eastwood "says almost nothing but somehow manages to portray a whole character".[7]
Tarantino originally wrote Bill for Warren Beatty, but as the character developed and the role required greater screen time and martial arts training, he rewrote it for David Carradine.[8] Beatty said he turned the role down, as he did not want to be away from his family while shooting in China.[9] Tarantino also considered Bruce Willis for the role.[10] Tarantino cast Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver after seeing her performance in the television film First Target. The physical similarities between Thurman and Hannah inspired how he wrote the rivalry between the characters.[11] Michelle Yeoh met with Tarantino about a role in the film.[12]
An early draft included a chapter set after the confrontation with Vernita, in which the Bride has a gunfight with Gogo Yubari's vengeful sister Yuki. It was cut because it would have made the film overlong and added $1 million to the budget.[4] Another draft featured a scene in which the Bride's car is blown up by Elle.[4]
Influences[edit]
Kill Bill was inspired by grindhouse films that played in cheap US theaters in the 1970s, including martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation films and spaghetti westerns.[20] It pays homage to the Shaw Brothers Studio, known for its martial arts films, with the inclusion of the ShawScope logo in the opening titles[21] and the "crashing zoom", a fast zoom usually ending in a close-up commonly used in Shaw Brothers films.[21] The Bride's yellow tracksuit, helmet and motorcycle resemble those used by Bruce Lee in the 1972 martial arts film Game of Death.[22] The animated sequence pays homage to violent anime films such as Golgo 13: The Professional (1983) and Wicked City (1987).[23]
The Guardian wrote that Kill Bill's plot shares similarities with the 1973 Japanese film Lady Snowblood, in which a woman kills off the gang who murdered her family, and observed that like how Lady Snowblood used stills and illustration for "parts of the narrative that were too expensive to film", Kill Bill similarly uses "Japanese-style animation to break up the narrative".[20] The plot also resembles the 1968 French film The Bride Wore Black, in which a bride seeks revenge on five gang members and strikes them off a list as she kills them.[24]
Volume II[edit]
A direct sequel, Kill Bill: Volume 2, was released in April 2004. It continues the Bride's quest to kill Bill and the remaining members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Volume 2 was also a critical and commercial success, earning over $150 million.[46][47]
Legacy[edit]
Kill Buljo is a 2007 Norwegian parody of Kill Bill set in Finnmark, Norway, and portrays Jompa Tormann's hunt for Tampa and Papa Buljo. The film satirizes stereotypes of Norway's Sami population. According to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, Tarantino approved of the parody.[48]
The Pussy Wagon vehicle from Volume 1 made a cameo in the music video for Lady Gaga and Beyoncé's 2010 song "Telephone" at Tarantino's behest.[49]