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Kill Bill is the fourth feature film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Uma Thurman plays a character known only as "The Bride" (for the first half of the movie, at least) who is set on getting revenge against "Bill" (David Carradine) and his squad for turning her wedding rehearsal into a bloodbath, and subsequently putting her into a coma for 4 years. Other members of the cast include Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Sonny Chiba and Daryl Hannah. Due to the film's three-hour length, it was decided during production to split the film into two parts, called Volume 1 and Volume 2 and released in October 2003 and April 2004, respectively. The first film drew in nearly $70 million USD in its American release and the second film had earned about $61 million USD after one month in theatres. Miramax Films is the U.S. distributor.
Kill Bill is a story that stands alone, but it relies heavily on influences that Tarantino wished to pay tribute to. These influences being the spaghetti western, kung fu movies of the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese martial arts films (particularly revenge-themed movies, such as Lady Snowblood), and oddly enough, himself. There are several references to other films either written and/or directed by Tarantino.
Reviews were mostly positive, with some reviewers regarding it as a cinematic masterpiece. Other reviewers felt that Tarantino's homage to Asian cinema was overly indulgent or that it was a new low in cinematic morality. Meanwhile, some conservative critics decried its extremely graphic and exaggerated depictions of violence.
Some elements of the story and the character Elle Driver are inspired by the Swedish movie Thriller - en grym film.
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
The story is one of revenge by "The Bride" against those responsible for the massacre of her wedding party.
The entire story is divided into ten chapters, five chapters per film. As is common in Tarantino films, they are not arranged in chronological order.
In cinematic order:
| In rough chronological order:
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Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
Tagline: Here comes the bride
The film begins with a dedication to Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku. A different cut of the film was released specifically for Japan, where it opened several weeks later. While the American cut of the movie shows a notably violent segment (the battle at the House of Blue Leaves) in black and white, the Japanese cut shows it in color. The film was shot over eight months, with some scenes filmed on location in Japan. (Most Japan scenes, however, were actually shot in Beijing.)
Scenes in the movie are shown heavily out of order (it starts with footage of the wedding, flashes forward to The Bride's second kill, goes back to the wedding and The Bride's recovery from her coma, etc.). This technique was already used by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. The following summary is given in chronological order within the first volume.
The film also features Japanese Animation (anime) from animation studio Production I.G, which produced Ghost in the Shell.
The Bride (AKA Black Mamba, played by Uma Thurman) is a former member of "The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad". She attempts to retire, but, while visibly pregnant, is attacked during her wedding rehearsal by the group. The groom and the rest of the wedding party are murdered and The Bride is shot in the head and left for dead. Bill (David Carradine) sends Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) to finish off the comatose Bride, but subsequently decides to give her a reprieve until such day as she might wake.
After four years the Bride awakes, childless, to the sight of a man preparing to rape her; while she was in a coma, Buck, a hospital employee, had arranged to prostitute her body. She has a sudden memory of Buck introducing himself, saying, "my name is Buck, and I'm here to fuck." Exacting her revenge against the rapists and appropriating the late Buck's "Pussy Wagon", she begins her quest to eliminate all her former associates.
She travels first to Okinawa where she asks master swordsmith Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba) for a katana with which to accomplish her revenge. Hattori Hanzo was Bill's teacher, and feeling an obligation for having trained him, he agrees to break the oath he swore to never create "something that kills people" again.
Flying to Tokyo, the Bride wastes no time in locating O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), a half-Chinese, half-Japanese-American girl raised on an American military base, orphaned by the yakuza, and now ruler of the Tokyo underworld. The Bride kills or maims all but one of O-Ren's bodyguards, the Crazy 88, inside a nightclub named the "House of Blue Leaves", and pursues O-ren outside to a snow-covered garden. Although injured in the exchange, the Bride manages to finish the duel by slicing off the top of O-Ren Ishii's head. Next, she obtains information about Bill and her other former associates by torturing Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), one of Bill's lovers and O-Ren's lawyer.
Making a kill list on the plane, the Bride then returns to the United States where she kills Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox).
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
Tagline: Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Kill Bill Volume 2 continues the story of the Bride's quest for vengeance against the remaining members of The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and, of course, Bill. We learn that the Bride was ambushed not at her wedding, but at her wedding dress rehearsal. In this installment we also learn that the Bride's real name is Beatrix Kiddo.
When Beatrix tries to kill Budd (aka Sidewinder, played by Michael Madsen), he is ready for her and buries her alive. Although she panics at first, she then recalls her training with martial arts master Pai Mei (Chia Hui Liu, who also played the leader of the Crazy 88s in Volume 1) and is able to escape. She then hikes back to Budd's trailer where she finds Elle Driver (aka California Mountain Snake) has already killed Budd. Beatrix's code name while she worked as an assassin was Black Mamba, the snake that Elle used to kill Budd. In a sense, the Black Mamba succeeded in killing Budd. In the ensuing fight between the two women, with a regrettably short-lived duel between legendary Hanzo swords, Beatrix snatches out Elle's single remaining eye and leaves her blinded. Elle's ultimate fate is not known.
When Beatrix is able to track down Bill, she is astonished to find him with their four year old daughter, B. B., who she thought had been killed at her wedding rehearsal. After spending some time with her daughter, Bill injects Beatrix with a truth serum and she tells him about why she tried to retire. In their final fight, Beatrix ultimately kills Bill using a lethal technique taught to her by Pai Mei. She then takes B. B. and they drive off to start new lives together.
Samuel L. Jackson has a cameo role in the movie as Rufus, an organist in the El Paso Chapel.
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 also wrote the initial screenplay.
Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax, recently commented on the multiple releases of 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."
Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly in April 2004 that he is planning a sequel:
Soundtrack albums have been released for each part.
The Soundtrack for Volume 1 reached number 45 on the Billboard 200 album charts and number one on the soundtracks in August 2003.
The track listing for the soundtrack is:
The Soundtrack for Kill Bill 2 reached number 58 on the Billboard 200 and has reached the ARIA Top 50 album charts in Australia. It has also reached number two on the Billboard soundtracks charts in the US.
Track listing:
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