Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Spilt, of course, into two volumes, apparently at the behest of The Beast Weinstein and his distaste for long running times, something Tarantino will soon pay no regard to, Kill Bill tells us of Uma Thurman’s The Bride, once a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who miraculously survives the bloody assassination of her wedding party by said DVAS, whose boss, David Carradine’s Bill, apparently wasn’t happy with the resignation paperwork or something. Hell of a punishment for skipping the exit interview.
Years later and freshly out of a coma, the Bride resolves on revenge, going after Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Ishii, now head boss of the Yakuza, Vivica A. Fox’s Vernita Green, Michael Madsen’s Budd, Daryl Hannah’s Elle Driver on the way to Bill, where there is of course a sting in the tale.
It’s told in, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, non-linear fashion, skipping around to parts of the Bride’s previous life as an assassin, her relationships with the people she’s now sworn to kill, her quest for Sonny Chiba’s Hattori Hanzo steel, and her training with Gordon Liu’s Pai Mei. But mainly it’s about the killing.
I recall being underwhelmed with Part One of this, and more on-board with Part Two, in the main because while Part One has most of the action, Part Two has most of the reasons you might actually care about the action, so I suppose what I’m saying is that this film can’t really support being split in half, at least the way Tarantino’s done it.
However, rewatching them back to back, and at least somewhat remembering the plot and characters has led to me being a little less harsh on it this time around, my first revisit since release. There was also, perhaps an element of snobbery in that assessment seventeen years ago. After all, Tarantino is not now and certainly was not then a master of action cinema, let alone the various flavours of mostly Asian cinema action he’s paying homage / imitating here. After all, why watch this end-of-the-pier tribute act when you can instead watch the source inspiration?
To be fair to my snooty younger self, he’s entirely correct, but I now can view this more as the selection box of action that Tarantino appears to have intended, a starter course for the uninitiated, if you will, and he’s at least had the good sense to surround himself with people who have mastered the art, like Woo-Ping Yuen, and the largely practical effects make for a welcome change of pace to modern action outings.
Even with a greater appreciation of Kill Bill, I still don’t love it, and it’s not actually moved much if at all in the Tarantino league table, but I’ve perhaps moved from “don’t bother” to “guarded recommendation”.