The Kill Bill movies to me are Tarantino's finest moment as a director. They have the energy and cool factor of his masterpiece "Pulp Fiction" but the story is told on a much larger scale while remaining richer in character and story.
When speaking to these movies i'll divide my commentary into "Kill Bill Volume One" and "Kill Bill Volume Two" because even though I consider it to be one great work it was divided this way into theaters.
The first volume of this mythic story manages to be gritty, graceful, epic, intimate, outrageous and brilliant. The movie is all over the place in tone but what keeps it tight, energized, and never ever boring is its simplicity. It's a story about betrayal, loss, and vengeance. The story is simple. Its telling is anything but. We have a raw knockdown battle royale in a suburban house with fists swinging, bodies flying, and furniture crumbling. We have a beautifully coreographed samurai sword fight of mammoth proportions filmed in color and black and white, and we have the grandeur of a slower samurai duel between two great warriors in a garden of snow that belongs in a painting or poem. We have an unheard of anime sequence in the middle of a live-action movie that works deliciously well, and then we have a more intimate scene of beauty and grace in which the bride is having a sword forged by a samurai master in Okinawa. Each of these very different pieces work within the framework of the overall film because Tarantino cares very deeply for his characters and their story and injects passion into every frame. It never gets old. You never know what you're going to get and you're on the edge of your seat the whole time on a wave of adrenaline. It all fits perfectly into this simple story of revenge.
Tarantino doesn't mess around with special effects or overdone action sequences. He focuses on raw action as it would happen between two or more people and what that violence would really look like in all its weight and physics, blood and destruction.
Before the movie even starts we have a sign that this has Tarantino's signature all over it. We get the logo for Shawscope which was like the cinescope for The Shaw Brothers kung-fu movies of the 70's which Tarantino adored. We then get 70's music and the message "Our Feature Presentation" before the movie starts. He wanted to recreate that feeling of being in a grindhouse theatre in the 70's and it definately brings you into a different experience.
The first image is a black and white closeup of a tortured, bloodied, terrified bride, played by Uma Thurman. We then get the cool, calm voice of Bill, played by David Carradine speaking to the bride in the charming manner that only the best villains possess before he pulls the trigger for the final death blow. We have a huge saga ahead of us that will be in retaliation for this act in which we see the bride suffering on the brink of death. After the gunshot a perfect song is playing over the opening credits. Nancy Sinatra's "Bang, Bang (You Shot Me Down)" a song of beauty and loss slowly plays and feels almost operatic. The first part of the movie shows her lowpoint in which she has been betrayed, tortured, left for dead. We understand that she survived the bullet but has been in a coma during which time she no longer has the child that she was carrying and has had degrading things done to her. If anyone deserves vengeance it is she and because this is vividly described her vengeance every step of the way is given added weight and momentum. Catharsis in this movie is bubbling over.
I'm going to focus on two scenes. One for its beauty and grace and the other because it's one of my favorite scenes of all time and is the perfect example of what I referred to earlier as Tarantino's mastery of the melding of story, image, music, and pacing.
The first scene takes place in Okinawa where the bride has found Bill's master Hattori Hanzo who is the greatest Samurai Swordsmith in the world. He is a sushi chef and there is this light, almost flirtatious rapport between himself and the bride when he asks her. "What brings you to Okinawa?"
"I came to see a man."
"You have a friend living in Okinawa?"
"Not quite."
"Not friend?"
"I never met him."
"Who is he, may I ask?"
"Hattori Hanzo.", and you hear a glass break as he is visibly shocked. Things slow down and get serious. "What do you want with Hattori Hanzo?"
"I need Japanese Steel."
"Why do you need Japanese Steel?"
"I have vermin to kill." The scene shifts to his attic and this is where the beauty and grace comes in. The entire room is lighted in a certain way that makes it seem like it's glowing. When the bride walks over to look at all the Samurai Swords hanging gracefully on the wall they seem to be glowing the most. There's this slow, almost angelic music in the background with this beautiful voice singing. This is the moment in the story where the warrior has found their weapon and Tarantino nails it. The bride picks up a sword and has such awe and reverance that she's almost shaking. There's a look in her eyes as if she has come to the end of a spiritual quest. When Hattori Hanzo finishes forging her sword he has the perfect words. "I've completed doing what I swore an oath to god, 28 years ago, to never do again. I have created something that kills people. And in that purpose, I was a success. I've done this because philosophically, I am sympathetic to your aim. I can tell you with no ego this is my finest sword. If on your journey, you should encounter god......god will be cut. Yellow haired warrior go."
The second scene i'm discussing is entitled "The House of Blue Leaves." and it's like liquid cool. You can't help but sit up on your chair kind of rocking back and forth with your jaw dropping with pure giddiness. If we categorized scenes into music classifications, this would be pure rock n roll. I like to cheat and call this whole chapter of the movie one scene because it's like one perfectly choreographed constant movement, building tension, energy, momentum until we get a fucking fantastic crescendo that then transitions into its encore with a calm beauty. I consider its beginning with the flight over Tokyo. We have a cross-cut showing O Ren Ishii, played by Lucy Liu riding in her limo with an entourage of Samurai Sword wielding bad-asses on motorcycles and the bride in an airplane descending onto Tokyo, the scale in size skewed so that the airplane is much too big and too close to the buildings, giving the bride this momentous quality as she begins to descend upon her prey. Then we get her on the streets in a yellow jumpsuit on a shiny motorcycle riding down the strip and the camera is right in front of her, really taking in every last possible drop of cool. We keep cutting to her looking incredibly hot and dangerous on her motorcycle to Oh Ren and her entourage looking the very essence of cool, calm, collected, and deadly in her limo. The two of them stop at a light, she peers over at the car, with her helmet masking her identity, and then the light changes, she speeds away in front and we have kicked it up a notch as the music shifts and we are getting ready for war at The House of Blue Leaves.
There is so much energy in this next phase of the chapter that you almost want to jump out of your skin. We are now at a club and it's so fucking alive. There is so much happening and we are constantly following it. The scene starts off with a slo-mo tracking of the Yakuza gang and their shit-kicking strut, then pans down to the band which is the source of a lot of the music in this scene, lending it even more authenticity and raw energy. We then have a tracking shot of the bride getting up from her seat at the bar and up the stairs. We get a tracking shot of the owners of the club and then what may be my single favorite moment of this entire scene. Once again a tracking shot reveals the bride strutting down the hall towards the bathroom and we know she's the hunter. We wouldn't even have had to see a single scene before this one to know that without a doubt she is in control and she is hunting. The camera follows her from every direction, from the side, from above, from below, and at one point the camera tilts the image at a forty-five degree angle. This whole sequence gives her this intense, sexy power. Immediately after this we get a tracking shot of Sophie, the hunted. She walks down the same hall, following the same path to the bathroom as the bride. Hers is a regal, aristocratic stroll. Not a care in the world, knowing the kind of power she possesses everywhere she goes. The energy builds and just moments later it gets seriously primal as the bride shouts out a battle cry and the music feels like a war drum. The energy of this scene, already on fire, takes us into a blissfully bloody showdown of epic proportions that begins with the loss of Sophie's left arm. It builds as row upon row of Yakuza soldiers are torn apart, shifting from color to black and white, to beautiful silhouettes depending on the section. It shifts from terrifying to playful, to soaring kinetic energy, and ends with a line suited for this scene. The bride perched atop a railing looks down upon her bloody conquest and shouts "Those of you who are still alive may leave but leave the limbs behind. They belong to me now. Except for you Sophie. You stay right where you are." The scene ends with a slow, graceful sword fight between two warriors, the villain (Oh Ren Ishii) and the vengeful (the bride), amidst a garden of snow befitting the violence and beauty of this movie.
(Coming Soon "Kill Bill Volume #2")
