User:Rickie-d/Kill Bill

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Kill Bill is a 2003/2004 action thriller film in two volumes written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Uma Thurman. Kill Bill was originally scheduled for a single theatrical release, but with a running time of over four hours, it was separated into two volumes; Kill Bill Vol. 1 was released in late 2003, and Kill Bill Vol. 2 was released in early 2004. A singular version was briefly shown in March 2011 titled Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. The volumes follow a character known as "The Bride", a former assassin who seeks revenge on still-active colleagues who massacre members of her wedding party and try to kill her. The movie is often noted for its stylish direction and its homages to film genres such as Hong Kong martial arts films, Japanese chanbara films, Italian spaghetti westerns, girls with guns, and rape and revenge.

Vol. 1
A pregnant bride (Uma Thurman) lies badly wounded at her wedding, telling an unseen Bill (David Carradine) that it is his baby, before he shoots her in the head. Sometime later, The Bride finds Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) at her home and fights her, but they cease after Vernita's daughter Nikki arrives from school. It is revealed that both women are former members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, elite assassins under the employ of Bill. The squad was ordered by Bill to attack The Bride's wedding in El Paso, Texas. Vernita attempts to kill her with a revolver hidden in a box of children's breakfast cereal, but the shot misses The Bride, who retaliates with a throwing knife to Vernita's chest, instantly killing her. When The Bride discovers that Nikki saw her mother's death, she offers her revenge as an adult should she seek it. She then strikes Vernita's name off a checklist, second under an "O-Ren Ishii", which had already been crossed out.

It is revealed that after the attack at the wedding, The Bride miraculously survived the head shot but was left comatose. In hospital, another member of the Deadly Vipers, the one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), enters The Bride's room and prepares a lethal injection but is interrupted by Bill on the phone, who states they will take action only if she wakes. Four years later, The Bride awakens and is horrified to discover that she is no longer pregnant, leading her to believe that her baby is dead. Meanwhile, she learns that a corrupt hospital worker by the name of Buck has been raping her in her comatose state, and offering his paying friends the chance to do the same. After disabling Buck, she kills him with a door by causing lethal intracranial hemorrhage and steals his truck. While she struggles to overcome four years of muscle atrophy, she picks her first target: O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), an orphan whose parents were killed by gangsters and who eventually took revenge, becoming an assassin. After the attack on the wedding, she had become the leader of the Tokyo yakuza.

The Bride travels to Okinawa to obtain a sword from retired legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzō (Sonny Chiba), who has become a sushi chef and has sworn never to forge again. After learning that her target is his former student, Bill, he agrees to forge his finest sword for her. The Bride tracks down O-Ren at a nightclub in Tokyo, challenging her to a fight and severing the arm of Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), O-Ren's assistant and an informant of Bill's. She then fights off all of O-Ren's dozens of henchmen, including the elite "Crazy 88" squad and O-Ren's personal bodyguard, 17-year-old sadist Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama). The Bride allows those few fortunate enough to survive her assault to escape, but orders them to leave any severed limbs behind. The Bride then duels O-Ren in a snow-draped Japanese garden and kills her, then tortures Sofie by systematic dismemberment into revealing information on Bill. The film ends with Bill holding the deformed Sofie and asking her if The Bride knows that her daughter is still alive.

Vol. 2
The Bride, along with her groom Tommy Plympton (Chris Nelson), rehearse their wedding. Bill arrives, and it transpires that The Bride had retired from assassination and left her former lover Bill in order to settle down with her unborn daughter. Moments later the Deadly Vipers attack on Bill's orders. In the present, Bill warns his brother Budd (Michael Madsen), a bouncer and former Deadly Viper, that he will be targeted next. The Bride arrives at his trailer, but Budd shoots her full of rock salt with his double-barreled shotgun and then sedates her. Budd calls Elle to sell her the Bride's Hanzō sword, before sealing The Bride inside a coffin and burying her alive.

Long before, Bill takes The Bride to the temple of Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), a legendary martial arts master. Pai Mei has mastered a technique wherein pressure points on the victim's chest are struck leaving them with a few footsteps before their death. Bill informs The Bride that Pai Mei teaches no one the technique. After she trains under Pai Mei, who initially dislikes her, she eventually wins his respect.

The Bride recalls her training with Pai Mei to break out of the coffin to the surface. The next morning Elle arrives at Budd's trailer for their transaction. Budd is betrayed by Elle, who uses a black mamba (The Bride's former codename) and its venomous bite to poison him. Elle expresses regret that a loser like Budd was the one to kill The Bride, whose name is revealed to be Beatrix Kiddo. As Elle leaves the trailer, she is attacked by Beatrix. Elle reveals that her missing eye was plucked out by Pai Mei after she insulted him during her training, and in retribution, she poisoned him. Angered, Beatrix plucks out Elle's remaining eye, and leaves Elle writhing and screaming hysterically in the trailer with the black mamba.

After finding Bill's location, deep in Mexican countryside, Beatrix infiltrates his home. She is shocked to find B.B. (Perla Haney-Jardine), her four-year old daughter, alive and well. The family spend the evening together peacefully with Bill making sandwiches and Beatrix watching Shogun Assassin in bed with her daughter. Later on, after B.B. has gone to bed, Bill shoots Beatrix with a dart containing a truth serum and questions her. A flashback recalls the moment Beatrix found out she was pregnant. She was on an assignment, and her target had sent an assassin of her own to kill Beatrix. Beatrix managed to convince the assassin not to kill her due to her pregnancy, and they agree to part ways. Beatrix explains that she ran away without telling Bill in order to protect their unborn daughter from him and his life. Though Bill understands, he remains unapologetic for what he did, explaining that he's a killer and nobody should ever cross him, even her. Bill then attacks Beatrix, but she disables him with Pai Mei's fatal Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, which he secretly taught her. Bill, aware of the technique, gives his final speech, takes five steps, and dies. Beatrix departs with B.B. in her arms, and later they watch cartoons in a hotel together, implying that they live happily ever after.

Cast

 * Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo, aka "The Bride" ("Black Mamba"): The protagonist, a former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and described as "the deadliest woman in the world". She is targeted by her former allies in the wedding chapel massacre, and falls into a coma. When she awakens four years later, she embarks on a deadly trail of revenge against the perpetrators of the massacre.
 * David Carradine as Bill ("Snake Charmer"): The leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. He is also the former lover of The Bride, and the father of her daughter, B.B. He is the final and eponymous target of The Bride's revenge.
 * Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii ("Cottonmouth"): A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She later becomes "queen of the Tokyo underworld". She is the first of The Bride's revenge targets.
 * Vivica A. Fox as Vernita Green ("Copperhead"): A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She later becomes a homemaker living under the false name Jeannie Bell. She is the second of The Bride's revenge targets.
 * Michael Madsen as Budd ("Sidewinder"): A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and brother of Bill. He later becomes a bouncer living in a trailer. He is the third of The Bride's revenge targets.
 * Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver ("California Mountain Snake"): A member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She is the fourth of The Bride's revenge targets.
 * Julie Dreyfus as Sofie Fatale: O-Ren's lawyer, best friend, and second lieutenant. She is also a former protégé of Bill's, and was present at the wedding chapel massacre.
 * Sonny Chiba as Hattori Hanzo: Revered as the greatest swordsmith of all time. Although long retired, he agrees to craft a sword for The Bride when he finds out what vermin she wants to kill.
 * Gordon Liu as Pai Mei: An immensely powerful and extremely old martial arts master. Bill, The Bride, and Elle all trained under him.
 * Ambrosia Kelley as Nikki Green: Vernita's 4-year-old daughter. She witnesses The Bride kill her mother, and The Bride offers her a chance to take revenge for it when she gets older, if she still "feels raw about it".
 * Gordon Liu as Johnny Mo: Head general of O-Ren's personal army, the Crazy 88.
 * Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo Yubari: A sadistic 17-year-old who is O-Ren's personal bodyguard.
 * Michael Parks as Esteban Vihaio: A retired Mexican pimp. He was the first of Bill's "father figures". Beatrix comes to him asking for Bill's whereabouts.
 * Perla Haney-Jardine as B.B.: The daughter of Beatrix and Bill. She is raised by her father while her mother is comatose.
 * Helen Kim as Karen: An assassin sent to kill Beatrix. Her attack comes moments after Beatrix learns that she is pregnant.

Production
Quentin Tarantino intended to produce Kill Bill as one film. With a budget of $55 million, production lasted 155 days. Harvey Weinstein, then co-chief of Miramax Films, was known for pressuring directors to keep their films' running times short. When Tarantino began editing the film, he and Weinstein agreed to split the film into two. With the approach, Tarantino could edit a fuller film, and Weinstein could have films with reasonable running times. The decision to split Kill Bill into two volumes was announced in July of 2003.

Influences
The overall storyline of Kill Bill — a woman seeks revenge on a group of people, crossing them off a list one by one as she kills them — is adapted from Lady Snowblood, a 1973 Japanese film in which a woman kills off the gang who murdered her family. The Guardian commented that Lady Snowblood was "practically a template for the whole of Kill Bill Vol. 1". Lady Snowblood was adapted from the manga of the same name written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura. Koike also wrote Lone Wolf and Cub (see below).

It references the TV show Yagyû ichizoku no inbô (Japanese: "Intrigue of the Yagyu Clan") by quoting a variant of the speech in the show's opening sequence.
 * Jubei Yagyu (Sonny Chiba) [The Yagyu Conspiracy]: "The Secret Doctrine of Ura Yagyu ("Hidden Yagyu") states: 'Once engaged in battle, fight to win. That is the first and cardinal rule of battle. Suppress all human emotions and compassion. Kill whosoever stands in thy way, even if that be a God or Buddha. Only then can one master the essence of the art. Once it is mastered, thou shall fear no one, though even devils block thy way.'"
 * Hattori Hanzo XV (Sonny Chiba) [Kill Bill]: "For those regarded as warriors, when engaged in combat the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior's only concern. Suppress all human emotion and compassion. Kill whoever stands in thy way, even if that be Lord God or Buddha himself. This truth lies at the heart of the art of combat."

The film also references Samurai Reincarnation (1981) by quoting its iconic line: "If you encounter God, God will be cut". Hattori Hanzō is modelled on legendary sword maker Muramasa. The character is also a reference to the Japanese television show Kage no Gundan (Shadow Warriors in America), in which Sonny Chiba portrayed a fictionalized version of Hattori Hanzō, as well as his descendants in later seasons. Tarantino, in Vol. 1 special features, claims that his film's Hanzō is one of those descendants.

Kill Bill pays tribute to film genres including the spaghetti western, blaxploitation, Chinese wuxia, Japanese yakuza films, Japanese samurai cinema, and kung fu movies of the 1960s and 1970s. This last genre, which was largely produced by the Shaw Brothers, is given an obvious nod by the inclusion of the Shaw Scope logo at the beginning of Kill Bill Vol. 1.

One influential exploitation film that Tarantino has mentioned in interviews is the Swedish Thriller - en grym film, released in the U.S. as They Call Her One Eye. Tarantino, who has called Thriller "the roughest revenge movie ever made', recommended that actress Daryl Hannah watch the film to prepare for her role as the one-eyed killer Elle Driver.

The Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub series of manga and films are echoed in the characters of The Bride and her daughter. The Americanized compilation version of this series, Shogun Assassin, is actually viewed by the two characters.

Although Kill Bill tells a story very similar to Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black, Tarantino has stated that he has never seen that film.

Music
As with Tarantino's previous films, Kill Bill features an eclectic soundtrack comprising many musical genres. On the two soundtracks, music ranges from country music to selections from the Spaghetti Western film scores of Ennio Morricone. Bernard Herrmann's theme from the film Twisted Nerve is whistled by the menacing Elle Driver in the hospital scene. A brief, 15-second excerpt from the opening of the Ironside theme music by Quincy Jones is used as the Bride's revenge motif, which flares up with a red-tinged flashback whenever she's in the company of her next target. Instrumental tracks from Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei figure prominently, and after the success of Kill Bill they were frequently used in American TV commercials and at sporting events. As the Bride enters "The House of Blue Leaves", go-go group The 5,6,7,8's perform "I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield", "I'm Blue" and "Woo Hoo." The connection to Lady Snowblood is further established by the use of "The Flower of Carnage" the closing theme from that film. "The Lonely Shepherd" by pan flute virtouso Gheorghe Zamfir plays over Vol. 1s closing credits, while Vol. 2s are driven by the rock and roll version of "Malagueña Salerosa", a typical Mexican song performed by Chingon, Robert Rodriguez's band.

Theatrical releases
Kill Bill Vol. 1 was released in theaters on October 10, 2003. It was the first Tarantino film in six years since Jackie Brown was released in 1997. In the United States and Canada, Vol. 1 was released in 3,102 theaters and grossed $22 million on its opening weekend. It ranked first at the box office, beating School of Rock (in its second weekend) and Intolerable Cruelty (in its first). Vol. 1 was the widest theatrical release of Tarantino's career to date, and it was also his highest-grossing opening weekend to date. Previously, Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction had each grossed $9.3 million on their opening weekends. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, said Vol. 1's opening weekend gross was significant for a "very genre-specific and very violent" film that in the United States was restricted to theatergoers 17 years old and up. According to the studio, exit polls showed that 90% of the audience was interested in seeing the second volume after seeing the first.

Outside the United States and Canada, Kill Bill Vol. 1 was released in 20 territories. The film outperformed its main competitor Intolerable Cruelty in Norway, Denmark and Finland, though it ranked second in Italy. Vol. 1 had a record opening in Japan, though expectations were higher due to the film being partially set there and having homages to Japanese martial arts. The film had "a muted entry" in the United Kingdom and Germany due to being restricted to theatergoers 18 years old and up, but "experienced acceptable drops" after its opening weekend in the two territories. By November 2, 2003, it had made $31 million in the 20 territories. Kill Bill Vol. 1 grossed a total of $70 million in the United States and Canada and $110.9 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $180.9 million.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 was released in theaters on April 16, 2004. It was originally scheduled to be released on February 20, 2004 but was rescheduled. Variety posited that the delay was to coincide its theatrical release with Vol. 1's release on DVD. In the United States and Canada, Vol. 2 was released in 2,971 theaters and grossed $25.1 million on its opening weekend, ranking first at the box office and beating fellow opener The Punisher. Vol. 2s opening weekend gross was higher than Vol. 1s, and the equivalent success confirmed the studio's financial decision to split the film into two theatrical releases. Vol. 2 attracted more female theatergoers than Vol. 1, with 60% of the audience being male and 56% of the audience being men between the ages of 18 to 29 years old. Vol. 2's opening weekend was the largest to date for Miramax Films aside from releases under its arm Dimension Films. The opening weekend was also the largest to date in the month of April for a film restricted in the United States to theatergoers 17 years old and up, besting Life's record in 1999. Vol. 2s opening weekend was strengthened by the reception of Vol. 1 the previous year among audiences and critics, abundant publicity related to the splitting into two volumes, and the DVD release of Vol. 1 the week before Vol. 2s theatrical release.

Outside of the United States and Canada, Vol. 2 was released in 20 territories over the weekend of April 23, 2004. It grossed an estimated $17.7 million and ranked first at the international box office, ending an eight-week streak held by The Passion of the Christ. Vol. 2 grossed a total of $66.2 million in the United States and Canada and $86 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $152.2 million.

Critical reception
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 a score of 85% (based on reviews from 218 and 227 critics respectively) and reports a rating average of 7.7 out of 10. For the first volume it reported the overall consensus, "Kill Bill is nothing more than a highly stylized revenge flick. But what style!" and of the second, "Talkier and less action-packed than Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, nevertheless, delivers the goods for those expecting a satisfying conclusion to this two-parter." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the first volume received an average score of 69 based on 43 reviews and the second an average score of 83 based on 42 reviews.

A. O. Scott of The New York Times said Tarantino's previous films Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown were "an exploration of plausible characters and authentic emotions". He wrote of Kill Bill Volume 1, "Now, it seems, his interests have swung in the opposite direction, and he has immersed himself, his characters and his audience in a highly artificial world, a looking-glass universe that reflects nothing beyond his own cinematic obsessions." Scott attributed "the hurtling incoherence of the story" to Tarantino's sampling of different genres that include spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation, and Asian action films. The critic summarized, "But while being so relentlessly exposed to a filmmaker's idiosyncratic turn-ons can be tedious and off-putting, the undeniable passion that drives Kill Bill is fascinating, even, strange to say it, endearing. Mr. Tarantino is an irrepressible showoff, recklessly flaunting his formal skills as a choreographer of high-concept violence, but he is also an unabashed cinephile, and the sincerity of his enthusiasm gives this messy, uneven spectacle an odd, feverish integrity."

Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times called Kill Bill Vol. 1 "a blood-soaked valentine to movies" and wrote, "It's apparent that Tarantino is striving for more than an off-the-rack mash note or a pastiche of golden oldies. It is, rather, his homage to movies shot in celluloid and wide, wide, wide, wide screen—an ode to the time right before movies were radically secularized." Dargis said, "This kind of mad movie love explains Tarantino's approach and ambitions, and it also points to his limitations as a filmmaker," calling the abundance of references sometimes distracting. She recognized Tarantino's technical talent but thought Kill Bill Vol. 1's appeal was too limited to popular culture references, calling the film's story "the least interesting part of the whole equation".

Cultural historian Maud Lavin argues that The Bride's embodiment of murderous revenge taps into viewers' personal fantasies of committing violence. For audiences, particularly women viewers, this overly aggressive female character provides a complex site for identification with one's own aggression.

Roger Ebert celebrated the films, saying "Put the two parts together, and Tarantino has made a masterful saga that celebrates the martial arts genre while kidding it, loving it, and transcending it.... This is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts." In 2009, he collectively placed Kill Bill on his twenty best films of the decade list.

Accolades
Both volumes were nominated at the Golden Globe Awards. Uma Thurman received a Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama nomination in 2004 and 2005 for her work in both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. David Carradine received a Best Supporting Actor nomination in 2005 for his work in Vol. 2. Uma Thurman was also nominated in 2004 for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Vol. 1, which was nominated for 5 awards at the 2004 BAFTA awards ceremony.

The film was very popular at the MTV Movie Awards. At the 2004 MTV Movie Awards, Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu won Best Female Performance and Best Villain respectively for their work in Vol. 1, and the fight between The Bride and Gogo Yubari won Best Fight. Thurman also thanked Chiaki Kuriyama during her acceptance speech. At the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, Vol. 2 was nominated for Best Movie, Thurman was once nominated for Best Female Performance, and the fight between The Bride and Elle Driver won Best Fight.

Thurman also received the Saturn Award for Best Actress in 2003 for her work in Vol. 1. The Bride was also ranked number 66 in Empire magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters".

Home release
In the United States, Vol. 1 was released on DVD on April 13, 2004 (the week before Vol. 2 was released in theaters) and Vol. 2 was released on DVD on August 10, 2004. Both volumes were both released in high-definition on Blu-ray on September 9, 2008.

In a December 2005 interview, Tarantino addressed the lack of a special edition DVD for Kill Bill by stating "I've been holding off because I've been working on it for so long that I just wanted a year off from Kill Bill and then I'll do the big supplementary DVD package."

The United States does not have a DVD boxed set of Kill Bill, though box sets of the two separate volumes are available in other countries, such as France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Upon the DVD release of Vol. 2 in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive box set slipcase to house the two individual releases together.

The Whole Bloody Affair
Tarantino announced at the 2008 Provincetown International Film Festival that a single film version of Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair with an extended animation sequence was to be released in May 2009. Screenings of the complete film began on March 27, 2011 at the New Beverly Cinema. This version of the film was verified to be the original print that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, before the decision was made to split the film into two parts due to the roughly four-hour length. The print shown at the New Beverly even retained the French subtitles necessary for screening an English-language film at the Cannes festival.

Differences in this version in comparison to the separate Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 versions include the omission of the "old Klingon proverb" shown at the beginning of Vol. 1 (although a dedication to filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku is in its place), and extended and bloodier anime sequence, The House of Blue Leaves battle in color (it had been toned down to black and white for the USA release of Vol. 1 only), Sofie Fatale losing both of her arms, and the removal of both the revelation that The Bride's daughter is alive from the end of Vol. 1 and the short black and white driving scene from the beginning of Vol. 2 (in their place is a small musical intermission that leads straight into Chapter 6).

Sequel
Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly in April 2004, that he is planning a sequel: Oh yeah, initially I was thinking this would be my "Dollars Trilogy". I was going to do a new one every ten years. But I need at least fifteen years before I do this again. I've already got the whole mythology: Sofie Fatale will get all of Bill's money. She'll raise Nikki, who'll take on The Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as The Bride deserved hers. I might even shoot a couple of scenes for it now so I can get the actresses while they're this age.

According to Bloody-Disgusting.com, details have emerged about Vol. 3 and Vol. 4. According to the article, "Bennett Walsh said at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the third film involves the revenge of two killers whose arms and eyes were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories". The article adds that the "fourth installment of the popular kung fu action films concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths".

Quentin Tarantino said at the 2006 Comic Con that, after the completion of Grindhouse, he wants to make two anime Kill Bill films. One will be an origin story about Bill and his mentors, and the other will be an origin starring The Bride. The latter is most likely to be a prequel, but could also follow the rumored (sequel) plot reported in Entertainment Weekly in April 2004.

At the Morelia International Film Festival on October 1, 2009, while being interviewed on an Italian TV show after being asked about the success of the two Kill Bill films, Tarantino addressed the hostess by claiming "You haven't asked me about the third one" then asking the woman to ask the question would he be making a third Kill Bill film, which he replied "Yes", and claiming "The Bride will fight again!" On October 3, 2009, he further predicted that Kill Bill Vol. 3 would be his ninth film, and would be released in 2014. He said he intends to make another unrelated film before that date as his eighth film. He confirmed that he wanted ten years to pass between the Bride's last conflict, to give her and her daughter a period of peace.