''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' is a 2003 American
martial arts film
Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature numerous martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expres ...
written and directed by
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, Black comedy, dark humor, Nonlinear narrative, non-lin ...
. It stars
Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American actress and former model. She has performed in a variety of films, from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action films. Following her appearances on the December 1985 an ...
as
the Bride, who swears revenge on a team of assassins (
Lucy Liu
Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. Her accolades include winning a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Seoul International Drama Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Liu has star ...
,
Michael Madsen
Michael Søren Madsen (born September 25, 1957) is an American actor. He has starred in many films and television series, frequently collaborating with director Quentin Tarantino, most famously in the latter's debut film ''Reservoir Dogs'' (19 ...
,
Daryl Hannah
Daryl Christine Hannah (born December 3, 1960) is an American actress and environmental activist. She made her screen debut in Brian De Palma's supernatural horror film '' The Fury'' (1978). She has starred in various movies across the years, i ...
, and
Vivica A. Fox
Vivica Anjanetta Fox (born July 30, 1964) is an American actress, producer, and television host. Fox began her career on ''Soul Train'' (19821983). She eventually continued her career with roles on the daytime television soap operas ''Days of O ...
) and their leader, Bill (
David Carradine
David Carradine ( ; born John Arthur Carradine Jr.; December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009) was an American actor best known for playing martial arts roles. He is perhaps best known as the star of the 1970s television series ''Kung Fu'', playi ...
), after they try to kill her. Her journey takes her to Tokyo, where she battles the
yakuza
, also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...
.
Tarantino conceived ''Kill Bill'' as an
homage
Homage (Old English) or Hommage (French) may refer to:
History
*Homage (feudal) /ˈhɒmɪdʒ/, the medieval oath of allegiance
*Commendation ceremony, medieval homage ceremony Arts
*Homage (arts) /oʊˈmɑʒ/, an allusion or imitation by one arti ...
to
grindhouse
A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film ...
cinema, including martial arts films,
samurai cinema
, also commonly spelled "''chambara''", meaning "sword fighting" films,Hill (2002). denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to Western and swashbuckler films. ''Chanbara'' is a sub-category of '' ...
,
blaxploitation
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...
and
spaghetti Western
The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
s. It features an
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
sequence by
Production I.G
is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise, founded on December 15, 1987, by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa and headquartered in Musashino, Tokyo, Japan. The letters I and G derive from the names of the company founders: producer Mitsuhisa Ish ...
. ''Volume 1'' is the first of two ''Kill Bill'' films made in a single production. They were planned as a single release, which Tarantino split into two films to avoid having to cut scenes. ''
Volume 2 Volume Two, Volume 2, Volume II or Vol. II may refer to:
* '' Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life'', a 1998 album by rapper Jay-Z
* ''Volume 2'' (Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass album), 1963
* '' Vol. 2 (Breaking Through)'', by The West Coast Pop Art Experimenta ...
'' 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
In 1999, a pregnant woman in a wedding dress,
the Bride, lies wounded in a chapel in
El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...
. She tells her attacker, Bill, that the baby is his just as he shoots her in the head.
Four years later, the Bride, having survived the attack, goes to the home of Vernita Green, planning to kill her. Both women were members of the Deadly Vipers, a now-disbanded group of assassins led by Bill. Vernita now leads a normal suburban family life. The women engage in a
knife fight
A knife fight is a violent physical confrontation between two or more combatants in which one or more participants is armed with a knife.MacYoung, Marc, ''Winning A Street Knife Fight'', (Digital format, 70 min.), Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, (J ...
, which is interrupted for the benefit of Vernita's young daughter Nikki, just before she arrives home from school. The Bride agrees to meet Vernita at night to settle the matter, but when Vernita tries to shoot the Bride with a pistol hidden in a box of cereal, the Bride throws a knife into Vernita's chest, killing her. After the Bride pulls the knife out of Vernita's chest, Nikki sees her mother's lifeless body. The Bride expresses regret at what Nikki has seen but insists that Vernita deserved it. She offers Nikki a chance to avenge her mother's death when she grows up, should she choose to do so.
Four years earlier, the cops investigate the massacre at the wedding chapel. The sheriff discovers that the Bride is alive but comatose. In the hospital, Deadly Viper Elle Driver prepares to assassinate the Bride via lethal injection, but Bill aborts the mission at the last moment. Although Elle vehemently disagrees, Bill considers it dishonorable to kill the defenseless Bride. Awakening from her four-year coma, the Bride is horrified to find that she is no longer pregnant. She kills a man who intends to rape her while she is unconscious, then a hospital worker who has raped her and has been selling her body while she was comatose. She takes the hospital worker's truck and teaches herself to walk again. Resolving to kill Bill and the other Deadly Vipers, the Bride picks her first target: O-Ren Ishii, now the leader of the Tokyo
yakuza
, also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...
.
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 travels to Okinawa, Japan, to obtain a sword from legendary swordsmith
Hattori Hanzō
or ''Second Hanzō'', nicknamed , was a famous Ninja of the Sengoku era, who served the Tokugawa clan as a ninja, credited with saving the life of Tokugawa Ieyasu and then helping him to become the ruler of united Japan. He is often a subjec ...
, who has sworn never to forge a sword again. After learning that her target is Bill, his former student, he relents and spends a month crafting his finest sword for her. The Bride tracks O-Ren to the House of Blue Leaves, a Tokyo restaurant, and publicly amputates the arm of her assistant, Sofie Fatale. She defeats the Crazy 88, O-Ren's squad of elite fighters, and kills her bodyguard, schoolgirl Gogo Yubari. O-Ren and the Bride duel in the restaurant's
Japanese garden
are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desig ...
; the Bride kills O-Ren by slicing off the top of her head. After torturing Sofie for information about Bill and the other Deadly Vipers, the Bride leaves her alive as a threat before going to kill Vernita. Bill finds Sofie and asks her if the Bride knows that her daughter is alive.
Cast
*
Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American actress and former model. She has performed in a variety of films, from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action films. Following her appearances on the December 1985 an ...
as
the Bride (code name Black Mamba), a former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, described as "the deadliest woman in the world". She seeks revenge on the Deadly Vipers after they try to kill her and her unborn child in a wedding chapel.
*
Lucy Liu
Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. Her accolades include winning a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Seoul International Drama Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Liu has star ...
as (code name Cottonmouth), a former Deadly Viper who has become the leader of the Japanese
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...
. She and the Bride once had a close friendship. She is the Bride's first target.
*
David Carradine
David Carradine ( ; born John Arthur Carradine Jr.; December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009) was an American actor best known for playing martial arts roles. He is perhaps best known as the star of the 1970s television series ''Kung Fu'', playi ...
as (code name Snake Charmer), the former leader of the Deadly Vipers, the Bride's former lover, and the father of her daughter. He is the final target of the Bride's revenge. He is an
unseen character
An unseen character in theatre, comics, film, or television, or silent character in radio or literature, is a character that is mentioned but not directly known to the audience, but who advances the action of the plot in a significant way, and wh ...
until ''Volume 2''.
*
Vivica A. Fox
Vivica Anjanetta Fox (born July 30, 1964) is an American actress, producer, and television host. Fox began her career on ''Soul Train'' (19821983). She eventually continued her career with roles on the daytime television soap operas ''Days of O ...
as (code name Copperhead), a former Deadly Viper and now a mother and homemaker, living under the name Jeannie Bell. She is the Bride's second target.
*
Michael Madsen
Michael Søren Madsen (born September 25, 1957) is an American actor. He has starred in many films and television series, frequently collaborating with director Quentin Tarantino, most famously in the latter's debut film ''Reservoir Dogs'' (19 ...
as (code name Sidewinder), a former Deadly Viper and Bill's brother, now working as a strip club bouncer and living in a trailer. He is the Bride's third target.
*
Daryl Hannah
Daryl Christine Hannah (born December 3, 1960) is an American actress and environmental activist. She made her screen debut in Brian De Palma's supernatural horror film '' The Fury'' (1978). She has starred in various movies across the years, i ...
as (code name California Mountain Snake), a former Deadly Viper and the Bride's fourth target. She is also Bill’s new lover. Driver is based on Madeline (
Christina Lindberg
Britt Christina Marinette Lindberg (born 6 December 1950) is a Swedish journalist known internationally for her work as an actress and glamour model in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Biography
Lindberg grew up in a working-class home in Anned ...
) in ''
They Call Her One Eye
In Modern English, ''they'' is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject.
Morphology
In Standard Modern English, ''they'' has five distinct word forms:
* ''they'': the nominative (subjective) form
* ''them'': the accusat ...
''.
*
Julie Dreyfus
Julie Dreyfus (born 24 January 1966) is a French actress who is well known in Japan where she made her television debut on a French language lesson program on NHK's educational channel in the late 1980s. She has appeared on the TV show ''Ryō ...
as , O-Ren's lawyer, confidante, and second lieutenant. She is also a former protégée of Bill's, and was present at the wedding chapel massacre.
*
Sonny Chiba
, known internationally as Sonny Chiba, was a Japanese actor and martial artist. Chiba was one of the first actors to achieve stardom through his skills in martial arts, initially in Japan and later before an international audience.
Born in Fuku ...
as , a wise sushi chef and long-retired master
swordsmith
Bladesmithing is the art of making knives, swords, daggers and other blades using a forge, hammer, anvil, and other smithing tools. Bladesmiths employ a variety of metalworking techniques similar to those used by blacksmiths, as well as woodworkin ...
who agrees to craft a sword just for the Bride.
*
Chiaki Kuriyama
is a Japanese actress, singer, and model. She is best known in the West for her roles as Takako Chigusa in Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 film '' Battle Royale'' and Gogo Yubari in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film '' Kill Bill: Volume 1''.
Life and career ...
as , O-Ren's sadistic Japanese schoolgirl bodyguard.
*
Gordon Liu
Gordon Liu (Lau Kar-fai ); born Sin Kam-hei () August 22, 1951) is a Chinese martial arts film actor and martial artist. He played the lead role of San Te in ''The 36th Chamber of Shaolin'' (1978) and its sequels, and later played two roles in Qu ...
as Johnny Mo, head of O-Ren's personal army, the .
*
Michael Parks
Michael Parks (born Harry Samuel Parks; April 24, 1940 – May 9, 2017) was an American singer and actor. He appeared in many films and made frequent television appearances, notably starring in the 1969–1970 series ''Then Came Bronson'', but ...
as Ranger
Earl McGraw, a Texas Ranger who investigates the wedding chapel massacre. Parks originated McGraw in the
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodriguez (; born June 20, 1968) is an American filmmaker, composer, and visual effects supervisor. He shoots, edits, produces, and scores many of his films in Mexico and in his home state of Texas. Rodriguez directed the 1992 ac ...
film ''
From Dusk till Dawn
''From Dusk till Dawn'' is a 1996 American action horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino from a concept and story by Robert Kurtzman. Starring Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Ernest Liu, and ...
'', which Tarantino wrote and acted in. He would go on to reprise the role in both segments of the Rodriguez/Tarantino collaboration ''
Grindhouse
A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film ...
''. Parks also appeared in ''Volume 2'' as a separate character, Esteban Vihaio.
*
Michael Bowen as , an orderly at the hospital who has been raping the Bride while she lay comatose.
*
Jun Kunimura
is a Japanese actor who has performed in Japan, Hollywood and Hong Kong. He won Best Supporting Actor and the Popular Star Award at the 37th Blue Dragon Film Awards for his performance in the South Korean horror film '' The Wailing'', directed ...
as Boss Tanaka, a yakuza whom O-Ren executes after he ridicules her ethnicity and gender.
*
Kenji Ohba
, known professionally as is a prolific Japanese actor and former stuntman best known for his roles in the Super Sentai and Metal Heroes series, especially as Retsu Ichijouji/Gavan in the 1982 TV series '' Space Sheriff Gavan''. He is the presi ...
as Shiro, Hattori Hanzo's employee.
*
Kazuki Kitamura
is a Japanese film and television actor who won the award for best supporting actor at the 21st Yokohama Film Festival for '' Minazuki'', ''Kyohansha'' and ''Kanzen-naru shiiku'' as well as the CUT ABOVE Award for Excellence in Film at JAPAN CUTS ...
as Boss Koji, a yakuza working for O-Ren. He also appeared as Bodyguard #2 in O-Ren's army, the Crazy 88.
*
James Parks as Ranger
Edgar McGraw, a Texas Ranger and son of Earl McGraw.
*
Jonathan Loughran
Jonathan Loughran is an American actor who is in most Happy Madison films with his friend and actor Adam Sandler.
He is Sandler's longtime friend and assistant, who has at least 40 credits with Sandler to his name.
Filmography
* ''Sexbomb'' ( ...
as Buck's trucker client, killed by the Bride after he attempts to rape her.
* Yuki Kazamatsuri as the Proprietress of the House of Blue Leaves.
*
Sakichi Sato
is a Japanese actor, director, and screenwriter. He has written several screenplay adaptations of manga series including ''Tokyo Zombie'', ''Ichi The Killer'', and '' Gozu''. He also directed ''Miss Boys'' about cross-dressing schoolboys. In the ...
as "Charlie Brown", a House of Blue Leaves employee who is mocked by the Crazy 88, as he wears a kimono similar to the shirt worn by
the ''Peanuts'' character.
* Ambrosia Kelley as Nikki Bell, Vernita's four-year-old daughter. She witnesses the Bride killing her mother, and the Bride suggests that she seek revenge when she gets older, if she still "feel
raw about it".
*
The 5.6.7.8's
The 5.6.7.8's are a Japanese rock band from Tokyo. They first started performing as a quartet in Tokyo, and recruited guest performers during their Australian tour. They became a trio in 1992, before touring Australia.
Members
The 5.6.7.8's fo ...
(Sachiko Fuji, Yoshiko Yamaguchi and Ronnie Yoshiko Fujiyama) as themselves, performing at the House of Blue Leaves.
Production
Writing
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, Black comedy, dark humor, Nonlinear narrative, non-lin ...
and Thurman conceived the Bride character during the production of Tarantino's 1994 film ''
Pulp Fiction
''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhame ...
;'' ''Kill Bill'' credits the story to "Q & U".
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
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...
.
Reuniting with the more mature Thurman, now a mother, influenced the way Tarantino wrote the Bride character; he did not come to the realization that the Bride's child could still be alive until the end of the writing process.
He originally wrote Bill for
Warren Beatty
Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...
, but as the character developed and the role required greater screen time and martial arts training, he rewrote it for
David Carradine
David Carradine ( ; born John Arthur Carradine Jr.; December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009) was an American actor best known for playing martial arts roles. He is perhaps best known as the star of the 1970s television series ''Kung Fu'', playi ...
.
Tarantino also considered
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series ''Moonlighting'' (1985–1989) and appeared in over a hundred films, gaining recognition as an action hero a ...
for the role of Bill. Tarantino decided to cast Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver after seeing her performance in the television film ''
First Target
''First Target'' is a 2000 American-Canadian made-for-television action-thriller film and a sequel to '' First Daughter'' (1999) with Daryl Hannah taking over the role of Agent Alex McGregor. The film co-stars Doug Savant and Gregory Harrison, rep ...
''. The physical similarities between Thurman and Hannah inspired how he wrote the rivalry between the characters.
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.
Another draft featured a scene in which the Bride's car is blown up by Elle.
Filming
![Kill Bill katana-P5120166-gradient](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Kill_Bill_katana-P5120166-gradient.jpg)
When Thurman became pregnant as shooting was ready to begin, Tarantino delayed the production, saying: "If
Josef Von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg (; born Jonas Sternberg; May 29, 1894 – December 22, 1969) was an Austrian-American filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major ...
is getting ready to make ''
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
'' and
Marlene Dietrich
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...
gets pregnant, he waits for Dietrich!"
Although the scenes are presented out of chronological order, the film was shot in sequence.
The choreographer
Yuen Woo-Ping, whose previous credits include ''
The Matrix
''The Matrix'' is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in ''The Matrix'' film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantolia ...
'', was the film's martial arts advisor.
The
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
sequence, covering O-Ren Ishii's backstory, was directed by
Kazuto Nakazawa
is a Japanese character designer and director of numerous anime series and video games who also goes by the pseudonym . His directorial work includes ''Parasite Dolls'', the anime sequence in '' Kill Bill: Volume 1'', and the Moondrive segment ...
and produced by
Production I.G
is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise, founded on December 15, 1987, by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa and headquartered in Musashino, Tokyo, Japan. The letters I and G derive from the names of the company founders: producer Mitsuhisa Ish ...
, which had produced films including ''
Ghost in the Shell
''Ghost in the Shell'' is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of ''The Ghost in the Shell'' ...
'' and ''
Blood: The Last Vampire''. The combined production lasted 155 days and had a budget of $55 million.
According to Tarantino, the most difficult part of making the film was "trying to take myself to a different place as a filmmaker and throw my hat in the ring with other great action directors", as opposed to the dialogue scenes he was known for.
The House of Blue Leaves sequence, in which the Bride battles dozens of yakuza soldiers, took eight weeks to film, six weeks over schedule. Tarantino wanted to create "one of the greatest, most exciting sequences in the history of cinema".
The crew eschewed
computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...
in favor of
practical effect
A practical effect is a special effect produced physically, without computer-generated imagery or other post-production techniques. In some contexts, "special effect" is used as a synonym of "practical effect", in contrast to "visual effects" ...
s used in 1970s
Chinese cinema
The cinema of China is one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan.
Cinema was introduced in China in 1896 and the first Chinese film, '' Dingjun Mountain'' ...
, particularly by the director
Chang Cheh
Chang Cheh (; 10 February 1923 – 22 June 2002) was a Chinese people, Chinese filmmaker, screenwriter, lyricist and producer active in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Chang Cheh directed more than 90 films in Greater China, the majority of them wi ...
, including the use of fire extinguishers and condoms to create spurts and explosions of blood. Tarantino told his crew: "Let's pretend we're little kids and we're making a
Super 8 movie in our back yard, and you don't have all this shit. How would you achieve this effect? Ingenuity is important here!"
Editing
''Kill Bill'' was planned and filmed as a single film.
After editing began, the producer,
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein (; born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender. He and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films inclu ...
, who was known for pressuring filmmakers to shorten their films, suggested that Tarantino split the film in two.
This meant Tarantino did not have to cut scenes, such as the anime sequence. Tarantino told ''
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
'': "I'm talking about scenes that are some of the best scenes in the movie, but in this hurdling pace where you're trying to tell only one story, that would have been the stuff that would have had to go. But to me, that's kind of what the movie was, are these little detours and these little grace notes."
The decision to split the film was announced in July 2003.
Car crash
Near the end of filming, Thurman was injured in a crash while filming the scene in which she drives to Bill. According to Thurman, she was uncomfortable driving the car and asked a stunt driver to do it; Tarantino assured her that the car and road were safe. She lost control of the car and hit a tree, suffering a concussion and damage to her knees.
According to Thurman, Miramax would only give her the crash footage if she signed a document "releasing them of any consequences of
hurman'sfuture pain and suffering". Tarantino was apologetic, but his and Thurman’s relationship became bitter for years afterwards. Thurman said that after the accident she "went from being a creative contributor and performer to being like a broken tool". Miramax released the footage in 2018 after Thurman went to police following the
accusations of sexual abuse by Weinstein.
Music
As with Tarantino's previous films, ''Kill Bill'' features a diverse soundtrack; genres include
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
and
Spaghetti Western
The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
scores by
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classica ...
.
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely re ...
's theme from the film ''
Twisted Nerve
''Twisted Nerve'' is a 1968 psychological thriller film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Hywel Bennett, Hayley Mills, Billie Whitelaw and Frank Finlay. The film follows a disturbed young man, Martin, who pretends, under the name of Georg ...
'' 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
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
is used as the Bride's revenge motif, which flares up with a red-tinged flashback whenever she is in the company of her next target. Instrumental tracks from Japanese guitarist
Tomoyasu Hotei
, also known simply as Hotei ( ), is a Japanese musician, singer-songwriter, composer, record producer and actor. With a career spanning more than 35 years, Hotei claims record sales of over 40 million copies and has collaborated with acclaimed a ...
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 (The Gong-Gong Song)
"I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)" is a song written by Ike Turner and recorded by Ike & Tina Turner's backing trio The Ikettes in 1961. In 2017, ''Billboard'' ranked the song No. 63 on their list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time.
Overv ...
" 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.
James Last
James Last (, ; born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 – 9 June 2015), also known as Hansi, was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist (Last won the award for "best bassist" in Germany in each of ...
's "The Lonely Shepherd" by pan flute virtuoso
Gheorghe Zamfir
Gheorghe Zamfir (; born April 6, 1941) is a Romanian nai (pan flute) musician.
Zamfir is known for playing an expanded version of normally 20-pipe nai, with 22, 25, 28 or even 30 pipes, to increase its range, and obtaining as many as eight ove ...
plays over the closing credits. The theme from ''
The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet is a superhero created in 1936 by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell. Since his 1930s radio debut, the character has appeared in numerous serialized dramas in a wide variety of media ...
'' plays when the Bride is flying to and arriving in Japan.
Influences
''Kill Bill'' was inspired by
grindhouse
A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film ...
films that played in cheap US theaters in the 1970s, including
martial arts
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; a ...
films,
samurai cinema
, also commonly spelled "''chambara''", meaning "sword fighting" films,Hill (2002). denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to Western and swashbuckler films. ''Chanbara'' is a sub-category of '' ...
,
blaxploitation
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...
films, and
spaghetti westerns
The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
.
It pays homage to the
Shaw Brothers Studio
Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. () was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, and operated from 1925 to 2011.
In 1925, three Shaw brothers— Runje, Runme, and Runde—founded Tianyi Film Company (also called "Unique") in Shangh ...
, known for its martial arts films, with the inclusion of the ShawScope logo in its opening titles
and the "crashing zoom", a fast
zoom
Zoom may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Zoom (software), videoconferencing application
* Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display
* Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...
usually ending in a
close-up
A close-up or closeup in filmmaking, television production, still photography, and the comic strip medium is a type of shot that tightly frames a person or object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium and long s ...
commonly used in Shaw Brothers films.
The
Kinji Fukasaku
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Known for his "broad range and innovative filmmaking," Fukasaku worked in many different genres and styles, but was best known for his gritty yakuza films, typified by the ''Battles Without Honor ...
Battles Without Honor and Humanity
, also known in the West as ''The Yakuza Papers'', is a Japanese yakuza film series produced by Toei Company. Inspired by a series of magazine articles by journalist Kōichi Iiboshi that are based on memoirs originally written by real-life yaku ...
series main soundtrack theme, particularly its
reinterpretation
Musical phrasing is the method by which a musician shapes a sequence of notes in a passage of music to allow expression, much like when speaking English a phrase may be written identically but may be spoken differently, and is named for the in ...
in the
2000 film
The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.
The top grosser worldwide was '' Mission: Impossible 2''. Domestically in North America, '' Gladiator'' won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ( Russell Crowe). ''Dinosaur'' ...
, was utilized heavily in the film.
The Bride's yellow tracksuit, helmet and motorcycle resemble those used by
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines that ...
in the 1972 martial arts film ''
Game of Death
''The Game of Death'' (Chinese: 死亡的遊戲) is an incomplete Hong Kong martial arts film, filmed between August and October 1972, directed, written, produced by and starring Bruce Lee, in his final film project. Lee died during the making ...
''.
The animated sequence pays homage to violent
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
films such as ''
Golgo 13: The Professional'' (1983) and ''
Wicked City'' (1987)
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' 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 used "Japanese-style animation to break up the narrative".
The plot also resembles the 1968 French film ''
The Bride Wore Black
''The Bride Wore Black'' (french: La Mariée était en noir) is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut and based on the novel of the same name by William Irish, a pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich. It stars Jeanne Moreau, Charles Den ...
,'' in which a bride seeks revenge on five gang members and strikes them off a list as she kills them.
Release
Theatrical release
![State Theater Ann Arbor, MI](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/State_Theater_Ann_Arbor%2C_MI.jpg)
''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' was released in theaters on , 2003. It was the first Tarantino film in six years, following ''
Jackie Brown
''Jackie Brown'' is a 1997 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, based on Elmore Leonard's 1992 novel ''Rum Punch.'' It stars Pam Grier as Jackie Brown, a flight attendant who is caught smuggling money. Samuel L. Ja ...
'' in 1997.
In the United States and Canada, ''Volume 1'' was released in and grossed on its opening weekend.
Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, said ''Volume 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.
It ranked first at the box office, beating ''
School of Rock
''School of Rock'' (titled onscreen as ''The School of Rock'') is a 2003 comedy film directed by Richard Linklater, produced by Scott Rudin, and written by Mike White. The film stars Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, and Sarah Silverman. Bl ...
'' (in its second weekend) and ''
Intolerable Cruelty
''Intolerable Cruelty'' is a 2003 American romantic comedy film directed and co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen, and produced by Brian Grazer and the Coens. The script was written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone and Ethan and Joel Coen, with th ...
'' (in its first). ''Volume 1'' had the widest theatrical release
and highest-grossing opening weekend of a Tarantino film to date; ''Jackie Brown'' and ''
Pulp Fiction
''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhame ...
'' (1994) had each grossed on their opening weekends.
According to the studio, exit polls showed that 90% of the audience was interested in seeing the second ''Kill Bill'' after seeing the first.
Outside the United States and Canada, ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' was released in . The film outperformed its main competitor ''Intolerable Cruelty'' in Norway, Denmark and Finland, though it ranked second in Italy. ''Volume 1'' had a record opening in Japan, though expectations were higher due to the film being partially set there and because of its homages to Japanese martial arts cinema. It had "a muted entry" in the United Kingdom and Germany due to its 18 certificate, but "experienced acceptable drops" after its opening weekend in the two territories. By , 2003, it had made in the . It grossed a total of in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide total of .
Home media
In the United States, ''Volume 1'' was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
and
VHS on April 13, 2004, the week ''Volume 2'' was released in theaters. 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."
After one week of release, the film's DVD sales had surpassed its US box office gross.
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 ''Volume 2'' in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive box set slipcase to house the two individual releases together.
''Volume 1'', along with ''Volume 2'', was released in
High Definition on
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
on September 9, 2008, in the United States. As of March 2012, ''Volume 1'' sold 141,456 Blu-ray units in the US, grossing $1,477,791.
Reception
On review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' has a score of 85% based on reviews from 238 critics; the average rating is 7.70/10. Its consensus reads: "''Kill Bill'' is admittedly little more than a stylish revenge thriller – albeit one that benefits from a wildly inventive surfeit of style." At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a weighted average score 69 out of 100 based on 43 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.
Background
Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
[ Each film's score can be accessed from the website's search bar.]
A. O. Scott of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote:
Manohla Dargis
Manohla June Dargis () is an American film critic. She is one of the chief film critics for ''The New York Times''. She is a five-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Career
Before being a film critic for ''The New York Times'', ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' called ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' a "blood-soaked valentine to movies. ... 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." She also recognized Tarantino's technical talent, but thought the film's appeal was too limited to popular culture references, calling its story "the least interesting part of the whole equation".
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' gave it 4 out of 4, describing Tarantino as "effortlessly and brilliantly in command of his technique". He wrote: "The movie is not about anything at all except the skill and humor of its making. It's kind of brilliant."
Cultural historian
Maud Lavin
Maud K. Lavin (born 10 November 1954) is an American writer of creative nonfiction and poetry. She is a professor emerita of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
She is a recipient of a Senior Research Reside ...
states that the Bride's embodiment of revenge taps into viewers' personal fantasies of committing violence. For audiences, particularly women viewers, the character provides a complex site for identification with one's own aggression.
Accolades
Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American actress and former model. She has performed in a variety of films, from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action films. Following her appearances on the December 1985 an ...
received a
Golden Globe Best Actress nomination in 2004. She was also nominated in 2004 for a
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Best Actress in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.
* From 1952 to ...
, in addition with four other
BAFTA nominations. ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' was placed in ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' Magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time at number 325 and the Bride was also ranked number 66 in ''Empire'' magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters". Neither ''Kill Bill'' movie received any
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
(Oscars) nominations.
Sequel
A 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.
Legacy
''
Kill Buljo
''Kill Buljo'' is a 2007 Norwegian black comedy film directed by Tommy Wirkola. It parodies the 2003 Quentin Tarantino film ''Kill Bill''. It is set in Finnmark, Norway and portrays the protagonist Jompa Tormann's hunt for Tampa and Papa Buljo. Th ...
'' is a 2007 Norwegian parody of ''Kill Bill'' set in
Finnmark
Finnmark (; se, Finnmárku ; fkv, Finmarku; fi, Ruija ; russian: Финнмарк) was a county in the northern part of Norway, and it is scheduled to become a county again in 2024.
On 1 January 2020, Finnmark was merged with the neighbouri ...
, Norway, and portrays Jompa Tormann's hunt for Tampa and Papa Buljo. The film satirizes stereotypes of Norway's
Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...
population. According to the Norwegian newspaper ''
Dagbladet
''Dagbladet'' (lit.: ''The Daily Magazine'') is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally ''Dagbladet'' is considered the main liberal newsp ...
'', Tarantino approved of the parody.
The Pussy Wagon vehicle from ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' made a cameo in the 2010 music video for
Lady Gaga
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...
's song "
Telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
" at Tarantino's behest.
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{authority control
2000s action films
2003 films
A Band Apart films
American action films
American films with live action and animation
American splatter films
2000s feminist films
American films about revenge
Films about secret societies
Films directed by Quentin Tarantino
Films produced by Lawrence Bender
Films scored by RZA
Films set in Mexico
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Films set in Texas
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Girls with guns films
Kill Bill
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Samurai films
Films with screenplays by Quentin Tarantino
American vigilante films
Yakuza films
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Japan in non-Japanese culture
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2000s American films