Kill Bill: Difference between revisions
m
no edit summary
No edit summary |
mNo edit summary |
||
| (9 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 4:
{{quote|''"I've [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|killed a hell of a lot of people]] to get to this point, but I have only one more. The last one. The one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination... I am gonna [[Title Drop|KILL BILL]]."''|'''The Bride'''}}
''[[Kill Bill]]'' takes [[Quentin Tarantino]]'s favorite things -- westerns, samurai movies, martial arts, pop-culture references, [[Action Girl|Action Girls]], and [[Foot Focus|close-ups of women's bare feet]] ([[Author Appeal|don't ask about]] [[Fetish|that last one]]) -- and combines them all into one hell of a revenge drama.
While Tarantino originally conceived the film as one complete movie, Miramax split it into two parts (''Vol. 1'', released in 2003, and ''Vol. 2'', released in 2004). Watching them together earns you a nice four-hour action romp filled with deliberate over-the-top violence which runs on the [[Rule of Cool]]. Tarantino plans to film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1521225/ a third movie], but currently the project (originally intended to go before cameras in 2014
The story -- told in "chapters", as well as [[Signature Style|Tarantino's signature non-linear fashion]] -- centers around an [[Action Girl]] known primarily as "[[No Name Given|The Bride]]", a former assassin who wants to [[I Just Want to Be Normal|pursue a life of normalcy]]. Her former crew, [[Murder, Inc.|The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad]], isn't too happy with that -- and during The Bride's wedding rehearsal, they crash the church and slaughter the entire wedding party, then [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|beat The Bride spaghetti-western-style]] until she can't move. Once the DeVAS are done, their leader (the eponymous Bill) walks up to The Bride and puts a bullet in her head -- right after The Bride tells him she's pregnant with his child. Four years later, The Bride wakes up from a coma and vows to get her revenge on the DeVAS -- and anyone who happens to get in her way -- while saving Bill for last.
To view a partial list of the innumerable references to other films in ''Kill Bill'', visit the [[Quentin Tarantino/List of Film References in Tarantino's Films|List of Film References in
{{tropelist}}
* [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]: The katana owned by the Bride is so sharp, its creator claims that "If on your journey, you should encounter God, [[Blasphemous Boast|God will be cut."]]
** The line could also be seen as a reference to the Buddhist belief that to obtain enlightenment, one has to destroy all obstacles on their path, including the Buddha himself ("If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha").
* [[Action Girl]]: Every major female character other than Sofie Fatale, Nikki Green and {{spoiler|B.B.}}.
Line 21:
* [[Agony of the Feet]]: How the Bride managed to disable Gogo before offing her: she drove the extruding nail of a 2x4 through one of her feet.
** After she gets out of that coffin and walks barefoot through the desert back to Bud's trailer, and ''then'' is fighting barefoot amid all that shattered glass and splinters and God knows what else (oh, yeah, and the ''black mamba'') all over the floor.... That's brutal.
* [[Aluminum Christmas Trees]]: Kaboom cereal (the box that Vernita hides a gun in) was indeed real, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaboom_(breakfast_cereal) see for yourself.]
* [[Anachronic Order]]: A Tarantino trademark. The first chapter from ''Vol. 1'' shows the Bride's second kill on her mission, and the next four chapters are a flashback to everything leading up to that kill - the Bride waking up from her coma, getting her Hanzo sword, hunting down O-Ren Ishii, and making her hit list.
* [[Animal Assassin]]: {{spoiler|Elle kills Budd with a black mamba}}. Which quite possibly {{spoiler|[[Laser-Guided Karma|kills herself]] later on}}.
Line 58 ⟶ 59:
* [[Born in the Wrong Century]]: For the most part, most of the characters try to live by the sword, but even so, a lot of them are [[Combat Pragmatist|Combat Pragmatists]]; even the Bride seems ready to [[Title Drop|kill Bill]] with a gun at first.
* [[Boss in Mook Clothing]]: Johnny Mo, who arrives at the head of the Crazy 88 to battle the Bride. He lasts throughout the entire battle, engaging her multiple times, and at the end faces her in single combat.
* [[Brick Joke]]: When the Bride says to Nikki that "It was not my intention to do this in front of you. For that I'm sorry. But you can take my word for it, your mother had it comin'. When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting."
** Quentin is planning a third volume of the story,
* [[Buried Alive]]: What Budd does to the Bride.
* [[But Not Too Foreign]]: O-Ren Ishii is half Japanese and half Chinese-American; Sofie is half Japanese and half [[Everyone Looks Sexier If French|French]].
Line 99 ⟶ 100:
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: Found within the story of Pai Mei that Bill tells the Bride. Pai Mei once offered a small nod of deference (a rare gesture) to a passing Shaolin monk, who failed to return it -- for all anyone knows, the monk might not have even noticed it. For this grave insult, Pai Mei headed to the Shaolin Temple and demanded the head of the head abbot as an apology. When the other monks pleaded for mercy and tried to console Pai Mei, he slaughtered every one of them, burning the monastery down afterwards.
** Also:
{{quote|''Bill'': Not only are you not dead, you're getting married, to some fucking jerk, and you're pregnant. I... [[Understatement|overreacted]].
[long pause]
''The Bride'': You ''overreacted?''}}
* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]: Pai Mei.
Line 109 ⟶ 110:
* [[Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas]]: Played with. The Bride is a mass-murderer who, in her [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], has killed, hacked off parts of, and tortured her former colleagues, moving coldly onto her next target without even waiting for the blood to stop pooling beneath the chopped-up bodies, but when Elle reveals that she killed the Bride's Master, she ''gets even more [[Berserk Button|fucking pissed!]]''
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Bill will be "a murdering bastard" any day, but he will not (in the end) kill someone in their sleep, because "that act would lower us".
** The Bride is sadistic and a mass-murderer; but she shows this as well. She sticks to the people on her list (and the Crazy 88) despite pointing out to Vernita to make things even, she would have to kill Vernita, her daughter, and her husband. She is also willing to stop the fight in front of Vernita's daughter {{spoiler|and appears genuinely regretfully that she killed Vernita in front of her daughter}}.
* [[Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting]]: The Bride is allowed to take her katana on the plane with her, because it's considered matter-of-fact for ''everybody'' at the airport (and, by extension, the country of Japan) to have a katana. In the scene where the Bride is flying out of Japan and formulating her death list, there is a katana across the aisle from her, right in front of the camera. At first glance it looks like she respects the sword so much, she bought a seat especially for it, but then you notice that her katana is actually behind her. The man seated behind the Bride has one as well. Probably everyone on the plane has one.
* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]
Line 186 ⟶ 187:
* [[Memetic Badass]]: [[In-Universe]] example, Pai Mei seems to have achieved this status so much that legends of his badassery go back a millennium.
* [[The Men in Black]]: The Crazy 88s, who are apparently a simultaneous [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[The Green Hornet]]'' and ''[[The Matrix]]'' (Yuen Wo Ping was the fight choreographer for all three ''Matrix'' films and ''Kill Bill'').
* [[Mighty Whitey]]: The elderly Chinese kung fu master Pai Mei hates skinny people, blondes, whites, women, Japanese people, and Americans. Therefore, his greatest pupil is a skinny, blond, white American woman who speaks Japanese. Then again, he [[Training
** Of course, the only reason he even considered teaching them at all is because of Bill...
** Not to mention that the Bride mops the floor with the bloody remains of the all-Asian martial arts army, the Crazy 88, and then goes on to defeat their Asian mistress.
Line 227 ⟶ 228:
** The 5-6-7-8's have been featured in a few commercials since the film as well.
** And [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZHP10__Co this scene] from ''[[The Good, the Bad, the Weird]]'' uses Santa Esmeralda's cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" to great effect.
* [[Renowned Selective Mentor]]: Pai Mei. Apparently he only rarely accepts students and is a thousand-year-old renowned recluse.
* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: The Deadly Viper Assassin Squad.
* [[Retraux]]: The Bride 'driving' in front of an obvious back-projection at the start of ''Vol. 2'', while delivering her monologue.
* [[Retired Badass]]: Hatori Hanzo is no longer in the sword-making business but that doesn't mean he isn't willing to make an exception when it comes to killing Bill.
* [[Retired Monster]]: Most of the characters we see:
** Vernita and Budd have both left the criminal lifestyle behind - but not their skills as assassins.
** Subverted in the case of O-Ren, who only gave up the assassin's lifestyle to become head of the Yakuza.
** Bill seems to have left the business behind as well in order to {{spoiler|raise Bea-Bea}}.
Line 245 ⟶ 246:
* [[Sailor Fuku]]: Gogo.
* [[Secret Art]]: The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, {{spoiler|which even Bill was surprised to find out was taught to someone else by Pai Mei}}.
* [[Sequel Hook]]: Elle and Sofie are still alive (if not in one piece), Budd still had some friends back in Barstow, and Vernita's daughter saw her mom killed in front of her eyes. Add the Bride's own daughter to the mix and [[Word of God|Tarantino's comments]] and ''Kill B{{spoiler|eatrix}}: Vol. 3'' is just waiting to be a-born
{{quote|"Oh yeah, initially I was thinking this would be my "Dollars Trilogy". I was going to do a new one every ten years. [[Lying Creator|But I need at least fifteen years before I do this again]]. I've already got the whole mythology: {{spoiler|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."}}
** The trope is also inverted in that, with the exception of the question mark in the end credits, none of these happen near the end of the films. In fact, only Budd's friends even happen in the second movie!
* [[The Seventies]]: Many, many references, visual homages, and the soundtrack.
* [[She Fu]]: Averted hard by both movies. The Bride took as good as she gave. This led a few reviewers to claim the movies were hateful toward women since it essentially meant the character was being put through everything any male action character would be put through. Apparently, the critics wanted [[She Fu]] instead.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Many martial arts films.
** Perhaps most notable, the live action film adaptation of ''[[Lady Snowblood]]''. Aside from the general similarities in the plot, Vol. 1 uses the film's theme song, and many shots, especially {{spoiler|O-Ren Ishii lying on the ground after her death}}, are strikingly similar to those in ''Snowblood''.
Line 277 ⟶ 278:
* [[Throwing Down the Gauntlet]]: The Bride's calling-out of O-Ren at the House of Blue Leaves using her [[Catch Phrase]]. In Japanese.<ref>The Japanese she uses here is ''"Shoubu wa mada tsuicha inai yo!"'', which roughly translates to "Our contest isn't over yet!"</ref>
* [['Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain]]: The Bride survives a shot to the head at point blank range (though it does send her into a coma).
* {{spoiler|[[Tongue Suicide]]}}: {{spoiler|Jasper died when the Bride bite his tongue off}}.
* [[Touch of Death]]: The legendary Five-Point-Palm Exploding Heart Technique.
* [[Training
* [[Trunk Shot]]
* [[Twinkle Toes Samurai]]: O-Ren during the meeting of the bosses, immediately before beheading Boss Tanaka. Justified as she's wearing traditional Japanese clothing at the time: If she didn't take those dainty little steps, she'd probably end up with a face full of table.
* [[Understatement]]: Bill: "I... [[Kill'Em All|overreacted]]".
** [[Flat What]]: Bride: *Beat*... *Beat*... *Beat*... *Beat*... ''"You... overreacted?"''
* [[Unkempt Beauty]]: The Bride. Spectacularly gorgeous even when she spends most of her time covered in sweat, mud and blood.
* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Elle, after {{spoiler|losing her remaining eye}}. Holy...
* [[Visual Pun]]: In ''Vol. 1'', Vernita
* [[Wax On, Wax Off]]
* [[Wham! Line]]: {{spoiler|"Does she know... her daughter's still alive?"}}
Line 298 ⟶ 300:
** More like "Woman dressed as a villain on [[Star Trek]]."
* [[Woman in White]]: O-Ren.
** The Bride, of course, when she's in the dress.
*** And then at the end of ''Vol. 2'', we see her in white again. Bringing the story full circle.
* [[World of Ham]]: So much so that it all seems normal, in-universe.
Line 308 ⟶ 310:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Films of the 2010s]]▼
[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]
[[Category:Kill Bill]]▼
[[Category:Film]]
| |||