I came across this essay today:
Kill Bill essay
A great effort by comparing scenes,pics,and characters with films that KILL BILL was influenced by, but towards the end of this essay, the author seems to lose the point.
To me, it sounds like he thinks that KILL BILL is the “Be All, End All” on the West’s take on Asian cinema. Nitpicking at how the essence is ruined in certain moments of the film. But as we all should know, KILL BILL is a conglomerate of genres that Tarantino cooked up in his mind. For instance, Giulio Petroni’s Da uomo a uomo (Death Rides A Horse) has as much in common with KILL BILL as Lady Snowblood does. Add to the fact that the music cues that are heard in KILL BILL are derived from Spaghetti Westerns. Yet there’s no mention of that genre at all in this essay.
And another problem I had with this was the author’s view of the “American white person” who continues to exemplify white dominance in film and in life. Jesus. Since the author includes Ms. 45 in this essay, I would assume that he would be familiar with other similar movies like Hannie Caulder,They Call Her One-Eye, and Gator Bait as well. But as Joe Bob Briggs brilliantly says in his audio commentary for I Spit On Your Grave, “It’s a REVENGE movie”. You have to make the original crime so bad that (Regardless of race) you have no objection to see the victim punish everyone else guilty of that crime.
At least, the author got it right by saying how The Bride becomes the ultimate warrior by recieving the greatest katana ever made and by wearing the famous track suit that Bruce Lee wore. And if you combine those 2 factors, you’ll get the ULTIMATE ASSKICKER! Therefore, you’re in for a fun ride!Unfortunately, all the fun that was originally intended in this film goes over this author’s head.
Again, I do applaud the effort on this review. But if only this guy was more familiar with Grindhouse pictures (Judging from the site where this essay is taken from, It seems that he only writes for Asian-related material) then maybe he could see things a little differently.
I dont know, that essay is a big babbling mess to me. Kill Bill has so many things going on it it besides just the Asian action film references and psychology. If youre going to write an essay on this film you have to include all the different genres that are in it. It makes no sense to just compare it to Asian films alone, because right there youre missing all the cultural influences layered throughout the movie.
I also think as an auteur QT doesnt look to be politically correct with his movies. He comes at making movies as a international cinema-pop culture fan and citizen of the world, not as someone who wants to make some big statement with each of his movies.
This notion that every scene must merge with every culturally correct theme of other movies in the genre is BS.
[quote]. He comes at making movies as a international cinema-pop culture fan and citizen of the world, not as someone who wants to make some big statement with each of his movies. [/quote]
Agree.
Since QT is throwing so much into these films, it would be useless to to completely satisfy ALL audiences. But QT (Without a doubt) handled it the best way anyone could…Even if what we saw was just half of the story!
To tell you the truth, The Japanese/Chinese stuff that goes on in KILL BILL was what got the most curiosity out of me when I first heard of this project. We were unfamiliar with Tarantino going this route in his previous movies and, quite frankly, had no idea what to expect. But, as I mentioned above, he managed to pull all the samurai stuff off and (In the process) introduced much of the non-Asian/cinema viewers to a new kind of violence that only purists seemed to be aware of (LoL, I just remembered at another message board that I was at prior to Kill Bill’s weekend release. One guy said “What’s with all the blood splashing around when someone lost a body-part? Is that supposed to mean something?”  :
Well, better to know late than never, right?)
As for that essay, I skipped much of that last chapter that dealt with WWII and the stereotypes. I felt that was totally uncalled for (As if KILL BILL is the ONLY post-war American-made movie that has Japanese characters in it) It sounded to me that someone who really hated this movie ordered that guy to throw that section in, because up untill that point, the author didn’t seem to mind the movie that much. Even if his main emphasis was just on the Asian sections of the movie. Oh, and if he thought Gordon Liu did some sort of parody in Vol. 1, then I can’t wait to hear what this guy says about Vol. 2!
I skimmed through it, looks very boring. I really don’t like reading long droning articles like that. Seems like a lot of pretentious blathering, no offense to the author. There was a lot of attention payed to Corey Yuen’s “So Close” wasn’t there? Maybe because that loser in that newsweek (or whatever that was) article kept trying to throw it in Tarantino’s face. Now I’m very interested in seeing the film, not because of anything these people have said, because up until now I wasn’t aware that Karen Mok was in it! Man, she’s hot!
You can’t talk about Kill Bill and only bring up Asian films, and that whole politically correct tirade about World War II looked highly out of place. As if Tarantino is some kind of rascist or something. Mind you I didn’t read more than a few sentences from each page so maybe he wasn’t heading the directions I think he was, but I read enough to know I could care less to read the whole thing.
A favorite reviewer of mine, Mike Bracken, gave the film a fairly negative write-up a while back. He said he didn’t feel that Tarantino respected the films he was writing an homage for, yet at the same time he scolded Tarantino for not giving Sonny Chiba any action scenes. To me that proves the opposite doesn’t it? That Tarantino respects Chiba’s acting ability so much that he would give him a part in his film based solely on performance rather than his fighting ability. I think there are probably a lot of film geeks who are scared of something like Kill Bill, don’t know why.
I disagree with the author saying that Kill bill lacks no emotion,
He is dead wrong!! what about the scene with Little O-ren
ishii under the bed while her mother’s blood dripped onto her face that was very gripping upsetting, You can feel O-ren’s sadness and full of hate after that anime scene, Another
scene that was kind of sad is when the bride wakes up from her coma seeing that she lost her baby cries off all her tears
a great acting scene by uma thruman… This author all he does is compare. compare,! to past asian genre movies…
What he doesnt talk about is how kill bill has some spagetti
western flick influence… Im asian chinese im not nitpicky
Iv grown to watch all genre movies, b movies, etc…
I understood what Kill Bill is all about… BTW i saw kill bill vol 1
for the 6 time again after i saw matrix revolutions, I see people
sneaking into Kill Bill vol 1 after the movie i heard some people
say that Kill Bill 1 is way better than matrix revlotuons…
lol!!!