‘Kill Bill’ 20th anniversary: Remembering Uma Thurman’s queen of revenge anti-heroines
Black Mamba. The Bride. Beatrix Kiddo. Mommy. From hired assassin to “defenseless” Bride to vengeful Beatrix to protective Mommy, Uma Thurman‘s “Kill Bill” character is arguably THE queen of revenge anti-heroines. On April 16, 2004, the much-anticipated second half of Quentin Tarantino‘s masterful saga was released in the U.S., and it did not disappoint. Read on for Gold Derby’s appreciation of the “Kill Bill” 20th anniversary.
“Kill Bill: Volume 2” is not a sequel, as the movie was filmed as a whole, and the original intent was a single release. However, the run time of four-plus hours motivated Tarantino to split it into two halves as opposed to heavy edits. The filmmaker’s homage to the films he loves — grindhouse, martial arts, blaxploitation, spaghetti westerns — was a decade in the making, and began with a seed of an idea between Thurman and him.
The director and actress first imagined the character of the Bride while making “Pulp Fiction” (1994), and Tarantino developed her over the next several years. Shosanna Dreyfus in “Inglorious Basterds” was originally conceived as a Nazi assassin with a hit list to check off, but that character and story were reworked, and it would be the Bride who would have a list of people to cross off before she reached her final destination: to “Kill Bill.”
“Kill Bill: Volume 1” opens with a closeup of a beaten and bloodied Uma Thurman as the Bride, lying on the floor staring with a mix of shock and fear at her assailant. We only hear his voice, asking if she finds him “sadistic,” and, before the final bang of his gun, she tells him “Bill, it’s your baby.” What follows is her tale of recovery, redemption and revenge as she systematically kills off her former colleagues and the assassins of her wedding party, a group of professional killers known as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.
The first part of “Kill Bill” establishes that the Bride has been in a coma for four years, and awakens to the belief that her unborn child is dead, and goes on “what movie advertisements refer to as a roaring rampage of revenge.” She “roars and rampages” against two of her colleagues in “Volume 1,” climaxing in an artfully choreographed, very highly improbable, fight to death with O’Ren Ishii’s (Lucy Liu) Crazy 88 fighters.
Brandishing the Hattori Hanzo sword forged specially for her, the Bride continues to roar and rampage in “Kill Bill: Volume 2.” The Bride plots her vengeance against the remaining Vipers, Bill’s brother Budd (Michael Madsen) and the one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), who reveals the Bride to be Beatrix Kiddo. The long-simmering rivalry between Beatrix and Elle, who both studied under Bill and martial arts legend Phi Mei, culminates in a fight scene in a trailer with two deadly Black Mambas and two Hanzo swords. The tight confines, Beatrix’s oblivion to the fact that there’s a real deadly snake lurking about and the venom spewing between the two vipers comes to a head when Beatrix strikes with a blow that doesn’t kill, but leaves the already visually impaired Elle in an even more horrible predicament than death itself — and an image that moviegoers are not likely to ever forget.
As with most Tarantino films, there is a seemingly random hodgepodge of tributes to film history, but all come together with a purpose. Although Tarantino reportedly had Warren Beatty in mind for the character of Bill, it’s fitting that the role ended up going to David Carradine. Carradine had risen to fame as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s TV series “Kung Fu,” which was influential in popularizing Eastern culture and martial arts in the United States. Carradine was also a musician, proficient on several instruments, including the flute, many of which he carved himself. The flute he plays in “Kill Bill” is one he made himself for his 1978 martial arts film “Circle of Iron,” which was co-written by Bruce Lee. The final showdown between Beatrix and Bill is a slow build, and not the gore-filled, violence-filled battles she had had with her female vipers, but it is a fitting and satisfying end to a mommy’s quest for revenge.
On the awards front, neither “Kill Bill” film received any Oscar nominations, though “Volume 1” did dominate the MTV Awards by winning Best Female Performance (Thurman), Best Villain (Liu) and Best Fight (Thurman vs. Chiaki Kuriyama). In addition, Thurman received back-to-back bids at the Golden Globes for both parts, with that group recognizing Carradine for “Volume 2.”
Tarantino has been quoted as saying he didn’t “go to film school,” he “went to films,” and his love of cinema shines in each of his creations, with his blend of genres that, combined with carefully selected music, well-developed dialogue and skillfully choreographed fight scenes, are one-of-kind and have influenced a generation of filmmakers. It’s been 20 years since the release of the second-half of the “Kill Bill” saga, and it remains as visually stunning, ironically witty and bloody glorious as it was upon first viewing two decades ago.
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