YESASIA: YumCha! - A Fan Boy's Ramble on Kill Bill - Feature Article

Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2 are quintessentially a window into the inner workings of writer and director Quentin Tarantino, borrowing heavily from Asian filmmaking, Hong Kong Kung fu and Japanese swordplay. The first volume is an adrenaline-pumping hack and slash gore-fest which takes the best elements of the chop-socky kung fu movie and throws an awesome samurai sword and hundreds of henchmen into the mix. The second volume steps back a bit, slows down and paces out the movie, subtly, like a true samurai movie, where the enemies are dispatched with a series of blows but the spraying blood is noticeably absent. Let's take a look at what makes this movie great.

Explanation of Wuxia
"Wuxia" is the definitive Chinese term for martial arts, and these Wuxia films were churned out by the hundreds by the Shaw Brothers Studio. Many of the Shaw Brothers classics were dubbed and released to North America, including Avenging Eagle, Come Drink With Me, Golden Swallow and Holy Flame Of The Martial World. Tarantino felt a need to direct in the Shaw Brothers Studio to truly capture the moment of his "homage".

Everybody's Kung fu Fighting
Tarantino's youth was fed on a steady diet of Hong Kong kung fu "Wuxia" films (please see sidebar); more accurately, they were typically badly-dubbed, low production quality, "martial arts hero" movies. The blood, the gore, the eyeball gouges, the "Five Point Exploding Heart Technique", these are all staples of 70s "Wuxia". Legendary Hong Kong action director Yuen Wo Ping directed all the martial arts in Kill Bill as well as the martial arts in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix series.

Action Figure Guest Stars
In Vol. 2, the renowned Gordon Lau plays the cruel master "Pai Mei". The most memorable character in Kill Bill 2, he was lifted from Fists of the White Lotus where two Shaolin monks fight Pai Mei and his White Lotus Clan with Tiger and Crane Style. See the movie for yourself, the Kung fu is awesome.

Tarantino is also a huge fan of Sonny Chiba who plays sword maker, "Hattori Hanzo". He is best known for his bloody martial arts flick The Street Fighter, and as your model anti-hero, he fights to protect a billionaire's daughter by any means necessary! Typical finishing moves include testicle-smashing and eye-gouging.

Had Bruce Lee been alive, Tarantino would have of asked him to have been in it. Unfortunately the best that we have is the Game of Death yellow jump suit. The costume also shows up in Shaolin Soccer and the video game Tekken 3.

Samurai Movies and Spaghetti Westerns
These two genres have a massive amount in common, where Sergio Leone borrows stories from Akira Kurosawa's films, The Seven Samurais and Yojimbo to make Clint Eastwood a star in A Fistful of Dollars. Just as Clint Eastwood is the "Cowboy with No Name", Uma Thurman is "The Bride/Assassin with No Name" and was only revealed at the very end of Vol. 2. The sword replaces the gun in Kill Bill as the weapon of choice, as all the directors try to tap the essence of Bushido, the warrior's code.

The sword work and the stylized violence - the sprays of gore, decapitations - can be seen in other Japanese movies such as Lone Wolf and Cub and Beat Takeshi's Zatoichi. For Those of you who were wondering what the daughter and the Bride are watching just before bedtime, it is Shogun Assassins, which is an English dub of the Lone Wolf series.

Quentin Tarantino
Tarantino would not be Tarantino if he did not reference his own works, and there are quite a few homages to his other movies. The "natural born killer" that Bill refers to as "The Bride" is a nod to Natural Born Killers written by Tarantino, directed by Oliver Stone. In Vol. 2 The Bride pulls a razor from her cowboy boot just like Mr. Blonde did before he slashed the cop's ear in Reservoir Dogs. Budd explains to Elle that he pawned his Hanzo sword; Butch finds a samurai sword in the pawn shop in Pulp Fiction. Fake brand, Red Apple cigarettes shows up in all of his movies. Elle Driver wears the same costume in her final battle with "The Bride" as Pam Grier in Jackie Brown and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

Anime
It's no secret that our favorite director is a huge fan of Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell and tapped the same animation studio, Production IG, to animate the O-Ren Ishii assassin back story in Vol. 1. Production IG movies are well known in Japan for its complex stories and cutting edge animation and has established working relationship with some of the best known manga artists in Japan, including Shirow and Mamoru Oshii. Patlabor, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Jin-roh, FLCL, Blood: the Last Vampire and Innocence are all Production IG movies. They are currently making inroads into more American movies, and you may have seen their work in the Wachowski brothers' The Animatrix as well.

There are so many references to Asian movies in the two Kill Bill movies, and we have only scratched the surface. Imitation is the highest form of flattery and Quentin Tarantino takes the chop-socky, Asian action film of the 60s and 70s to a new level of pop-art.

Published July 9, 2004

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