 The ROSSMAN BrideOkay, a while ago I had said that Battle
Royale was the greatest action movie ever made... And
at the time it was. And, it held that honor all the way up
until last Friday
when Kill Bill volume 1 was released. Now,
I still believe that BR is an incredible and
incredibly bloody piece of cinematic art (and it
will always have a special place in my heart), but it is missing
one thing that Kill Bill has
in spades: snappy Tarantino-esque dialogue.
Kill Bill is just ripe with
witty banter. And violence. Lots of violence. The opening scene
alone will blow your mind away (just like it did to Uma's
character). Then there's that now famous non-stop 20+ minute
scene that's nothing but
unrelenting, samurai
sword
swinging
violence.
At
least 89 people are killed or massively wounded in that 20
minute span alone (that would be Sophia,
O-Ren Ishii,
and
87 out of her "Crazy 88" foot soldiers). Plus, another
thing that raises KB above BR is
its plot. Yes, KB indeed does do have
one, as much as critics try to make fun of it by saying that
there is naught a plot in sight. KB's plot
is fairly simple, and it's my all time favorite kind of plot. KB is all about revenge.
But once again, as I am wont to do, I'm getting a bit ahead
of myself. Let's start back at the beginning. In
fact, let me take you even further back than the start of the
actual movie.
As I recall, it was close to two years ago that
Quentin Tarantino's script to his about-to-be-filmed 4th movie
was leaked to the entire internet. And it was quite the download
(it was 336 pages long, where most scripts are between 90 -
120 pages... about a page per minute of finished film is the
rule
of thumb).
It took me an afternoon to get through it, but I was in love
with it from the very first page, and the time just flew by.
Quentin actually wrote out every single direction for how every
sword
was to swing. He wrote how every character would sneer, wrinkle
their noses, or glare in complete detail. He was beyond descriptive.
It wasn't a screenplay, it was more like a novelization. It
was
great.
I followed the production of the actual movie
like a hawk... Eh, I had nothing better to do. From its nearly
year-long filming calendar to post-production, all the way
to the track listings for the soundtrack (which rocked my little
world! "Bang bang, he shot me down. Bang bang, I hit the ground..."
I can never look at that song the same way again). I was a Kill
Bill junkie
by the time the movie actually came out.
So, you ask, what the fuck is it all about then?
Well, I already told you above, dingleberry. It's about REVENGE.
See, Uma Thurman's character, known as *BLEEP*,
is nine months pregnant and about to marry some guy in a rinky
dink Texas
chapel out in the middle of nowhere, when her old lover/employer,
Bill, busts in with her old coworkers (the Deadly Viper Assassination
Squad,
aka
the
DiVAS) and shoots the shit out of the place. The DiVAS kill
almost everybody in the joint and then beat the living shit
out of Uma's bride.
Then Bill puts a bullet in her head. However, that bullet didn't
do its job. All it did was put the Bride in a coma. A nice
4 year coma. After the Bride wakes up, she steals Buck's
truck (the glorious Pussy Wagon) and starts tracking down all
of
the fuckers who did her wrong. It's a good thing for the Bride
that she was Bill's star pupil when it came to killing things,
'cause the people that she wants to revenge herself upon are
the world's top assassins (did you think they used that whole
DiVAS name cause it sounded cool?).
Then we get about an hour and a half of nothing
but Uma getting medieval on people's asses. What more could
you possibly want out of a movie?!
Now, I could get all IMDB on you and start naming
all the Honk Kong and samurai references and homages that Tarantino
was making throughout the course of Kill Bill...
but that would be pretentious and asinine of me. I would sound
like a complete
gloryhound assfucker who just likes to quote old movies and
point out every style and angle a certain shot was made to
emulate. That and there's no way anybody, other than Tarantino
himself, could name them all. There are so many homages to
classic B-movies and 70s chop socky flicks that it will make
your head spin! I am already gizzing my pants thinking about
the whole training sequence with Pai Mei coming up in volume
2!... But I digress.
Kill Bill is all about Quentin
Tarantino making the ultimate exploitation movie. He doesn't
even apologize
for it. He doesn't try to quell the critics who lambaste him
for making a paper-thin story that does nothing but glorify
violence. He actually agrees with them. That was the plan from
the beginning. Get over it. Quentin made the perfect revenge
movie, the perfect gore and violence-fest. The man should be
worshipped! The style and artistry that went into Kill
Bill is mind numbing! Every scene
has its own flavor and feel to it. From the suburban coziness
of Vernita Green's family's
home, to Hattori Hanzo's broken down and dusty sushi shop,
to the entire House of Blue Leaves dance club and Japanese
garden (which, I would guess 'cause it was in Japan, they'd
only call a regular "garden"). Every new stage is
fresh and fun to look at. Plus it's cool to see just about
every set
get
completely
trashed
as
Uma fights
her way through it.
There are only two things that I have to complain
about in regards to Kill Bill. And they're
pretty minor and understandable. Number one is that they actually
cut Kill
Bill in
half. That sucks that I have to wait another 4 months to see
the end of it. Granted,
the breather is appreciated. Volume 1 is really
intense, but that's what an intermission is for. You know,
a break halfway
through the movie to give the audience time to piss and buy
more JuJu Beads and popcorn. Four months is just unacceptable,
especially when Kill Bill was originally one
movie (and never meant to
be a movie and a sequel like Back to the Future II
and III...God I loved those flicks!). And it was meant
to be a single movie up until 4 months before its release.
That is like the crappiest last minute desicion I've ever heard
of! Fuck you, studio execs... And your fucking bean counters!
The only other thing that I didn't like about
the movie is something that only somebody who read the
script would miss. "Yuki's Revenge" is not and was
not filmed. See, in the screenplay, the Bride goes to get revenge
on one
of her ex-coworkers, O-Ren Ishii, and comes face to face with
one of her bodyguards, the badass GoGo Yubari. The problem
with the final movie is that it leaves out what happens to
GoGo's sister, the psycho Yuki Yubari. See, originally, both
the Yubari's were protecting their mistress O-Ren, but Yuki
had a cold and left the House of Blue Leaves just before Uma's
character arrived. The entire next chapter then took place
right after Uma left Vernita Green's house. Remember the ice
cream truck that was in the background after the bride got
in the Pussy Wagon and drove away? That was Yuki watching her.
"Yuki's Revenge" was the best part of the
original script. It was the only time that somebody was taking
vengeance back
out on
the Bride. Plus, Yuki gets all coked up on one of Bill's special
crazy drugs and goes balls out of her mind in an attempt
to get revenge for her sister's death. It was so fucking intense,
and that was only on paper! But unfortunately it was edited
out of the story before filming even began because of the runtime
(back when the project was only going to be a single movie).
Now, the world will never hear or see that deranged and drugged
up schoolgirl ask the Bride if she is pretty right before emptying
an AK47 at her and her Pussy Wagon from 10 yards away.
So,
what did I think of the blood-filled Kill Bill
volume 1?
I find that I have to give it an incredible 325.8623
out of 340.10002 Points of Rossman Revenge. It
is a hell of a ride, but it could have been even better (by
not chopping it in half, and by keeping Yuki's character
in it along with O-Ren's head of security, Mr. Barrel
[what a total bad mother fucker he was. His "I'm gonna
collect someday, ya know" is fucking priceless.]).
Now here's hoping that the wait for volume 2 doesn't
drive me any insaner or more sterile.
Final
Thought: If I were in Uma's body (after doing the obvious),
I'd have gotten
Tarantino to give me a foot-double for the "Move
the piggies" scene. Christ! Her toes are longer than my
fingers!
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