Kill Bill Movie
Fans of Quentin Tarantino had a long dry spell between 1997's blaxploitation homage Jackie Brown and the 2003 release of the first episode of the Kill Bill movie. It was during the filming of 1994's Pulp Fiction that Tarantino and Uma Thurman (who has famously been an obsession of Tarantino's for quite some time) developed a character ("The Bride") and most of the story for the epic Kill Bill movie.
Quentin Tarantino Kill Bill
In the six years between the release of Jackie Brown and the first episode of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (the second episode didn't appear until 2004) Quentin Tarantino worked on a screenplay and story for his war film Inglourious Basterds, but that project wasn't ready for shooting until well after the release of the last episode of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. In other words -- the dry spell for fans was an equally dry spell for Tarantino himself. The director is pretty quiet about his personal life and many people have wondered what could have happened during this time to practically shut down an otherwise prolific director. I'm not going to waste any time postulating about Tarantino's personal life here -- let's just be glad the dry spell ended and we have this amazing postmodern film to appreciate.
Critic Reviews
Many critics will tell you that Kill Bill is the film Tarantino always wanted to make. A mashup of many different styles and genres that Tarantino loves, Kill Bill comes off as a kind of visual smorgasbord, a buffet of flavors that shouldn't taste good together but do. Yes, Kill Bill is "highly stylized" (thanks, Wikipedia) and yes it is a revenge movie, but to understand Kill Bill is to understand a variety of influences central to Quentin Tarantino's style. Kill Bill gives us a taste of Chinese martial arts (specifically Wuxia), Italian horror films (a genre known as poliziotteschi), a Japanese genre known as Jidaigeki (or "period cinema"), and maybe most importantly, the so called Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone and company.
That's the academic approach to Kill Bill -- Tarantino's film is really just a sum of many different parts. This is the same critical approach to all of Tarantino's films. Did fans pick up on every nod and reference? Not unless they are as cinematically obsessed as Tarantino himself, and even then it would be difficult to pick apart the nearly four hours of film that makes up Kill Bill parts one and two, and much easier to sit back and enjoy a great movie. And enjoy it we did -- the two parts of Kill Bill represent some of Tarantino's most popular and profitable films, earning well over $325 million once the dust settled. Only Inglourious Basterds earned him more cash, and not much more. Put simply -- Kill Bill was a massive critical and box office success.
Kill Bill Film
The Kill Bill film is intended to be seen in a single setting but the four hour run time prevents most audiences from watching it all at once. The length was the reason for the release of the Kill Bill film as two separate episodes. It is highly likely that the film wouldn't have been as popular or successful if it had been released as a four hour epic, not to mention that a split box office means lots of fans will happily pony up the price of two tickets to catch the whole film. Smart move, producers.
Where does Kill Bill fit into the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino? It is hard to say. Where his first three feature films (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown ) were pretty easy to pigeonhole as "gritty crime films", Kill Bill is more difficult to label. You could go the humdrum route most critics use and refer to Kill Bill as "an epic-length revenge drama" stuffed with "pop culture references" and "popular music". You could describe it as an homage to Tarantino's favorite film styles, or you could do as one reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes did and call it "a head-spinning dream project of extraordinarily bi-polar, nutso invention". All three descriptions would be accurate, though the last one is way more poetic.
Appeal of Kill Bill
I think the appeal of Kill Bill is three-fold. First, fans were dying for more Tarantino. Hell, they're still dying for more Tarantino. Luckily, Quentin's announced Kill Bill volume three, to appear sometime around 2014. "The Bride will kill again", he says. Secondly, Kill Bill is a perfect piece of postmodern cinema. I know I throw that word around all the time when I write about Quentin -- all it means is that Tarantino is ready and willing to knit together disparate elements to form a nice tasty pot pie of a film. Finally, I think its obvious that the appeal of Kill Bill has something to do with our Western obsession with all things Eastern. Would Kill Bill be as popular and successful without all the cool samurai swords and Japanese dialogue? Imagine Kill Bill but with references to German culture instead of Japanese . . . somehow I don't think it would work.
Kill Bill is not my favorite Tarantino film, not by a long shot. My personal tastes run more towards Jackie Brown, with its cool simplicity and perfect throwback tone. But I do own Kill Bill, and make it a regular part of my Tarantino diet. Fans ofKill Bill are less likely to be hardcore Tarantino fans and more likely film buffs, young nerds, and your average moviegoer. Does that take anything away from Tarantino's most indulgent and over the top mish-mash to date? Not at all. Pop a bowl or two of popcorn and prepare to be entertained by one of Quentin Tarantino's biggest box office hits.