Kill Bill is a 2003 and 2004 film directed by Quentin Tarantino that, due to the running time of four hours, is told in two films. Each film represents a different genre that Tarantino was fond of in his youth (“The Making of Kill Bill Volume 1”). Told in his trademark non-linear fashion, Kill Bill Volume 1 is a combination of kung fu and anime, while Kill Bill Volume 2 is the director’s homage to spaghetti westerns. Roger Ebert writes quite positively about the film, noting that as a whole, Kill Bill is “greater than its two parts “(Ebert). Nowhere is this more apparent than in the themes of revenge and identity. Throughout the film, Kill Bill illustrates the importance of identity, particularly familial identity and relationships, in relation to revenge and that, if one’s identity is compromised or challenged, steps must be taken in order to rectify that -often in the form of revenge.
The forms of revenge in both volumes are indicative of their respective genres. Because Kill Bill Volume 1 is a kung fu film, the characters fight predominantly with samurai swords, martial arts, and knives. In addition, the majority of the action takes place in Japan. Kill Bill Volume 2 is a spaghetti western, which is evident in the guns and inclusion of dirtier hand to hand combat. The action in this part occurs in the American southwest and Mexico. Tarantino takes great pains to include music that reflects the genres as well, with volume 1 including the theme to the television show “The Green Hornet” and volume 2 featuring selections from the scores of noted spaghetti western director Ennio Morricone’s films.
The film tells the story of The Bride (Uma Thurman), whose real name is not revealed until the second half of the film. On her wedding day, a group called the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, of which she was once a member, bursts into the church and guns down everyone in attendance. Finally, after everyone else is killed, they turn on her, beating her until their leader, Bill (David Carradine) shoots her in the head just as she reveals that the child she is pregnant with is his. Four years later, she wakes up from a coma, sees that she’s no longer pregnant and assumes that her child is dead. Thus begins her tale, not just of revenge against those who attacked her, but of discovering and embracing her true identity.
The Bride, on her journey for revenge, more than any other character, has to deal with the complex issue of just who she is. Her real name is Beatrix Kiddo, but when she joined the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, as the deadliest woman in the world with a knife, Bill gave her the code name Black Mamba. When she discovers that she is pregnant, she decides to leave her life as an assassin, allowing Bill to think that she has died, in order to give herself and her child a normal life and a fresh start, untainted with crime. When Bill discovers her, she has taken on the name of Arlene Machiavelli, invoking the name of the philosopher who wrote about faking death in order to fool one’s enemies. After she wakes from her coma, discovers how long she has been in the hospital, and that she’s no longer pregnant, she becomes The Bride, hell bent on killing those who
beat and shot her, especially Bill. Upon finally reaching Bill, she discovers that her child, B.B. (Perla Haney-Jardine), is alive after all. As the film ends and as the credit sequence shows all of her various names, her newest and perhaps most important name is revealed: Mommy.
The Bride’s many pseudonyms are indicative of her refusal to acknowledge her true identity: that of, as Bill says “a natural born killer” (Kill Bill Volume 2). Bill compares her with Superman, who is his favorite superhero because, unlike most superheroes, Superman is the true identity, while Clark Kent is the disguise. In leaving her life as an assassin and settling down with a marriage and family, The Bride was
trading in who she really was for a life to be lived in disguise. Although she acknowledges that this life would have made her extremely unhappy and probably would not have worked, she still would have had her child with her. Although she had planned on that life, from the moment she woke up from her coma she reverted back to her old ways instantly and instinctively. Her desire for revenge was the catalyst for this. By the end of the movie, though she is now identified as Mommy and has killed everyone in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, it is doubtful that she will leave her life as a killer behind.
The Bride’s story in this regard stands at great complement to that of Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), one of the Deadly Vipers, one of the people she kills in the film. Vernita, too, has many pseudonyms. While in the Deadly Vipers, she was known as Copperhead. Around the same time she and the others beat up and shot The Bride, leaving her for dead, she, too, left them in order to get married. She took on the name of
Jeannie Bell when she married Dr. Lawrence Bell and they had a daughter, Nikki (Ambrosia Kelly) who is the same age as B.B (although The Bride does not yet know that she is alive). When The Bride finds her, Vernita is living the life that The Bride believes should have been hers -a quiet suburban existence. However, just as with The Bride, Vernita finds it hard to part with her former life as an assassin for hire.
As soon as The Bride attacks her, Vernita’s instincts kick in. They begin fighting and destroying her once immaculate suburban home, which is perhaps symbolic of The Bride’s rage at being denied a similar existence, which is due in great part to Vernita’s own actions. That rage is compounded when she comes face to face with Nikki. When Nikki comes in, the two women call a momentary truce as they get coffee and discuss
having a fight at a more appropriate time and venue. The most significant sign that Vernita has been unable to fully put her past behind her is when she surprisingly pulls a gun out that she had hidden in a box of aptly named Kaboom cereal. Despite the pleasant façade she has put in place, Vernita, like The Bride, is a natural born killer who cannot put that part of her life behind her. The only reason she was able to have that life at all is because, unlike The Bride, her child was not fathered by Bill, and, thus, she had no reason to fake her death. She was able to leave in a legitimate way and cut could all ties with who she was, yet in keeping a gun in the cereal box, she was acknowledging that that though she was able to physically leave her past life, physically and emotionally she remained there.
In one of the film’s most disturbing sequences, The Bride, whom Vernita has always identified as the deadliest woman in the world with a knife, kills her by throwing
a knife and stabbing her in the heart. The Bride looks up to see that Nikki has witnessed this exchange. Although The Bride has settled her score with Vernita, she has just instigated a new one with the now motherless Nikki. The Bride is nothing if not fair, however, and she recognizes and acknowledges that one day Nikki will come looking for her to settle their score and she will be ready. Because Nikki is still a child they are unable to fight in either of the two volumes of the film, but this scene sets the stage for a possible future battle between the two, with Nikki taking The Bride’s place as the wronged party who is out for revenge. However, in Nikki’s case, the argument for revenge is perhaps more justified than The Bride’s as she will see in Kill Bill Volume2. Although Vernita beat her up and left her for dead, her child was not, as she had previously thought, killed. The Bride did kill Nikki’s mother.
Another victim that The Bride claims in her quest for vengeance is O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). O-Ren, as yet another former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad is code named Cottonmouth. Unlike The Bride and Vernita, O-Ren has not only declined to leave behind her life of crime, she has embraced it and, with Bill’s influence, become the leader of the Tokyo underworld. This accomplishment is notable because not only is she female, she is also half-Chinese, half-Japanese, and, because she was born on an American army base, technically she is American. Unlike The Bride and Vernita, whose identities are based primarily on their attempts to stifle their natural killer instincts, O-Ren’s issues with identity are based on her heritage. Though she shows no noticeable embarrassment about being half-Chinese or American in a culture that seemingly despises these attributes, when Boss Tanaka (Jun Kunimura) attacks her because of them she retaliates by swiftly running across a table and cutting off his head. She then proceeds to address the rest of the crime bosses present by telling them that they are free to discuss any subject with her, except for bringing up her Chinese and American heritage as a negative. O-Ren has illustrated that attacking anything about her family is the catalyst for her vengeance.
In a flashback sequence that helps to illustrate that Kill Bill Volume 1’s genre is kung fu, O-Ren’s history is told in anime form. When she was a child, like Nikki, she witnessed her parents’ murder. A few years later, when she was still a young teenager, she took out her revenge by killing her parents’ murderer. This is not only her catalyst for entering the life of crime in which she would be so successful, but is also quite similar to Nikki’s situation and is perhaps a degree of foreshadowing.
The Bride’s confrontation with Bill’s brother Budd (Michael Madsen) is unique for two reasons: not only does she not kill him, she never says a word to him. Budd, who also received a code name while in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (Sidewinder), is the only member who acknowledges that The Bride deserves her revenge and that they deserve to die. Although he puts up a fight and goes so far as to bury her alive, his estrangement from Bill and subsequent self-imposed exile into poverty make him a more sympathetic character. His motivation for hating The Bride comes from the hurt she caused his brother, so in that sense, he, The Bride, O-Ren, and possibly Nikki at a later date share or have shared the same impetus for revenge: the hurt or death of a family member. When Budd is finally killed, it is because Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) induces a black mamba snake to bite him. Because Black Mamba was The Bride’s name is their organization, it can be argued that she had a hand in killing him after all.
Elle Driver is the only member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad whose motives for vengeance are unknown and she is also the only member whose fate is uncertain at the end of the film. Whereas all of the members: Vernita, O-Ren, Budd, and Elle are acting on Bill’s orders when they shoot The Bride’s wedding party and beat her, Elle is the only one whose sole motive is The Bride’s death. Where the vengeance of the other members had reason behind it, hers is vengeance for the sake of it. Like O-Ren, she is a natural born killer who has no desire to leave the business, but at least O-Ren has honor. While The Bride is still in a coma, Elle attempts inject poison in her IV. The
only reason she does not succeed is because Bill calls her and tells her that what she is doing is cowardly. Since The Bride faked her death, Elle has replaced her in his affections. Her identity is as Bill’s woman and, as the only remaining member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, she maintains her code name, California Mountain Snake. Although she and The Bride fight, Elle’s death is never confirmed, rendering her fate ambiguous.
When The Bride finally reaches Bill, she has fought her way through every member of The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. He, whose code name is Snake Charmer, is the person who ties these characters together. This pseudonym is apt, as he is able to inspire a great deal of devotion in his protégées, those with the reptilian designations. The moment The Bride enters his home, prepared to fight, she discovers that her daughter is still alive, taken by Bill from birth after her shot her in the head. There, he finally divulges the source of the vengeance he enacted upon her. He loved her
and, upon discovering that she had faked her death and that the grief he had experienced had been for naught, decided to take action. Their final confrontation, four years in the making, is bittersweet because, while they obviously still have feelings for each other, they have each caused so much anguish for the other that the death of one is inevitable.
When The Bride finally does kill Bill, she is free to be with B.B. and start life again as Mommy. If the past is any indication, this new identity will not be able to overtake her old ones. She is a natural born killer and anything else would be a disguise. This is true of the rest of the members of The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad as well. More than anything else, Kill Bill illustrates the importance of identity and that one’s true self will always be revealed, especially if loved ones, those they care most about, are threatened. When the true selves being revealed as trained assassins, the film is correct in quoting the old Klingon proverb: “revenge is a dish best served cold” (Kill Bill Voume 1) .
Works Cited:
Ebert, Roger. “Kill Bill, Volume 2”. 16 Apr., 2004. Web. Apr. 2010.
Kill Bill Volume 1. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy
Liu, Vivica A. Fox. DVD. Miramax Films, 2003.
Kill Bill Volume 2. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Uma Thurman, David Carradine,
Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah. DVD. Miramax Films, 2004.
“The Making of Kill Bill Vol. 1”. Kill Bill Volume 1. DVD. Miramax Films, 2003.
