Hello, kiddo.
Despite being the title villain of Quentin Tarantino's Kill
Bill, Volume 1 and 2, Bill only makes three brief appearances
in Volume 1, never once revealing his face.
This makes it all the more surprising
when Bill is finally revealed to us in Volume 2,
not in a grand theatrical way befitting the villain
of the story, but in a banal fashion.
The name's Bill.
Well, it's great to meet you, Bill.
But what is it about this introduction
that makes Bill so terrifying?
And how does Tarantino subvert our expectations of villainy
throughout this film?
Before we dig deeper into how this villain was constructed,
don't forget to like and subscribe to Nerdstalgic
if you haven't done so already.
2003's Kill Bill marked a major evolution
in the career of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
It was this moment when Tarantino shifted
from crime capers like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie
Brown to massive big budget spectacles.
It's hard to imagine a director going from witty dialogue
driven character pieces--
What country are you from?
What?
What ain't no country I ever heard of!
They speak English in What?
--to a full blown martial arts epic.
Tarantino did not sacrifice the character work
in service of this increase in scale.
The characters and dialogue of both volumes of Kill Bill
are some of the best in the director's career.
And the central character of the bride, crafted with Uma Thurman
while the pair worked on Pulp Fiction,
is one of the strongest protagonists
in Tarantino filmography.
While we certainly take joy in the delightful carnage
Thurman's the bride leaves in her wake,
we are also invested in the story of a wronged woman who
is trying to find some sense of peace through revenge.
I am going to kill Bill.
Kill Bill is Tarantino's love letter to Asian action cinema
and martial arts epics, containing visual references
and nods to films like Lady Snowblood, Game of Death,
and Once Upon a Time in China.
This reverent homage extends to the casting as well,
with actors such as Gordon Liu from The 36th Chamber
of Shaolin, Sonny Chiba from The Streetfighter,
and of course, playing Bill, David Carradine from Kung Fu.
Kung Fu was a cult television series from 1972
that starred David Carradine as Caine, a Shaolin monk who
wanders the American West.
The series clearly left a mark on Tarantino,
referencing it in Pulp Fiction when Jules tells Vincent that
he'll--
Walk the Earth.
What you mean, walk the Earth?
You know, like Caine in Kung Fu.
--after retiring from the life of a hitman.
If you want to know more about the origins of the series
Kung Fu and its connections to Kill Bill,
check out our video on the topic.
Audience members who are aware of this background
will come to expect martial arts mastery
from Carradine's character.
And if they aren't, Tarantino's visual language
in Bill's early sequences will clue them
in on his villainous nature.
In an homage to the depiction of James Bond villain Blofeld,
Bill is always off camera with a focus being on his hands.
Whether they're grabbing his Hattori Hanzo sword
or gripping the shoulders of Sofie Fatale,
these hands are symbols of his deadly martial prowess.
We watch these hands as they hover
like the sting of a scorpion about to strike,
lurking over the film like a shadow, his menace
and mystique growing with each fleeting appearance.
Carradine delivers his lines in these scenes
of Kill Bill, Volume 1 with a sinister whisper,
adding even more power to Bill.
Oh, you don't know her [BLEEP]!
Will you keep your voice down?
You don't know her [BLEEP].
His control over the deadly Viper assassination squad
does not require bombast or threats.
Tarantino recognizes that less is more in these moments,
building up an idea of who Bill is in the audience's mind,
so they can only imagine the diabolical power
this villain must wield if he can
control some of the deadliest people in the world
and barely have to lift a finger.
In turn, we can only imagine the kind of control
he had over our hero, the bride.
Why are you here?
Last look.
Are you going to be nice?
After the shocking violence of the opening
and the phantom-like threat of Bill
that lurks through Volume 1, we assume
we'll be meeting the devil incarnate when Volume 2 begins.
This makes the deliberate anticlimax
of Bill's first appearance in Kill Bill, Volume 2
so powerful.
When we first see Bill, he is in repose, calmly
playing a flute at the sight of the bride's future wedding.
David Carradine plays the scene masterfully
with a gentleness saying goodbye to the woman he loved.
He seems to harbor no resentment towards her.
But we can see the terror in Uma Thurman's performance.
What makes Carradine's performance so impactful
in these scenes is the way he never
speaks with anger and violence in his voice.
I am looking forward to meeting your young man.
I happen to be, more or less, particular whom my gal marries.
His cruelty is masked behind the veneer of kindness.
Despite knowing that his assassins will
try to kill the bride, it still comes as a shock
because this version of Bill we've now seen
doesn't seem capable of such a horrible act.
Yet each of Thurman's micro gestures
carry a feeling of danger, like she's trapped
in the room with a tiger.
This disorienting feeling toward Bill
is reinforced by the flashbacks to the bride's training, where
we see the genuine love the two once had for one another.
And yet, the audience can't help but wonder if the love
is truly reciprocated.
Does Bill genuinely love the bride,
or is she just another tool he can use to manipulate
in his collection of assassins?
Carradine and Thurman's performances
as a couple in these scenes are so warm and loving.
The audience searches Carradine's performance
for any cracks that show the monster beneath,
but they aren't there.
It isn't until the final confrontation
between the bride and Bill that we
begin to see the depths of Bill's monstrous nature.
It's revealed that the bride and Bill's child Bibi
didn't die during the wedding day massacre,
and Bill has been raising her in secret, telling her
the story of their love as if it is a tragic fairy tale, rather
than a harrowing story of abuse.
This scene features one of the most famous speeches
in Tarantino's filmography and one
that is frequently misunderstood,
the Superman speech.
Bill explains that Clark Kent, Superman's secret identity,
is Superman's critique of the human race.
He's weak.
He's unsure of himself.
And that no matter what, Superman is Superman.
This is not meant to be Tarantino giving the audience
a pop culture theory, but rather a moment that
reveals the psychology that motivated Bill's attempted
murder of the bride.
He could not comprehend the fact that the bride wanted something
more than the seemingly ideal life that Bill had given her.
He couldn't understand why a Superman
would want to be a Clark Kent.
Bill sees the bride's efforts to change as an insult
to himself and his choices to become a killer.
If she changes, then Bill's entire identity
is called into question.
In this scene, Carradine continues
to play Bill with a calm confidence.
But for the first time, he gets angry, sloppy,
and rageful at the bride.
[GUNSHOT]
Now, if you don't settle down, I'm
going to have to put one in your kneecap.
The mask is slipping.
Bill's death is another deliberate anticlimax.
Up until this point, the bride's epic showdowns
range from a living room knife fight
to a one versus 88 sword fight to an all-out brawl
in a trailer.
After these stunning sequences, her confrontation with Bill
is over almost before it begins.
They cross blades, not even rising from the chairs.
The bride catches his sword in her scabbard
and delivers the killing blow.
The bride defeats him with the five-point palm exploding heart
technique, a move thought to be a secret
that their shared master Pai Mei would never teach anyone.
Pai Mei taught you the five-point palm
exploding heart technique.
There was something Pai Mei saw in the bride
that he didn't see in Bill--
a heart, a moral code that Bill lacks and gives the bride
the tool to get her revenge.
Knowing his death is inevitable, Bill
returns to the tenderness we saw earlier in Volume 2.
He walks five steps away until his heart explodes, slumping
pathetically to the ground.
All of this deliberate anticlimax
serves to remind the audience that Bill is not
some godlike evil, but rather a broken, sad man.
And this is perhaps what makes him so terrifying.
His abuses are not just his callous killing
of the innocent, but in the way he uses and manipulates people
and then tosses them away when he feels slighted by them.
The scariest villains aren't the most theatrical or fantastical,
but rather the ones who we encounter
in our day-to-day lives.
The bride's victory over Bill feels so triumphant
because so many of us have had Bills in our lives
in one form or another.
And through the bride, we can see a path
to have our own revenge and drive off into the sunset.
Well, that's it for this episode of Nerdstalgic.
Do you think Tarantino will ever get around
to making Kill Bill, Volume 3?
Comment below and let us know your thoughts.
And as always, please be sure to like, comment,
and subscribe to Nerdstalgic.