Kill Bill - A Vingança (Volume 1 & 2)

Info About Kill Bill Volume 1:

Kill Bill: Volume 1 is a 2003 American action/thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two films that were theatrically released several months apart, the second one titled Kill Bill Volume 2.
Kill Bill was originally scheduled for a single theatrical release, but with a running time of over four hours, it was separated into two volumes. Kill Bill: Volume 1 was released in late 2003, and Kill Bill: Volume 2 was released in early 2004. The two films are frequently referred to collectively as simply "Kill Bill."
They follow a character initially identified as "The Bride", a former member of an assassination team who seeks revenge on her ex-colleagues who massacred members of her wedding party and tried to kill her. The movie is often noted for its stylish direction and its homages to film genres such as Hong Kong martial arts films, Japanese chanbara films, Italian spaghetti westerns, girls with guns, and rape and revenge; resultingly, Kill Bill has gained a cult-movie status with action movie aficionados worldwide.

Plot

The film opens with an intertitle displaying the proverb "Revenge is a dish best served cold" (though the quote is credited as being an "Old Klingon Proverb", as it was in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). A pregnant Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman), known as "The Bride", lies badly wounded at her wedding, telling an unseen Bill (David Carradine) that she is carrying his baby, as he shoots her in the head. We later learn that she miraculously survived the head shot but was left comatose for four years.
Out of sequence, the film shows Kiddo's second revenge killing following her recovery. Kiddo finds Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) at her home and fights her, but they cease after Vernita's young daughter Nikki arrives from school. It is revealed that both women are former members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, elite assassins under the employ of Bill. Bill had ordered the attack on Kiddo in revenge for her decision to leave Bill and secretly marry. While the two women are talking in the kitchen during their truce, Vernita attempts to kill Kiddo with a revolver hidden in a box of "Kaboom" cereal. The shot misses Kiddo, who retaliates with a throwing knife to Vernita's chest, and she dies slowly. When Kiddo notices Nikki standing in the doorway, she offers Nikki revenge should she seek it as an adult, then leaves. Kiddo then strikes Vernita's name off a checklist; the name "O-Ren Ishii" has already been crossed out.
Going back to the time of her coma, another member of the Deadly Vipers, the one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), enters Kiddo's hospital room where she lies comatose, and prepares a lethal injection but is interrupted by Bill on the phone, who states they will take action only if she wakes. Four years later, Kiddo awakens and is horrified to discover that she is no longer pregnant, leading her to assume that her baby is dead. Meanwhile, she learns that a hospital worker named Buck has been raping her in her comatose state, and accepting cash from those who wish the chance to do the same. While a trucker is preparing to assault her, Kiddo bites off his tongue and kills him. She then incapacitates and kills Buck by repeatedly smashing his head between a door and its jamb, and steals Buck's truck. She swears revenge, and picks her first target: O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), who has since become the leader of the Tokyo yakuza.
Once she recovers, Kiddo travels to Okinawa to obtain a sword from legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzō (Sonny Chiba), who has sworn never to forge a sword again. After learning that her target is his former student, Bill, he agrees he is morally obligated to forge his finest sword for her. Kiddo tracks down O-Ren at a Tokyo nightclub, challenging her to a fight and severing the arm of Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), O-Ren's assistant and a protégée of Bill's. She then fights off O-Ren's Yakuza army, including the elite "Crazy 88" squad and O-Ren's personal bodyguard, 17-year-old sadist Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), before dueling O-Ren in a snow-draped Japanese garden and killing her. She finally tortures Sofie into revealing information about Bill, leaving Sofie alive to tell Bill that Kiddo is coming to kill him and the others. The film ends with Bill asking Sofie if Kiddo knows that her daughter is still alive.

Influences

The overall storyline of Kill Bill is adapted from Lady Snowblood, a 1973 Japanese film in which a woman kills off the gang who murdered her family. The Guardian commented that Lady Snowblood was "practically a template for the whole of Kill Bill Vol. 1".^[2] Lady Snowblood was adapted from the manga of the same name written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura.
It references the TV show Yagyû ichizoku no inbô (Japanese > "Intrigue of the Yagyu Clan") by quoting a variant of the speech in the show's opening sequence.

Jubei Yagyu (Sonny Chiba) [The Yagyu Conspiracy]: "The Secret Doctrine of Ura Yagyu ("Hidden Yagyu") states: 'Once engaged in battle, fight to win. That is the first and cardinal rule of battle. Suppress all human emotions and compassion. Kill whosoever stands in thy way, even if that be a God or Buddha. Only then can one master the essence of the art. Once it is mastered, thou shall fear no one, though even devils block thy way.'"

Hattori Hanzo XV (Sonny Chiba) [Kill Bill]: "For those regarded as warriors, when engaged in combat the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior's only concern. Suppress all human emotion and compassion. Kill whoever stands in thy way, even if that be Lord God or Buddha himself. This truth lies at the heart of the art of combat."

The film also references Samurai Reincarnation (1981) by quoting its iconic line: "If you encounter God, God will be cut". Hattori Hanzō is modelled on legendary sword maker Muramasa. The character is also a reference to the Japanese television show Kage no Gundan (Shadow Warriors in America), in which Sonny Chiba portrayed a fictionalized version of Hattori Hanzō, as well as his descendants in later seasons. Tarantino, in Vol. 1 special features, claims that his film's Hanzō is one of those descendants.
Kill Bill pays tribute to film genres including the spaghetti western, blaxploitation, Chinese wuxia, Japanese yakuza films, Japanese samurai cinema, and kung fu movies of the 1960s and 1970s. This last genre, which was largely produced by the Shaw Brothers, is given an obvious nod by the inclusion of the Shaw Scope logo at the beginning of Kill Bill Vol. 1.
One influential exploitation film that Tarantino has mentioned in interviews is the Swedish Thriller - en grym film, released in the U.S. as They Call Her One Eye. Tarantino, who has called Thriller "the roughest revenge movie ever made',^[3] recommended that actress Daryl Hannah watch the film to prepare for her role as the one-eyed killer Elle Driver.^[4]

Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Bill_Volume_1

Info About Kill Bill Volume 2:

Kill Bill: Volume 2 is a 2004 American action/thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the second of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart. Kill Bill was originally scheduled for a single theatrical release, but with a running time of over four hours, it was separated into two volumes. Kill Bill Volume 1 was released in late 2003, and Kill Bill: Volume 2 was released in early 2004. The volumes follow a character initially identified as "The Bride", a former member of an assassination team who seeks revenge on her ex-colleagues who massacred members of her wedding party and tried to kill her. The film is often noted for its stylish direction and its homages to film genres such as Hong Kong martial arts films, Japanese chanbara films, Italian spaghetti westerns, girls with guns, and rape and revenge.^{[citation needed]}

Plot

In a flashback, Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) — the visibly pregnant Bride — and her groom (Chris Nelson) rehearse their wedding. Bill (David Carradine), her former lover and the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, arrives unexpectedly and wishes her well, and it is revealed that Kiddo had retired from assassination and left Bill in order to give a better life to her unborn daughter. Moments later, the other assassination squad members arrive and attack the wedding rehearsal on Bill's orders.
In the present, Bill warns his brother Budd (Michael Madsen), a former Deadly Viper and now a bouncer, that he will be targeted next. Kiddo arrives at his trailer and bursts through the door, expecting to ambush him, but Budd is expecting her, shooting her in the chest with a double-barreled shotgun blast of rock salt, then sedates her. Budd calls Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), another former Deadly Viper, offering to sell her Kiddo's Hanzō sword for a million dollars cash. He then seals Kiddo inside a coffin and buries her alive.
A flashback shows Bill taking Kiddo to be trained by legendary martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu). She eventually gains his respect and learns a number of techniques, including the art of punching through thick planks of wood from inches away, and a technique, taught to nobody else, of killing using apparently non-lethal touches to pressure points. She uses the former skill to break out of the coffin and claws her way to the surface.
Elle arrives at Budd's trailer for their transaction but has hidden a lethal black mamba with her money, which kills him. She then tells Bill (by phone) that Kiddo has killed Budd by putting a black mamba (the deadly viper that was Kiddo's assassination squad code name) in his trailer, and that Elle has killed Kiddo. As she exits the trailer, she is ambushed by Kiddo, who had arrived there soon after Elle. In the middle of an all-out battle in the trailer, Elle taunts Kiddo with the news that Elle had poisoned Pai Mei in revenge for his snatching out her eye when she called him a 'miserable old fool'. Kiddo then plucks out Elle's remaining eye and leaves her screaming and thrashing about in the trailer with the black mamba.
Kiddo travels to Mexico to query an elderly gentlemen about Bill's whereabouts. The man, who is the proprietor of a brothel, was purportedly a father figure to a younger Bill. Regardless, the man divulges Bill's location.
After finding Bill deep in the Mexican countryside, Kiddo is shocked to find her now-four-year-old daughter B.B. (Perla Haney-Jardine) alive and well. She spends the evening with Bill and B.B. After B.B. has gone to bed, Bill shoots Kiddo with a dart containing a truth serum and interrogates her. A flashback recalls Kiddo's discovery of her pregnancy while on an assassination mission, and her resulting decision to call off her assignment and leave the Deadly Vipers. Kiddo explains that she ran away without telling Bill in order to protect their unborn daughter from him and his life. Though Bill understands, he remains unapologetic for what he did, explaining that he's a murdering bastard and there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard. They fight, but although Kiddo loses her weapon, she disables Bill with Pai Mei's fatal pressure point technique, which he secretly taught her. Bill, aware of the technique and that he will shortly die, makes his peace with Kiddo and dies. Kiddo departs with B.B.; later they are seen watching cartoons in a hotel together after Beatrix gives thanks.

Extract Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Bill_Volume_2

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