Kill Bill

It is the wood that should fear your hand, not the other way around! - Pai Mei

Brilliant Quentin Tarantino flick - more manga than manga. Even down to the black-ink blood. As per usual for a ground breaking movie the critics can't figure out what it is and most aren't old enough to have seen the old kung fu sock chopey films that it draws on. So you will read some bad reviews. Ignore 'em.

Plot summary is unnecessary due to the vast media campaign. Suffice to say that if you go along not expecting a lot of snappy patter, the cinematography and direction, not to mention the stunning physical charm of Thurman and Liu, will blow you away.

It is a damn shame the studio decided to chop KillBill into 2 parts though. Part 1 isn't quite enough movie by itself to be completely satisfying. The 2 together - ah, that's entertainment! --PeterMerel

Maybe it would be worth remembering that not everybody likes manga?

I don't like manga, but I dug this film. -- EricHodges

Ok, that's fair, but I couldn't stand the film, and I doubt that it was because it was too avant garde for me. I simply don't think hours of continuous violence with only the faintest hint of motivation are entertaining, still less funny. If you want to pay attention the good reviews, be my guest, but don't ignore the bad ones.

Do you like Hong Kong martial arts films? "Kill Bill" has more in common with 70s Shaw Brothers films than it does with manga.

Can't say I've seen any, besides the very well known Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which was awesome. If "Kill Bill" is a stand-alone work, as opposed to a parody or tribute, it shouldn't matter. If it isn't, it should be made clear that people who aren't familiar with such-and-such a genre won't like the movie. Besides, even parodies and tributes can be done in a way that appeals to people who don't get them.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon isn't considered a Hong Kong film (it's in Mandarin, not Cantonese), but more of a US/Taiwanese homage to Hong Kong film. Hong Kong is a source for specific styles of genre film, like Hollywood or Bollywood.

It draws on many influences, only some of which have been spotted by the mass media critics. The sudden reversion to black and white for the big fight scene is an obvious homage to the black-ink employed in such manga classics as LoneWolfAndCub. To which particular manga it obviously also refers in spots.

Manga is a broad medium, including almost any subject and style one can imagine.

And yet there are obviously some common features, else how could someone say "more manga than manga"? If people can say they like something like manga, which they do routinely, then others should be able to say they don't. It may be there's good manga out there, and I simply haven't run into it - I certainly haven't been looking very hard - but I would strongly doubt it, if this movie is representative of the qualities that make manga good.

Manga includes cooking manga, superhero manga, baseball manga, etc. Saying one likes manga is as general as saying one likes books.

So I've heard - but then I've also heard statements at the top of the page. I'm going to assume this movie was not more cooking manga than cooking manga. Obviously, there are two different things being meant by manga here, or there is a particular genre of manga that people assume by default, or something like that. In any case: whatever sort the movie drew off of, it's not everybody's thing, and people would do well to remember that.

Outside Japan manga tends to be stereotyped as ultra-violent rape fantasy. Inside Japan it means any comic book, and the subject matter is highly diverse.

Fair enough. Ultra-violent rape fantasy does an excellent job describing this movie, though, so I'll take it that's how the term was being used.

Sorry to have caused such confusion. I didn't mean "ultra-violent rape fantasy", though of course there are elements of that in KillBill. To add to the confusion, KillBill has much less of this than, say, ClockworkOrange, which I would not classify as manga-like. What I meant was purely stylistic - the framing of the shots, the overall Japanese-pop motif of the story, the barrels of black-and-white gore, and the ninja-style kung fu moves. To tell the truth I thought the gore wasn't really the point - most of it is done along the lines of MontyPython's famous Anyone For Tennis and Holy Grail effects. Limbs flying off in all directions and fountains of red soda-pop - not to be taken seriously!
The most gut-wrenching moment of the film is at the start when a child is witness to her assassin mother's violent death. This is what harks most strongly to the LoneWolfAndCub manga. This scene is there not to suggest child abuse, but a self-perpetuating cycle of violent drama. Plays directly into the Cotton-mouth origin anime a couple of scenes later. But the film touches on this for just a moment before flitting off to more comic ultra-violence. Cheap models of 747s flying down to cheap models of Tokyo - everyone carrying katana - these are commonplace genre elements for manga.
Now you don't have to care for that. Lots of people are upset when the redskins are cavalierly butchered in the old 40s and 50s American cowboy movies. Heck, there are probably even trekkies who get upset when the Klingons are phased to death in StarTrek. And there are folks who cry when Hamlet's friends and relations are butchered by Shakespeare. Just why you'd think that one murder in a piece of dramatic fiction is more or less ultra-violent than another isn't clear to me ... --PeterMerel

The problem with the movie (first part only) wasn't the gushes of blood, it was the lack of everything else. The action was ok, but it wasn't enough. The plot was nothing more than trying to create blood gushes. The characters went undeveloped, except when their backstory involved blood gushes. So the Japanese end-boss got a long origin story, though it explained nothing, while the black end-boss didn't need one. The protagonist was invincible and once she woke up never met any real opposition - not from the enemies, not from within - to the point where the final battle was a horrible anticlimax.

Skip being upset by violence. Unless you love it, you think blood is funny or exciting in and of itself, what did this movie have to offer? Actresses with physical charm are commonplace, and style isn't so hot without any substance.

But wait, here's a better question. This movie, you say, derives almost entirely from manga and Hong Kong martial arts films - the style, the cinematography, the themes, the plot, and this is what made it entertaining. But what did it bring to the table that was new, that makes it a tribute instead of a copy? When it's easy to watch the originals, is there any reason to bother with this movie?

Yes. It was phunny. Very phunny, indeed.

Cheap models of 747s flying down to cheap models of Tokyo - everyone carrying katana - these are commonplace genre elements for manga.

They're common in some manga, but not manga as a whole. They're more typical of Hong Kong martial arts films. The film even opens with the "Shaw Scope" fanfare.

For me, Kill Bill was awesomely great. Period. I have been an avid fan of manga - yes, the comics (fiction)of the Japanese's. The world of manga is just fascinating. I watched Kill Bill not knowing the background of it - only that it was a movie by Quentin Tarantino, the director of Pulp Fiction, another great movie, by the way. I heard that the movie was made with no storyboard - just directly from Tarantino's imagination. He's so good that the actors trusted him by doing so. Another thing is, I watched the movie not knowing that it was based on manga/anime (very unlike me because I just said that I do read/watch manga/anime). Anyway, the way the movie was presented, the angles, the moves, the shots - everything reminded me of manga/anime. As I was watching, I pictured in my mind how the movie can also be vividly caught on paper. And as it turned out, it really was based on anime! And that's why it is amazing. Yes, it is gory in some way. But then, that's why it was rated R. We, the adults have a better grasp of what's presented to us, right?

The splitting of the movie into two parts killed it for me. This is one movie that requires an ending. The ending is what will make or break the entire film. If he pulls off the ending, which I think he will, then it will redeem the first part. For a good example of what I mean, watch DeadOrAliveMovie by TakashiMiike?. I hope they do a good 'director's cut' version for the DVD.

Did nobody but me appreciate the humor in this flick? "That's <whack> what you get <whack> for fucking <whack> around <whack> with Yakuza! <whack>" The over-the-topness of it all was hilarious. Even the wirework was just subltly off enough to make the point of the humor. I eagerly await Part II, available for rent next week.

See: FasterPussycatKillKill

CategoryMovie