Kill Bill - Volume 1

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Movie
German title Kill Bill - Volume 1
Original title Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Killbill-vol1-logo.svg
Country of production United States
original language English , Japanese , Chinese , French
Publishing year 2003
length 106 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Quentin Tarantino
script Quentin Tarantino
production Lawrence Bender
music The RZA
camera Robert Richardson
cut Sally Menke
occupation
synchronization
chronology

Successor  →
Kill Bill - Volume 2

Kill Bill - Volume 1 is the first part of a two-part action film with Uma Thurman in the lead role. The fourth film, which Quentin Tarantino directed independently , revolves around the main theme of revenge . While the first part is largely based on martial arts scenes and uses the imagery of the Eastern , the second part mainly plays with elements of the spaghetti western .

Kill Bill - Volume 1 was released in German cinemas in October 2003, Kill Bill - Volume 2 followed in April 2004.

The film was not planned as a two-part series; However, since the cut version was four hours long and Tarantino did not want to shorten his film considerably, he decided on two parts. In recent years there have been repeated announcements that the film will be released in one piece (as Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair ); the publication has been postponed again and again.

Tarantino dedicated both parts to actor Charles Bronson , who died in 2003.

content

Framework for action

A young woman, who is alternately called "the bride", " Black Mamba " or "Kiddo", is a member of the assassination squad led by Bill Deadly Viper . Kiddo is in a relationship with Bill and becomes pregnant by him, but hides it from him. She does not want her child to grow up in this environment, so she does not return from an assignment and lets Bill believe she was killed. In her new life, she works in a record shop whose owner she wants to marry. Nine months later, however, the assassination squad tracks them down and the Two Pines massacre occurs , in which the assembled company is shot during the rehearsal of Kiddo's wedding. The heavily pregnant bride is critically injured by Bill with a shot in the head and has been in a coma for four years . When she wakes up from it, she escapes from the hospital, draws up a death list under the heading “Death List Five” ( eng . : “kill bill” ) and works it off step by step.

action

Opening credits

The Baptist Church in Hi Vista, California served as the backdrop for the beginning of the movie

In the initial black and white scene , the bride lies injured and smeared with blood on the floor. Bill, of whom only the boots can be seen, approaches her and explains to her that it would be extremely masochistic for him to kill her. The moment Kiddo tells him: "Bill, it's your baby," he shoots her in the head.

Chapter 1: 2

Vernita Green aka Copperhead , who now leads a civil life with husband and child in an American suburban house, is on Kiddo's death list. Kiddo drives to her house, the two women fight each other with knives. Green's little daughter Nikki comes home from school, so the women abruptly interrupt the struggle for life and death. While they are arranging a time and place for a duel outside the house in the kitchen, Green tries to shoot Kiddo with a pistol hidden in a cereal box. However, Kiddo reacts quickly and kills Vernita Green with a knife. This happens unintentionally in front of Green's daughter, who has approached the kitchen unnoticed. Kiddo therefore offers Green's daughter that she can take revenge as soon as she grows up.

Chapter 2: The Blood Spattered Bride

Flashback: The El Paso County Sheriff visits the crime scene where the wedding party was murdered. He and his people discover that the bride is still alive despite being shot in the head.

In the hospital, Kiddo is in intensive care. Elle Driver, alias California Mountain Snake , sneaks into the hospital room disguised as a nurse. She tries to kill Kiddo with an injection of poison. Bill forbids her murder by phone. It was below the level of the assassination team to kill them in their sleep.

The bride woke up four years later in the hospital in the middle of the night. She pans herself and realizes that she is no longer pregnant. One of the orderlies approaches the room; he brings a visitor with him, to whom he leaves the supposedly comatose and helpless patient in order to sexually abuse her. Kiddo first kills the visitor, later also the attendant who joins them. She takes the car keys from the nurse and escapes from the ward in his car, despite his legs, which are still severely weakened from being bedridden for a long time. Here, after a while, she succeeds in regaining her mobility. Finally she drives off in the caretaker's car.

Chapter 3: The Origin of O-Ren

A flashback in the form of an anime tells the story of O-Ren Ishiis, who used the code name Cottonmouth in the assassination squad . Even as a child, she lost both parents to the yakuza boss Matsumoto and seeks revenge. At the age of eleven she kills the pedophile Matsumoto and at twenty is one of the best killers in the world.

Chapter 4: The Okinawa Man

Thirteen hours later, the bride can fully move her legs again. She flies to Okinawa to have one of his legendary katanas made by the armourer Hattori Hanzo . Hanzo has withdrawn from his craft and vowed never to make a sword again. Kiddo implies that one of his former students - Bill - did such terrible things to her that he is obliged to make an exception to his oath. Hanzo agrees.

The katana is ready; Hanzo presents it to Kiddo in a traditional ceremony.

Chapter 5: Showdown in the Blue Leaves House

Kiddo tells how O-Ren Ishii fights his way to the top of the yakuza with Bill's support. When she takes over the chairmanship of the Yakuza Council, Boss Tanaka gets upset about Ishii's Chinese-Japanese-American ancestry and berates her for it. Ishii beheads Tanaka, leaving no doubt that she will not tolerate any further mention of the subject. Ishii's closest collaborators are the lawyer Sofie Fatale, Johnny Mo as head of her bodyguard and her still young bodyguard Gogo Yubari.

Kiddo flies to Tokyo and follows O-Ren Ishii, who is celebrating in a restaurant with her confidants and part of her bodyguard, the “Crazy 88”. Kiddo captures Sofie Fatale and challenges Ishii to fight; to emphasize it, she mutilates Fatale with the sword. Ishii's bodyguards attack Kiddo with swords and are killed. Gogo Yubari attacks Kiddo with a Liuxingchui and wounds her with it, but is defeated in close combat. The rest of Ishii's bodyguard appears in the restaurant and Kiddo rubs them up in a brutal fight. Most recently she defeated Johnny Mo in a duel.

O-Ren Ishii has meanwhile gone to the garden of the restaurant and faces Kiddo for a sword fight. A light, gentle snowfall and a babbling fountain ( Shishi odoshi ) form a calm contrast to the duel. O-Ren Ishii manages to meet Kiddo, but shortly afterwards she also suffers an injury. In the last clash between the fighters, Ishii is fatally wounded in the head by Kiddo.

Kiddo leaves the seriously injured Sofie Fatale alive so she can tell Bill about Kiddo's vengeance campaign. Bill visits Sofie in the hospital and asks her if Kiddo knows that her daughter is alive.

characters

  • The bride ( Uma Thurman ), code name Black Mamba (her real name Beatrix Kiddo is only mentioned in "Kill Bill - Volume 2"). She was a member of Bill's Fatal Viper Assassination Squad and his mistress. When she found out she was pregnant by Bill, she decided not to let her child grow up in her death and crime environment. She didn't return from an assignment, leaving Bill to believe she had been killed. In a small town in Texas, she tried to build a middle-class existence together with the owner of a second-hand record store.
  • Bill ( David Carradine ), code-named Snake Charmer , is the head of the Assassination Squad . He was the bride's boyfriend and is in a relationship with Elle Driver at the time of the film's story. He is masterful in handling the sword and in martial arts technique. Bill didn't know his father and was always looking for father figures. As the mastermind behind the Two Pines massacre, he is the key figure on the "Kill Bill" death list.
  • O-Ren Ishii ( Lucy Liu ), code name Cottonmouth , is of Chinese-Japanese-American descent. The young woman matured into a professional killer at an early age through the murder of her parents and was a member of the assassination squad Deadly Viper . She was involved in the Two Pines massacre, in which the bride's wedding party was murdered, and is therefore on Kiddo's death list. In addition, O-Ren is the boss of all Yakuzas in Tokyo.
  • Vernita Green ( Vivica A. Fox ), code name Copperhead , was a member of Bill's assassination squad. After leaving, she lives as a member of the middle class and housewife with her husband Dr. Lawrence Bell in an American suburb. She has a four year old daughter. She is on kiddo's list as a participant in the Two Pines massacre.
  • Budd ( Michael Madsen ), codenamed Sidewinder , is Bill's brother and was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad . Budd was also involved in the Two Pines massacre and is therefore on the death list. He said he sold his Hattori Hanzo sword for $ 250, but actually hid it in his trailer. In contrast to Bill and the others, he realizes that Kiddo deserves her revenge. Budd works as a battered bouncer in a strip club.
  • Elle Driver ( Daryl Hannah ), codenamed California Mountain Snake , was also a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and was involved in the Two Pines massacre. She is Bill's lover and the bride's rival. She was also a student of Pai Mei, a master of martial arts. Driver also fights with devious methods. She is also on Kiddo's death list.
  • Gogo Yubari ( Chiaki Kuriyama ) is a 17-year-old killer and O-Ren Ishii's personal bodyguard. What is striking about her is her school uniform. She is considered insane. She kills a businessman who makes her sexual advances with a dagger.
  • Hattori Hanzo ( Sonny Chiba ) owns a sushi bar in Okinawa . He is the creator of the legendary Hattori-Hanzo swords. Sonny Chiba embodied the character Hattori Hanzo in the Japanese television series Hattori Hanzô: Kage no Gundan from 1980 (see also: Hattori Hanzo ). He breaks his vow not to manufacture any more deadly weapons for Kiddo.
  • Sofie Fatale ( Julie Dreyfus ) is O-Ren Ishii's assistant and friend. She was present at the Two Pines massacre, but did not actively intervene in the action. She speaks French, Japanese and English.

Stunts

An important part of the film are the highly stylized fight scenes, which make a downright choreographed impression. Uma Thurman's stunt double was New Zealander Zoë Bell . Tarantino was so impressed by her that he gave her a lead role in his next film Death Proof , in which she played herself.

synchronization

The German synchronization was based on a dialogue book and the dialogue direction by Andreas Pollak on behalf of Berliner Synchron GmbH .

actor role German voice
Uma Thurman Beatrix Kiddo Petra Barthel
David Carradine Bill Frank Glaubrecht
Lucy Liu O-Ren Ishii Claudia Lehmann
Daryl Hannah Elle Driver Andrea Aust
Vivica A. Fox Vernita Green Anke Reitzenstein
Sonny Chiba Hattori Hanzo Ryosuke Saito
Michael Madsen Budd Thomas Danneberg
Michael Parks Earl McGraw Jan Spitzer
James Parks Edgar McGraw Gerald Schaale

Reviews

Susan Vahabzadeh wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that Kill Bill - Volume 1 is "on the one hand terrific and on the other hand falls short of expectations, testifies to an infinite, contagious desire for cinema and at some point gets on your nerves in your adolescent citation rage".

Andreas Kilb said in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : “With Quentin Tarantino, cruelty is a question of style, so much so that both the bloodshed and the cinematic gesture that reveals it become indistinguishable.” It continued: “The only story, that Tarantino's cinema tells in truth is the story of his taste. ”It was said of Tarantino that the industry of dreams needs artists like him,“ because they help it to stifle the scream that is buried under the dream images ”.

"Tarantino is like a DJ who puts one layer of sound on top of the other from different records and creates a very unique sound that goes beyond the mere quotation," summarizes Oliver Hüttmann from Spiegel Online . This insane work is brilliant, violent entertainment.

The soundtrack was chosen with a sure taste, actors celebrate comebacks, almost every scene is an homage to old Kung Fu films. In addition, the director is an actor-director in the classic sense, a filmmaker who drives his actors to top performance. The showdown is an "orgy of violence and beauty" that has never been seen in a western film, writes Der Tagesspiegel .

The lexicon of international films wrote that the film was a “brilliantly staged thriller” and “an exuberant treasure trove of quotations full of references to Asian cultural and cinema history”, with the terms “honor” and “revenge” in the center. The "stylized, but at the same time drastically and distantly used violence" pushes to the surface and in many scenes becomes a "questionable end in itself".

Soundtrack (album)

Film music albums have been released for both parts. The song Battle Without Honor or Humanity by Tomoyasu Hotei in particular has been used very frequently as background music on television and at major events since it was used in Vol. 1, for example the broadcasts of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and the 2008 Summer Olympics on the Olympia program with Waldi & Harry , in football stadiums, TV series and documentaries .

The film music supports the various hymns to the great role models that Tarantino pays homage to in the course of Kill Bill. The focus on Ennio Morricone , the most famous composer of Italo-Western music, in Vol. 2 is no coincidence. Even the Green Hornet Theme of Al Hirt refers to one of the Great: In the television series The Green Hornet ( 1966 - 1967 ) played kung fu star Bruce Lee a major role.

  1. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Nancy Sinatra
  2. That Certain Female by Charlie Feathers
  3. The Grand Duel (Parte Prima) by Luis Bacalov
  4. Twisted Nerve by Bernard Herrmann
  5. Queen of the Crime Council by Lucy Liu and Julie Dreyfus
  6. Ode to O-ren Ishii from RZA
  7. Run Fay Run by Isaac Hayes
  8. Green Hornet Theme by Al Hirt
  9. Battle Without Honor or Humanity by Tomoyasu Hotei
  10. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Santa Esmeralda
  11. Woo Hoo from The 5.6.7.8's
  12. Crane / White Lightning by RZA and Charles Bernstein
  13. The Flower Of Carnage by Meiko Kaji
  14. The Lonely Shepherd by Gheorghe Zamfir , composed by James Last
  15. You're My Wicked Life by David Carradine, Julie Dreyfus and Uma Thurman
  16. Ironside (excerpt) by Quincy Jones
  17. Super 16 (excerpt) from New!
  18. Yakuza Oren 1 from RZA
  19. Banister Fight from RZA

background

The actual name of the bride (Beatrix Kiddo) is neither disclosed in the film nor mentioned in the credits in Kill Bill - Volume 1 . In places where the name Beatrix or Beatrix Kiddo is pronounced in the film, a signal tone covers the language. Although it is also audibly addressed as kiddo , this is a common nickname, especially in the American-speaking world, which is generally used for “little one” or “little one”. This is also clear in the English subtitles, in which "kiddo" is written with a lowercase letter and is therefore not used as a proper name. However, her full name can be read on the ticket to Okinawa.

As in his previous films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction , Tarantino uses a non-chronological narrative style that is similar to the cut-up technique used in literature . The film begins with a scene that is chronologically located in the middle of the plot, but is embedded in an overall dramaturgical concept. Vol. 2 largely dispenses with such structural interlocking in favor of mere flashback effects.

Tarantino designed his own version of Vol. 1 for the Japanese market in which the bride's bloody fight against O-Ren Ishii's bodyguard can be seen in full color. This sequence is partly in black and white in the international version. There are also minor differences in the cut and the images used. A separate Asian version was also published for Vol. 2.

The second part of Kill Bill has a lower age rating than the first part in many countries , including Germany, where Kill Bill - Volume 2 is released from the age of 16, Kill Bill - Volume 1 is only released from the age of 18.

  • The film title "Kill Bill" has a double meaning in English, since the word "bill" translates into German and a. "Billing", "Invoice" or "List" means. Thus, "Kill Bill" can be translated as "Kill Bill" on the one hand, as "Fatal Reckoning" or as "Death List" on the other.
  • Quentin Tarantino, Vivica A. Fox and David Carradine were guest actors in the series Alias ​​- The Agent .
  • When Vernita fires at the bride, the firearm is hidden in a box of “Kaboom” breakfast cereal (German: “Kawumm”).
  • The Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks), who with his son Edgar McGraw (James Parks) examines the bloodbath in the church in the first part, is a character from From Dusk Till Dawn . This figure also appears twice in the double feature Grindhouse / Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino and Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez. In the second part, Michael Parks also plays the character of Esteban Vihaio, who leads the bride on Bill's trail.
  • “Vengeance is a dish that is best served cold. - old Klingon proverb “- Khan mentioned this saying at the beginning of Vol. 1 from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in the battle against the Enterprise. This sentence is not included in the Japanese version. The quote is also mentioned in the spaghetti western The bill is paid with lead , which is an important source of inspiration for Kill Bill . But before that, the sentence appeared in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather . The originator of the expression is Eugène Sue with his novel Mathilda , published in 1841 .
  • The yellow and black suit, which Uma Thurman wears first as a motorcycle suit and later as a tracksuit, is a replica of the suit that Bruce Lee wore in Game of Death , his last film, which was never completed at the time.
  • When Kiddo leaves the airport in Tokyo in Chapter 5, an advertising poster for the fictional cigarette brand Red Apple, which also appears in other Tarantino films, such as Pulp Fiction , The Hateful Eight and heavily advertised in Once Upon a Time in , is visible in the background Hollywood .
  • Gogo Yubari owes its name to the small town of Yūbari ( Hokkaidō Prefecture on the island of the same name), where Quentin Tarantino received an award at the 1993 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival .
  • The location in the Mojave Desert near the church became a popular location for filming and taking photos.

Awards

Prices
price category Artists result
British Academy Film Award
Best Actress Uma Thurman Nominated
Best cut Sally Menke Nominated
Best film score RZA Nominated
Best sound Michael Minkler , Myron Nettinga , Wylie Stateman and Mark Ulano Nominated
Best visual effects Tommy Tom, Kia Kwan, Tam Wai, Kit Leung, Jaco Wong, and Hin Leung Nominated
Empire Awards
Best movie Kill Bill Volume 1 Nominated
Best Actress Uma Thurman Won
Best director Quentin Tarantino Won
Sony Ericsson scene of the year Final battle in the House of Blue Leaves Nominated
Golden Globe Award Best Actress - Fiction Film (Drama) Uma Thurman Nominated
MTV Movie Awards Best performance by an actress Uma Thurman Won
Best villain Lucy Liu Won
Best fight Uma Thurman vs. Chiaki Kuriyama Won
2003 Satellite Awards
Best production design Kill Bill Volume 1 Nominated
Best original screenplay Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman Nominated
Best sound Kill Bill Volume 1 Nominated
Satellite Award Best Visual Effects Kill Bill Volume 1 Nominated
Saturn Awards
Best action film Kill Bill Volume 1 Won
Best Actress Uma Thurman Won
Best supporting role Sonny Chiba Nominated
Best Supporting Role Lucy Liu Nominated
Best director Quentin Tarantino Nominated
Best script Quentin Tarantino Nominated
Genre face of the future Chiaki Kuriyama Nominated

literature

  • Inge Kirsner, Stefanie Schäfer-Bossert: "Revenge is mine!" - who speaks? Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL. In: Thomas Bohrmann, Werner Veith, Stephan Zöller (Eds.): Handbuch Theologie und Popular Film . Volume 3. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-77535-1 , pp. 291-305.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for Kill Bill - Volume 1 . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2011 (PDF; test number: 95 526 V).
  2. Cf. Christiane Stella Bongertz, Die hardest woman in the world , in: Stern online , August 1, 2007
  3. a b Kill Bill - Volume 1. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on May 29, 2016 .
  4. Susan Vahabzadeh: An avenging angel doesn't make a summer. In: Süddeutsche.de . May 17, 2010, accessed January 24, 2013 .
  5. Andreas Kilb: With the little cleaver: "Kill Bill: Volume 1". In: FAZ.NET . FAZ , October 16, 2003, accessed on October 28, 2012 .
  6. Oliver Hüttmann: Intoxication from blood and images. In: Spiegel Online. October 25, 2003. Retrieved October 28, 2012 .
  7. ^ Christian Schröder: Triumph of killing. In: Tagesspiegel . October 14, 2003, accessed October 28, 2012 .
  8. ^ Kill Bill - Volume 1. In: Lexicon of international films . Film service , accessed May 28, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. Entry in the free German-English dictionary "dict.cc"