After revolutionizing the crime genre with the triple whammy of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino stepped out into just about every other action subgenre – kung fu movies, spaghetti westerns, revenge thrillers, blaxploitation movies – with his fourth film, Kill Bill, which ended up spilling over into his fifth film (debatably) with a two-part release.
Tarantino’s first three movies had all featured action sequences, like Reservoir Dogs’ police shootout and Pulp Fiction’s pawnshop basement confrontation, but Kill Bill was his first straightforward action movie. The iconic writer-director came out of the gate with some of the most riveting action sequences ever put on film, like the showdown at the House of Blue Leaves.
Fighting Vernita Green
After the blood-soaked black-and-white opening hooks in viewers, Kill Bill starts in the middle of the Bride’s vengeful rampage as she arrives at the quaint suburban home of Jeannie Bell – formerly known as Vernita Green, one of the assassins who left her for dead – to settle an old score. With smashed coffee tables and broken bones, this brutal fight is a thrilling way to open the movie. There’s an unexpected twist when Vernita’s young daughter Nikki arrives home from school.
As they schedule a rematch away from Nikki’s impressionable eyes, Vernita reaches for a hidden gun and the Bride takes her out with a knife. Not only is this a riveting standalone scene; it also provides a setup for Kill Bill: Volume 3 as Nikki witnesses the killing and the Bride honors her right to seek revenge when she grows up.
Killing Buck
After the Bride awakens from her coma, she’s hit with a bunch of truly horrifying memories of an abusive orderly named Buck. When Buck returns to the ward, he’s treated to some brutal retribution as the Bride slashes the back of his ankle, bringing him to the floor.
There, she puts his head in the doorway and repeatedly slams the door against his skull until he’s dead. This sequence shows audiences the Bride’s first taste of revenge, a dish that – according to the old Klingon proverb – is best served cold.
O-Ren Ishii’s Revenge
For the most part, Kill Bill has a singular focus on the Bride’s journey from assassin to expectant mother to vengeful killing machine (told nonlinearly, as is Tarantino’s way), but Volume 1 has a great anime segment in the middle that has nothing to do with the Bride.
As the title would suggest, “Chapter 3: The Origin of O-Ren” details the origin story of O-Ren Ishii. After witnessing yakuza members murdering her parents, O-Ren trained as an assassin, became an unstoppable killer, sought revenge against the yakuza, and took the boss’ place as the head of the syndicate. It’s gorgeously animated (and unashamedly gory).
Showdown At The House Of Blue Leaves
The House of Blue Leaves massacre might be the greatest action set-piece in Tarantino’s filmography. There’s an engaging structure to this sequence, as the Bride faces 88 sword-wielding goons singlehandedly, faces some real challenges and setbacks along the way, and manages to emerge as the blood-drenched victor.
The sequence is dazzlingly stylized, flitting between color and black-and-white, with such breathtaking images as a silhouetted swordfight and a fast-moving tracking shot locked on a falling corpse. The combat is meticulously choreographed and the frenetic cinematography captures the stunt team’s work in all its glory.
The Bride’s Final Duel With O-Ren
After taking out O-Ren’s goon squad, the Bride confronts O-Ren herself in the restaurant’s Japanese garden. O-Ren is such a proficient swordfighter that the Bride faces more adversity fighting her alone than she did taking on the entire Crazy 88.
The stunning visuals of this every-frame-a-painting final duel were heavily influenced by the action-packed classic Lady Snowblood. It culminates in one of Tarantino’s most disturbing moments of on-screen violence with the Bride slicing off O-Ren’s scalp, exposing the top of her brain.
The Bride Is Buried Alive
After being warned that the Bride is coming, Budd awaits her arrival with a shotgun loaded with non-lethal blasts. He shoots her in the chest, then calls over a friend of his to help him bury her alive. This brutal, existentially terrifying, worst-case-scenario punishment is ripped straight from the playbook of exploitation cinema.
Once the terror of being buried alive has set in, the Bride draws on her intensive training under the tutelage of Pai Mei to break out of the coffin and soar through the dirt to freedom.
Elle Driver’s Anticlimactic Fight With The Bride
One-eyed killer Elle Driver’s rivalry with the Bride throughout the two volumes of Kill Bill seems to be building toward an explosive fight sequence. At Budd’s trailer, as the duo faces off and Ennio Morricone’s “A Silhouette of Doom” plays on the soundtrack, that fight seems imminent.
And then, the sequence ends with a darkly hilarious one-second resolution: the Bride just rips out Elle’s other eye. This gag is like an even grislier take on Indy shooting the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique
Unlike Volume 1, Kill Bill: Volume 2 doesn’t end with a large-scale final battle. Bill isn’t hiding in a secret compound protected by an army of hundreds of goons; he’s just hanging out at home with B.B., waiting for the Bride to arrive. When she gets there, they don’t engage in a brutal fistfight – they talk it out.
After some classically superfluous Tarantino dialogue, Bill and the Bride finally draw their swords for a climactic showdown. But the Bride doesn’t milk Bill’s death; she traps his sword in her scabbard and hits him with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. Bill is impressed that Pai Mei taught the Bride this fabled trick, then accepts his fate and wanders off to die peacefully (or as peacefully as one can die with an exploding heart).
