I know the yellow track suit was a tribute to one Bruce Lee wore in one of his most famous roles.
I didn’t get the impression Bill was involved in Ishii’s parents’ massacre. I’d be surprised if she hadn’t found out in 14 years or so–she was the Crime Queen of the Yakuza, after all. And if he had been…
Bill didn’t kill O-ren’s parents. A Japanese crimelord did.
And everyone expects the Bride to kill Bill because the tagline and whole inspiration for the film was “In 2004, Uma Thurman Will Kill Bill.” 
Her mother was killed by the crime lord but her dad was killed by a henchmen with a striking resemblance to David Carradine, especially with the jewelry and sword and stuff.
(I guess she doesn’t kill and maim 88 people in one scene)
Doesn’t Bill tell Budd there aren’t 88 of them? Or am I mistaken?
The nice thing about an hommage to exploitation flicks is that one can explain away “mistakes” as part of the hommage.
Such is the case with the Pussy Wagon. You have two corpses who died violently, a missing coma patient, and a disappearing set of car keys, and nobody checks the car in 13+ hours. She then goes to Okinawa, leaves the car in long-term parking for at least a month, and, after picking it up, drives from LAX to Pasadena (~30 miles) without getting spotted all while driving the most obvious APB* car ever to grace the greater Los Angeles basin.
Imo, the obvious outrageousness of it all isn’t a gaffe but rather yet another hommage to the martial arts genre. A man who goes to the effort to generate a background shot of a cigarette ad featuring a fake brand just to reference a previous film of his is not going to allow a glaring “lapse” like that w/o meaning to do so.
By the way, I think the near two-minute tracking shot in the bar ranks among the greatest ever… given the camera movements, it is even more impressive than the famouse three minute shot that opens Touch of Evil, imo.
*All Points Bulletin.
He does… says there’s only 36 of them, but they just liked the name “crazy 88s.”
Here’s a list of the references in KB vol. 1 and 2:
http://www.tarantino.info/movie/killbill/articles/references-guide.htm
“Game of Death (Hong Kong, 1978, Bruce Lee and Robert Clouse). Bruce Lee’s last film, where he wears the yellow tracksuit the Bride wears in Kill Bill.”
Copperhead was a master with blades (especially butcher knives), and it is probably harder to swiftly aim and fire a covered gun than we would think. After all, the box of cereal was pointed at the Bride but that doesn’t mean the gun was perfectly aligned.
Not all the members of the DiVaS have Hanzo swords. In fact, I think only Bill, Budd, and Beatrix have them - why else would Daryl be so anxious to get her hands on one?
Fair enough. Considering your knowledge on the subject (which is damn impressive, btw), it seems a reasonable answer.
So…is Kill Bill 2 as good, better, worse…?
I’m not a hit man, I just play one on TV.
I like vol. 1 better (well, I’ve had far more opportunity to see it… not only do I have the DVD but it was re-released at the local dollar theater here in Knoxville (to which I’ve already made two trips just this weekend)), however vol. 2 is a damned fine movie on its own. I can’t wait to see the both of them combined. If I had to rate QT’s movies I would put them as:
… and I thought Jackie Brown to be underrated.
Since she can carry it on the plane, that doesn’t seem to be a problem. Tarantino has clearly stated that the carrying the sword on a plane thing isn’t an accident; in his movie “world,” you can carry your samurai sword on the plane with you. It’s an error, IMHO; Tarantino can construct a fantasy world where you can carry samurai swords on planes and that’s okay, but the Bride not bringing her sword with her to kill Copperhead is not consistent with the Bride’s own established pattern of behaviour.
Also, in this movie “world,” the cops essentially don’t exist, so that’s why they never came looking for the Pussy Wagon. You’ll notice they also don’t come running in a dozen other places. Where were the local gendarmes when the restaurant was being chopped to shreds?
JohnT, there are a lot more than 36 guys in the Crazy 88. Count them.
As to the issue of who killed O-Ren’s parents… I dunno, we SAW them. None of them were Bill.
Well, all I can say about Daryl is she got my one-eyed snake interested.
Well I just saw it now and I don’t understand the big deal about it. A good fun movie but hardly the second coming.
I’d stick it below Pulp Fiction and on the same level as Reservoir Dogs. (note: I saw Dogs long after it was released so it wasn’t as mind blowing as it would have been had I seen it before it copied to death)
Thanks, JohnT.
Now one more question, if you don’t mind:
There seems to be a lot of confusion about whether it was Bill who killed O-Ren’s father (or was at least present at the execution). Now, IIRC, we don’t actually see Bill in the first movie…just his hands (with rings) wrapped around that cane.
Again, IIRC, we saw a shot of hands (with rings) in the anime sequence wrapped around a similar cane.
Which led me to believe that it was (a young) Bill. So what do you think?
(As an aside, I still wonder how the film would have been with Warren Beatty as Bill…though I also still wonder about Daniel Day Lewis in Pulp Fiction…)
Actually, her established pattern of behavior is to take the rash approach in approaching her enemies (vol. 1 and 2 spoilers):
[spoiler]1. She calls out to O-Ren in a crowded nightclub.
2. She just walks up to Copperheads house, knowing that Copperhead has been warned of her coming.
3. She just barges into Budds trailer with predictable consequences.
4. She asks Bill’s “best friend” where Bill is. What, the man can’t call? Anyway, Bill is obviously waiting for her when she arrives… both he and BB have guns pointed at the door when she enters.
[/spoiler]
So, it actually was in character. Anyway, I think her MO was to kill the people with the weapons they were best known for using… O-Ren with the sword, Copperhead with the knife, etc.
As far as the “more than 36”, in vol. 2 Bill states how many there were and while the number might not have been “36”, it was definitely in the thirties.
It could have been, though I don’t think the timeline works. O-Ren was 9 when her parents were killed, she was an assassin at 19, and “five years later”, at the age of 24, she was beating up pregnant women in El Paso. Bill was, at best, 60 in the movie, which would’ve made him ~45 years of age when O-Rens parents were killed. Now I don’t know much about Japanese villians or anime, but the guy who did the killing looked a LOT younger than 45.
However, there are timeline issues at other parts too… Copperhead has a four year old? Assuming she went the “traditional” route, she must have left the DiVA’s, found a doctor to marry, and then got pregnant within months of the El Paso attack for that to have happened.
Well shit, ya got a(nother) point there. He did look quite young. Still, it makes me wonder why QT made such a point of showing the hands/rings/cane in that sequence.
Then again, maybe it was just to “mess with our heads”…the deliberate ambiguity to make us think a little more…
Who knows? With QT, anything’s possible…
Why does it have to be the “second coming”? Why can’t it just be a good, fun movie that a lot of people really enjoy?
Thanks for that link JohnT.