Kill Bill – All Bride Out

Full transcript of Kill Bill – All Bride Out.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household, and it is another course in our 2022 reference degustation, a footlong celebration of Quippy Tarantino debauchery. We are currently up to our fourth course and a reference spoiler, I think we're feeling a bit bloated. Right Oti?

0:00Oti: Mhmm.

0:00KT: I'm not a smoker, but I could definitely light up a couple of Apple cigarettes right now. Let's get on with the show. Hey, friends, and watch any other film lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. Got your host, KT.

0:00Oti: And Oti.

1:00KT: All aboard the pussy wagon as we pluck aesthetics around the world but fail to build substance. Dodge the five-point-bore-exploding-foot technique with Kill Bill this week.

1:00Oti: Woo hoo.

1:00KT: Man, you know, we we try to keep the energy and then get into some thoughtful discussion but I am tired Oti.

1:00Oti: You're not alone, mate.

1:00KT: I know we were riding the Pam Grier love train and nothing really gets better than that. But Let's get into stats and general information so we can get into

1:39KT: the rest of this onerous course, friends and lovers. Director, writer, Quentin, Jerome Tarantino. Maybe I don't even need to mention Jerome because the N word was not used here. Surprising. Based on characters by Q and U and the U denotes to Uma Thurman.

1:39Oti: Oh. Cool.

1:39KT: Perhaps vocations of directors and screenwriters are different to actors. I'm coming out. I'm coming out with my Hanzo Claus friends and lovers. In regards to both films quickly capturing them off. The Kill Bill one was released in September 2003 with a budget of $30,000,000, a worldwide gross of a $180,900,000.

2:20Oti: Woo hoo. Not as much as Pulp Fiction though.

2:20KT: Pulp Fiction was 200 plus. Okay. More than Jackie Brown. So we're going to fight. We're gonna have a problem. Travesty. Kill Bill volume two, same budget, $30,000,000 with a worldwide gross of a $154,100,000. In regards to cast just rattling it all off, Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah,

2:47KT: Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox.

2:47Oti: Noise cast.

2:47KT: Noise, but apparently Lucy Liu wasn't even enough for it to save for you.

2:47Oti: Surprisingly so, mate. I thought it'll be different.

2:47KT: Isn't that just life?

2:47Oti: It sure is, mate.

2:47KT: If you want some joy, go and listen to Jackie Brown because this is exactly the flavoring that we're going to get into today. Let's get into first impressions Oti because hyping up in the past three courses, we've been saying that Kill Bill was pretty it it was a pretty safe investment. Right? We weren't on the blockchain.

3:20KT: It was a safe investment that we were going to enjoy it. In the sort of course that we had, we kind of knew that we were going to enjoy this. So let's get into first impressions. I don't think we've watched it many times, but when you watched it for the first time, how did you feel about it? How do you feel about it now? Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, Google Lucy Liu, Google Lucy Liu, Google Lucy Liu. You don't need to watch this film essentially.

3:46Oti: So I watched this the first time I think with you as well. I think it was during our Pulp Fiction tour days.

3:52KT: You better stop that. I see what you're doing.

3:56Oti: It's one of those movies I avoided just because no one would shut the fuck up about it. And I wasn't into Tarantino back then. And I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna ignore it. Yep. But watching the first time, I thought I quite enjoy the first volume. I couldn't remember too much about the second volume. Yeah. But, yeah, I think too hard I just took the fuck off of me and I thought, yeah, it's alright.

4:18Oti: It's not the best thing I've seen of his. Mhmm. I thought back then even the Pulp Fiction was better than it. And I still think that now.

4:27KT: Okay. Well well, we've kind of done rankings throughout this reference degustation. So where where does Kill Bill? Because you said Jackie Brown so far is the best Tarantino film. So where is Kill Bill?

4:27Oti: It'll sit to the bottom.

4:27KT: Okay. So in in your ranking, it's Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill. Yeah.

4:49Oti: And I don't know how the ordering would work, but in my head, like, I feel yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's right. That's right. Let me not add any extra flavor or spices. That's fine.

5:03KT: Okay. Well, Reservoir Dogs is becoming the unsightly best friend that is getting a chance by default because you booked your bill at the bottom.

5:03Oti: Not even. I think rewatching it now,

5:11Oti: I couldn't remember what exactly made me think this was a good movie back then. It felt like a fever dream. Right? Yeah. I I felt like I enjoyed it more back then and watching it now, maybe it's all the Tarantino we're doing back to back that has me fatigued. I hope that's not the case, but I watched this and I felt, oh my god, what the fuck is this? The first volume is fine. It's possible. You can watch it. It's nothing. I I wouldn't say it's the best thing I've seen, but the second volume

5:42Oti: just takes a different tangent and I wasn't there for it. I felt it was onerous. It really just I didn't know what style he was going for. Maybe that's his quirkism, but I think that's an escape

5:55Oti: for him to have everything that we loved about Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction. I think it was such a big miss in Kill Bill, especially volume two. Yeah. And to me, I was like, it felt like a like a like a like a project that just, you know and you said the budget was super massive and I'm like, I can't see it. I really can't.

5:55KT: Well, 30,000,000 for a film isn't super massive, but I guess if I were to give praises, that's where I would praise it. Because the fact that they achieved

6:24KT: both films, 30 mil a pop, it's quite achieve it's it's quite admirable that they were able to deliver it. I guess getting into my first impressions, like you Oti, it was a fever dream. I don't remember anything, but I do recall not hating the experience. I do recall, you know, the iconic sort of imagery without any sort of context, but I I didn't think I didn't look back in anger at it. Just say Yeah. Oti Gallagher. But I think this is this is interesting because with Reservoir Dogs, with Pulp Fiction to a certain extent,

7:03KT: the both of us were talking about how, you know, it's not necessarily about the character building. We don't necessarily care if mister Blonde has a spiritual awakening, but apparently Oti loves that Jules has a spiritual awakening. Like, there's a lot of discussion that we've had about the fact that with all of the Tarantino, like debauchery, salaciousness, frivolity, we're just happy to enjoy the ride, right? Whether we care about these characters or not, in most cases we don't, but he has such a distinct flavoring. He has such stylistic filmmaking

7:40KT: that it is so much fun. Like he has such a distinct voice and it's so much fun to just enjoy the ride. Right? This is kind of the opposite. Right? Jackie Brown really achieved. It's it was like the most un Tarantino Tarantino film. Right? And it was earnest in its attempt to have storytelling, particularly with black character, which is not what we saw in the first two offerings in this degustation. Right? So it was an earnest offering and it interweaved,

8:09KT: you know, Tarantino sort of style within the world that was built in Jackie Brown. Somehow this completely lost, Like, I think we gentrified Tarantino with Kill Bill

8:22Oti: because this feel like he went back to his film bro mindset.

8:26Oti: After doing Jackie Brown, I think he felt like, oh, man, I need to go back to what fucking formula worked back then because Jackie Brown was in a big hit. He didn't bring bank.

8:26KT: But let me ask you this. Was this film as fun as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs?

8:26Oti: No.

8:26KT: Exactly. And that's my point. There was it was as if he tried to focus more on trying to create a story, but that's not your bag, bro. Like, do all of the fun shit that means nothing. That's where we have fun with Tarantino.

8:54KT: I don't and I really don't remember how much of a bore this film was. But again, like, I talk about how Pulp Fiction was a part of my personality and I went around parading that. This Kill Bill really

8:54Oti: Still is, mate. He can't get rid of that tattoo yet.

8:54KT: Well, we'll keep team Edward on your ass.

9:15Oti: Best teammate.

9:17KT: It felt like it was a more sort of, like, a more sort of traditional approach, a more like conventional approach to storytelling. It still had the choppy, which I don't really care for. Like, it's literally just scenes that he chops together. So it's not necessarily cohesive.

9:36Oti: You know you know the the trope where black people always die fast? Yeah. In his story, theoretically or from his story, Lucy Liu is the one that dies fast. Yes. But when you're watching that shit,

9:51KT: Vivica Fox gets barely anything. Put some respect on Vivica A. Fox's name.

9:51Oti: Oh, bloody. They did it dirty.

9:51KT: Vivica A. Fox.

9:59Oti: Do I need to repeat that name? Yeah. Vivica A. Fox. Come on now.

10:08KT: Your your your mate from Pulp Fiction, I think his name was Marcus. He got more screen time than Vivica A. Fox got in Kill Bill. He did? Yeah. And he got a whole storyline. He got some emotional investment as well. I couldn't understand it.

10:21Oti: Yeah, of course she died second, but that's the first thing we see. And we don't see her until, know, only on flash backs and she doesn't even get to say anything. Yeah. That's just mainly speaking based off my my frustrations watching this movie that I thought I loved and just seeing how wayward it was.

10:35KT: Well, to be fair, we heard the dialogue about black women in Reservoir Dogs. So maybe it was for the best that Vivica Fox wasn't in the screen too much.

10:50Oti: Probably, probably.

10:52KT: But I guess just capturing off my first impressions because we really have been going on a roller coaster with all of these Tarantino films. You know, n word inappropriate usage aside, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction beautifully stitched together why people fucking love Tarantino so fucking much. Right? Jackie Brown is is, you know, it's it's that rare Pokemon card that, you know, you're going to fight all of the people at school for. Right? It's it's it's a it's a once in a blue moon. It's a Pam Grier Mewtwo

11:26KT: event. I don't know what the fuck happened to this film. I think part of it is also, I guess, you know, George Clooney sniffing your own farts because this spawned off between Quentin and Uma on the set of Pulp Fiction where they were talking about the idea of Fox Force Five becoming a film. And apparently, Uma Thurman had the idea of a bride being all bloodied up and that being a part of the story. It felt like a direct to TV film. Like, there was nothing interesting

11:57KT: about this film and it wasn't even fun. Like it wasn't fun. I think that's part of the problem. Right? Because if if I want a Royale with cheese, best believe I'm going to get a Royale with cheese.

12:07Oti: I hear you. And I think, and that might not be as fair as because I think volume one had some good things about it that I really enjoyed. Wow.

12:19KT: This did not need to be two volumes. This did not need to be four hours when it was re released in 2011. The pacing was terrible. It was boring. There was no score undercutting the scenes to be able to transition them and we'll get to the music and the visuals in a moment. But it was so it wasn't even a slow burn because I I mentioned Jackie Brown and, you know, a beautiful perfect example where the pacing and slow burn works and where it doesn't like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And also surprisingly,

12:52KT: it doesn't work here in Kill Bill because it's not even a slow burn. It's just fucking boring. And you can give us all the amazing talent. You can give us, you know, Uma, you can give us Lucy, you can give us Daryl, you can also give us your Kung Fu man, which we'll talk about in a moment. You can give us Vivica for five minutes apparently, but that does not a great film make.

12:52Oti: Yeah, I hear you.

13:14Oti: I think I'm just disappointed in the fact that I didn't enjoy it as I thought I would because up until now, this was my most anticipated

13:24Oti: Yeah. To rewatch. Yeah. Just because I thought, okay, I'll I'll we'll we'll keep all the quirkisms and the nonsense aside and we'll just delve into some really good shit. But there were no quirkisms. Yeah. There was raisins in the potato salad. That my memory of the movie was that and it's always fell short.

13:24KT: Oh, friends and lovers, Perhaps the power of our patrons can save us in this particular recording.

13:50KT: We're going to talk about recurring and common themes in Tarantino's filmography and they're all broken into sections. General questions are interesting because it's going to show the evolution or I guess the reaffirming of so far. So the first question we have is from Jamie. What are your views on Quentin Tarantino's approach to violence? I think this was the most violent. This was Uma Thurman's Passion of the Christ. Like, if if you wanna be tortured out of pleasure and pain, just say so, Uma.

14:23KT: If you like seeing Uma's bloody toes, just say so, Quentin.

14:23Oti: Yeah. It did feel a bit Meli Gibby there.

14:23KT: Racist ass Meli Gibby. It did. Actually, why isn't Mel Gibson in any Quentin Tarantino films?

14:23Oti: I don't know. He already has his select five, so it's hard to get into the club, mate.

14:23KT: Yeah. But I don't think it's hard to get him to lean into derogatory words. Yeah.

14:48KT: That's a violence of a different kind, friends and lovers.

14:48Oti: I think going back to Reservoir Dogs and even Pulp Fiction, the violence that was there, I thought, you know, I enjoyed it to some degree. Yeah. But with this, I don't know. It did nothing for me, which is weird. I think in volume one, we had where stylistically changed into an anime of sorts. And you know what? That was brutal. I think animating it made it show the brutality

15:16Oti: that would have been very hard to achieve I think even with the medium of animation, you can take it a step further without it being a bit too confronting. Right? Yeah. Without thinking there's someone you need to arrest here afterwards.

15:16KT: I absolutely agree. Like, the approach to violence was different in Reservoir Dogs compared to Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction was like Tarantino's take on the Willy Wonka factory. Like, it was just a fantastical land where unfortunately ring Ving Rhames got swatted on as opposed to him squatting on others. Mhmm.

15:54KT: But the approaches were different, but they were just as enjoyable. The same as the violence that we had in Jackie Brown as well. The violence in this film,

16:02KT: I don't know. Maybe it's also like he the way that he writes for like female characters isn't the same as the way he because mister Blonde, he wasn't necessarily someone hopefully someone that you would resonate, but you kinda dug the violence because you appreciated that he was a fucking psychopath. Right? Yeah. This was literally like Tom and Jerry hitting each other over the head with a mallet. Like, was all very generic stock standard sort of action and them calling themselves snakes. And somehow, Uma Thurman is the black mamba anyway.

16:37KT: Even though Vivica A. Fox was right there, and Daryl Hannah had her own black mamba as well. Yeah. They love the black mamba. They even had a wiki Wikipedia explanation of Yeah. But that that's also weird. Like, Tarantino gave up trying to have a compelling script and he just googled Wikipedia for the snake.

16:57KT: Like, literally, all you have to, like, all you have to show is the fact that he got bitten and then her run off with the money. We didn't need that whole spiel. I'm missing Walken's bummed out watch speech now. Yeah. I don't miss that.

17:11Oti: We know how you feel about Walken. I think one of the things that grinded my gears in this is when Beatrix wakes up from a coma four year after four years.

17:21KT: Oh, you hated it.

17:23Oti: Manages to to, you know, summon the power to wiggle her toes and all.

17:23KT: Then Her big toe.

17:23Oti: And then and goes on a rampage and kills the Crazy 88 and O-Ren. Yeah. After all that, without panting, without losing breath, without struggling.

17:39KT: Yeah. Peace off. Yeah. Peace right off. But there there was a bit of dialogue. I think it was Bill that he was mentioning speaking of mister Blonde, Budd, either one. It was mentioned in the film that there wasn't literally 88 of them, and it just reminded me of Mortal Kombat, much simpler times where the the the power of a thousand warriors and there were only five of them.

18:06Oti: I like, even just the memory of another film, that was probably the most enjoyment I got watching this. They might not be in 88, but they were definitely more like 20 or even more than that. Yeah. It was insane. She went through the the gang like through nothing Mhmm. And then gets to O-Ren. And my love for Lucy Liu aside, she like, why bother giving us a whole spiel and back story of why O-Ren is like that Yeah. And then have her be defeated in such a mediocre

18:40Oti: manner. Yeah. I'm like, what was the backstory for Vivica Fox? Yeah. And I think I'm going back to that all the time. No, no, no, but it's true.

18:49KT: It's true. And I think it's just because again, Quentin, not Jerome in this case, Tarantino just wanted to pluck aesthetics. He just wanted to pluck the cool parts of a culture without acknowledging the peep. It was fucking white loticing that shit. Oh, it'll be cool to do an animation here mate. Yeah, apparently Lucy, he had always had in the script that it was going to be a Japanese actress but he saw Lucy Liu in Shanghai Noon and he realized that he needed to have her little toes squabbling across the table and whacking some guy.

19:24KT: So I don't know, this just felt like leftover trifle three days after Christmas. Like it was like and there was so many different styles and none of them gelled with each other. And there was no real attempt. It was like, I'm just going to stitch all of this shit together and you're going to deal with it. Yeah. It was like a Freddy vs. Jason baby monstrosity. I think that was one of our frustrations because we get to see everyone pretty much get a backstory.

19:52Oti: We get to see every stylistic we get to see very different styles to it. And then at the end of the day, it adds nothing

20:01KT: Yeah.

20:01Oti: To the overall cohesiveness of the movie.

20:01KT: Yeah. And it felt so caricature ish. Like it it was rivaling Breakfast at Tiffany's for the portrayal of Asian people. Woah. Well, when you because because watching Kung Fu is a lot of fun, right? But it doesn't feel like they're being exploited or being made a caricature of themselves because they're writing it themselves. You know what I mean? Like it kind of feels like dance for me, dance for me.

20:01Oti: I hear you. I hear you. And the aspects of that I was watching and I felt a bit weird.

20:34Oti: Just just based off the conversations. I think there was O-Ren was in a boardroom and it was just a weird way to for them to converse. But even the way they were talking, it was so overly exaggerated, like more than a fucking anime.

20:47KT: It was very cartoonish though. Yeah. But I think that's and I guess perhaps if you're just dipping your toe, if you'll pardon the pun into like different sort of storytelling, that might be impressive. But if you've watched like actual Japanese, like not just anime, but like television and film,

21:08KT: as well as like Chinese television and film, then this isn't very impressive and it's very carbon copy. It's very counterfeit. Yeah. I'm with you. Alright. Well, continue to stay with me or the non gendered film bros. This is from Rob. QT verse theory, films within film. Well, there's the Fox Force Five. Yeah. That's literally the biggest film within a film. Right?

21:34Oti: There is also David Carradine being, you know, Bill. He was referenced in Pulp Fiction.

21:39KT: Yeah. And you also with your learned monocle

21:39Oti: He's pretty much Caine here. He's pretty much Caine, but a wicked Caine.

21:39KT: Well, I think I think it was in volume two where Bill and Beatrix were out in the desert and he was telling this long story that had nothing to do with anything. And I said, is this essentially like the Kung Fu you watched? Yeah.

22:02Oti: Pretty much.

22:04KT: What a much simpler, less flavorful time Oti. Mhmm. Yeah. But Fox Force Five is the best one. And I'm just going to say it now, like, I know you don't have to fight me. I can be a wanker for other reasons. I know Uma Thurman is a charismatic dynamic actress. I know that. However, perhaps her best role is Mia Wallace. Maybe she's the creed of the Tarantino universe. Like, she's great for a moment. She's great for a character sort of acting, but I don't know. The the meandering

22:36KT: in this film, I'm not saying it was on her shoulders, but she also had a credit in writing this film as well.

22:36Oti: Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you there.

22:36KT: I keep saying that perhaps he doesn't know how to write for women, but if Uma had as much hands in this film as well, I guess I can't really blame the man card right now, can I?

22:36Oti: I don't think that'll stop you though.

22:36KT: Oh, no. It's not gonna stop me. I'm still campaigning. Don't you worry, Oti.

23:01KT: But to go back to Rob's question, you know, I I made fun of this. I made fun of it because I'm like, if people recognize all these details, like like even with the tombstone that had Paula Schultz, while we were watching the film, I said to you, I bet you I bet you somehow that mention of the tombstone is going to link somehow in the Tarantino universe. And that is granular detail that I guess I don't have enough time for.

23:27KT: Yeah. But also power to you. I'm not yuck ing your yum, just find more yums, friends and lovers. Let the fresh air caress your otherwise shriveled skin. Oh, wow. Moving on to Jamie, this has been a very juicy question throughout all of the courses. Is Quentin Tarantino the best contemporary director to match visuals and music?

23:27Oti: In this, no. It gave me a headache. Just one thing. I

23:54Oti: fucking hated that.

23:56KT: It drove me up the wall. I think it's called Ironside and I kept thinking of Blair Underwood.

24:05Oti: Oh my god. That was the worst thing ever. Tension aside, it didn't fucking create anything other than anger me. Yeah.

24:16Oti: He used it quite a lot. Yeah. But even in the two volumes, it felt so different from Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Music didn't do anything. I think even in volume two, we barely have any sort of music and it's just dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, which is not even the best. But I think once we probably get to Ben's question where we'll come to, oh, dialogue, this is probably his best thing that we usually we said on his previous movies How did you get Ben to record that? We're gonna walk that back so much.

24:48KT: Yeah.

24:49Oti: But to this, no. If you if you give anyone Kill Bill and you ask him that question, they'll be like, are you out of your mind? Yeah. It was solely I think this is one of the worst actually. Yeah. No. Yeah. Go towards the other end of the spectrum. This is one of the worst. I just didn't appreciate any of it. It didn't do anything. No emotion. No no tension building. No nothing.

25:17KT: It's like yeah. And and apparently, the soundtrack was a collection of other soundtracks. So it was out of Tarantino's collection. Like, it literally just felt like a hodgepodge trifle of nonsense and nothing. Like, this film just clashed together a whole bunch of nothing. It was the La Brea of films. It had nothing to do with anything.

25:38KT: The music wasn't great. And you know, if anything, throughout this whole journey, I've been enjoying listening to the soundtracks of all of these films so far. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Across 110th Street, Street Life, all of that. Right? Mhmm. I've been enjoying listening to all of these soundtracks throughout the past couple of weeks. And I like, it it felt like a literal deliberate headache. It's like he wanted us to feel pain. The same sort of pain that Beatrix Kiddo was feeling. Fuck off. Well, I guess we found our Oti Pennywise.

26:21KT: So so we've been very gracious with this question throughout the films, you know, giving credence to the fact that Quentin Tarantino is the best director to match visuals and music in regards to tonality. He absolutely does not do that here. Big miss. It's like a school project, know, when you try using Windows Movie Maker and you try to like insert

26:44KT: any sort of sound in the library that's available and it doesn't match at all. Yeah and only for Clippy to appear and try and give you hints and Clippy is not the best judge of music. But he might have been the only parental figure for some. Well If Wayne Brady appeared out of nowhere as Clippy. I take that. We love Wayne Brady. He's not in a lot of films so I don't know if we'll ever naturally talk about him. Probably not. Wayne Brady would never be in a Tarantino film. Yep.

27:17KT: Let's move on to direction slash stylistic choices. And this is Ben. This is the question you were talking about Oti. At what point does Quentin Tarantino's stylized hyper aware of itself dialogue become a hindrance to the film rather than part of its magic slash charm? It was a hindrance to you, Ben.

27:38Oti: Every single word uttered by everyone, it was a hindrance. Their dialogue was so bloody boring. Maybe I was spoiled having gone from Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction, even Jackie Brown. And he got excited because

27:52Oti: maybe less so Jackie Brown. But for the first two, in terms of dialogue and how quirky it was and just how exciting some of the things were. Yeah. Because at the end of it, what what we took from Reservoir Dogs was take nothing away from it. As a movie, the dialogue was great. With Kill Bill, oh my word. From Pussy Wagon to everything in between, I was it did feel very elementary.

28:18KT: Elementary, Watson, Lucy Liu. Oh, yeah. What are your reference friends and lovers?

28:25Oti: And man, I I I feel like any quirkisms that were here, the dialogue couldn't even save it because I thought it was it wasn't that great. But it wasn't the Tarantino dialogue that we've come to love. No.

28:40KT: And we've talked about the banal sort of observations that are a lot of fun, right? The classic tipping scene, the classic talking about Madonna, the Royale with cheese, like the banal sort of observational dialogue that is so much fun because of the penmanship that Tarantino has. But that was all sucked out of this film. Like, none of none of that was there. I think the closest sort of semblance we would have had was when Budd was talking to Elle Driver. Like that was kind of them having a banal sort of like observation. But even then, it was very onerous.

29:16Oti: Yeah. Everything was onerous. From Beatrix talking to the master up in the mountain, even one of the most I'm all for flashbacks. I'm all for actually, I'm not for flashbacks, but I'm all for montages. But this was one of the worst I've seen Yeah. In Beatrix training in the mountains with with a master. Yeah. I was like, all this so just we can fucking see Carl punched through the coffin.

29:42KT: And then the scene kept going for like ten, fifteen more minutes. It's like we got what we needed. Though we You need it to be two seconds and be done. Get out. But what I'm also saying,

29:54KT: like if you're stuck in a coffin without any sort of experience of punching through hard shit. If you wanna survive, you're gonna try. You might not make it, but you will try. Like you don't need all of this training in a mountain to try and punch a fucking coffin.

29:54Oti: Oh yeah. I was carrying bales of water up. I was being hit every time, I couldn't even hold chopsticks,

30:16Oti: mate. The torture. Yeah. I don't need that shit. Yeah. And now to elongate that to twenty minutes Yeah. It's fucking it's wankery to a point now, you know? It's wankery to a toe. Yeah. I give this guy a lot of leeway.

30:32Oti: I I I feel like I want to try and understand his point of view more often than not, but wow. You know, I think I'm even more harsh on this than I was on Pulp Fiction. Based even on these shenanigans using the n words of the last with with the with sort of the end scene on that. You know, I I try to be a bigger man and look the other way. But no, you can't do this. It's irresponsible. When the movie is like almost three hours long

30:32KT: No. It's four hours.

31:01Oti: And you see you have scenes that just don't add anything to it. Yeah. Just because it's cool to look at or cool to shoot, but it does nothing from a story point of view at all.

31:01KT: Yeah. I I was And even the last forty minutes because it showed that she was showing up to her showdown with Bill and it's like, oh yeah, cool. And then we're like, why are there forty more minutes to go? Right? And then twenty I'm sorry, friends and lovers. I with zero experience doing screenwriting,

31:30KT: directing, or even acting many hours on a podcast though. I think it's I think it's very bad. I think it's a big bad to introduce a fucking flashback in the last twenty minutes of a film. Fuck off.

31:44Oti: Maybe the people who made Flash Forward were inspired by Kill Bill.

31:44KT: Oh, okay. Well, I guess while we're here, was there any magic slash charm in this film? I know you didn't appreciate this, so you probably hated it.

31:44Oti: But my sort of good thing about this was in the first volume where we get to see Lucy's backstory,

32:05Oti: I think it was well done. Think I enjoyed that.

32:05KT: Yeah. But when you splice it with all of the hodgepodge in this film, it kinda dilutes what's cool about it. Because it just shows that he's just picking flowers in the garden of the world that he has no context of.

32:05Oti: Yeah. I hear you. But you asked me what are

32:23Oti: you know, the the sort of good thing that I would be able to take out of this and that's a scene or that would stay with me probably.

32:23KT: Oh, is this a reciprocal exchange where I let you have an opinion? How dare you? Moving along,

32:36KT: I if you notice I'm not answering the question. Moving along, Julio, rewriting history. I don't think so. No. Just in our personal history of the fact that we thought we liked it.

32:36Oti: Well, he did rewrite David Carradine from being a good guy in Kung Fu to being a dickhead in Kill Bill.

32:36KT: He was a good guy in a show called Kung Fu?

32:36Oti: Yeah. He was a master.

32:36KT: Mate, I think he was the first instance of slum tourism. I

33:05KT: think he's the first photographic evidence of going somewhere and taking a picture with the local kids. Oh, wow. I didn't get to Ra's al Ghul because that's how much I fucking don't care about this film. But he definitely had the white savior sort of complex as well. Anyway, let's move on with Rob. California slash Hollywood slash film slash genre. I think in this case, it doesn't actually meet that, does it? Oh, I don't think so. Yeah. Which I guess range possibly, if that's what you wanna call it.

33:36KT: But yeah, it it took us all around the world, but again, it struggled to build substance. Mhmm. Let's move on to Julio. Pop culture references. Pop culture references. Get your pop culture reference. The only one that I knew of over the years was the yellow suit paying homage to Bruce Lee. Yeah.

33:55Oti: I think there's a Clan of the White Lotus, I think. Because we have Pai Mei shop at the later stages, I think, in volume teaching Beatrix the five palm exploding heart technique. I think that was one of the weirdest scene because at the end, Bill is like, oh, you should have told me you love this.

34:13KT: What does it matter at that point? You're dead, bro.

34:19Oti: Fucking ridiculous. Anyway.

34:22KT: Oti when are when are we gonna address the white kung fu in the room? Can we do it now just very quickly?

34:22Oti: Yeah. Go for it.

34:22KT: So you made a comment like you specifically so, you made a comment while we were watching this film. Out of all of these, like, experts across all of Asia, the most powerful skilled swordsman is Bill and Beatrix Kiddo.

34:44Oti: Beatrix is master.

34:46KT: Yeah. But, like, all around the world and even Elle Driver was saying she was getting so frustrated that Budd potentially killed Beatrix. And she's like, oh, it's so disgusting. The most powerful swordsman I've ever met in my life. And it's like, bro, have you left America? Like, have you gone anywhere around the world that she is the most powerful person ever?

35:11Oti: Like, power to the Uma, but come on, man. Yeah. Hear you. I hear you. I think he went I don't know because they portrayed it as if, oh, she could do anything with a Hanzo sword, but she could do anything without it. She had a Tiger Claw technique. She's like, bloody hell, mate. Too many things going on. I just.

35:11KT: Alright. Let's move on to casting slash

35:34KT: characters. Julio and Brent, feet. Also shout outs to Rob. We would remember when we're talking about vibrating toes and you were talking about NFTs of feet in our Pulp Fiction episode? He coined NFEET. Nice. So I'll I'll put Rob in this category as well. So let's talk about the feet in the film.

35:34Oti: Oh, we got Films. We got feet galore

35:59Oti: Yeah. From pretty much everyone. Yeah. Bloody feet, muddy feet, any sort of feet you wanted, you'd Oh, get yeah.

36:08KT: All of all of the subcategories are here, definitely.

36:12Oti: It's it's quite building up a Pornhub sort of categorization of

36:19KT: There's really nothing to say. We get the flavoring of the foot variety. Let's move on to Rob, the reluctant hero. Would it be Beatrix?

36:29Oti: Who who else because she doesn't really fit the bill. Who would fit that? She's not really a hero. She's just taking revenge, but she was a bad person to begin with. So I've got one. Hanzo.

36:39KT: Is he though? If we're talking like Avatar Last Airbender, like Beatrix is like, she's going to restore balance to the world. Is she though? On a smaller more boring scale, yes. She's like the M. Shyamalan version of Avatar. No. Because Hanzo Hanzo didn't have to create the sword for her. And I guess it's inferred that, you know, he said that he he vowed he would never create another sword again because we're assuming Bill's the one that fucked fucked it up. Right? So if he didn't create the sword for Beatrix,

37:15KT: she couldn't go in on her path of rampage. So I guess in that sense, he's the reluctant hero. But then he if he didn't do it, then it would have been a much shorter film for us. Yeah. Maybe you're right. We're the reluctant watchers apparently.

37:27Oti: We are indeed.

37:29KT: Let's move on. Julio casting old favorites and reviving their careers. I think David Carradine. I think he was doing big parts here and there before Kill Bill. But like in household names sort of thing. Yeah. Well, also has a direct line to Kung Fiction. You're riding high in Pulp Fiction and here we are. Let's move on to our last section, racism slash the n word. Brent's one isn't necessarily relevant here, because as we noted, as far as we could tell the n word wasn't used

38:06KT: in this film, which some might argue makes sense because there's no focus on black characters, but then it's never really makes sense in the other instances, especially in Reservoir Dogs where they barely had black people in there anyway. But Brent says, every time I show one of his movies to someone that hasn't seen them, I always wait for the moment him or someone else drops the n word to see how they react. So the next couple of ones kind of do relate to this film in regards to Asian people specifically.

38:37KT: Paul says, are Quentin Tarantino's race related quips justified in this film? And Julio says racial slurs. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a race related quip. It's kind of just like, perhaps maybe ignorance is the word. It kind of bothered me with Beatrix and the master in particular. Like, first of all, Bill would have known that she would have been expected to speak Cantonese. So it was kind of a dick for not giving her a heads up in regards to that.

39:09KT: But also it's that naivety and ignorance that was a bit annoying to me because when the master was asking her, does she speak Cantonese? She, for some reason thought it would be useful to say she speaks Japanese. Like, I don't know. Like, far be it from me to expect a psychotic contracted and serial killer to understand the nuances of Asia. But that's pretty standard to know. Right?

39:37KT: Especially if you got an OG in the mountains and he's just fueled by hate. Like that kind of like that kind of bothered me, the nuances of it. And also the over the top caricature portrayals of Kung Fu and and Japanese shouty sort of spouts to each other, like, I didn't care for that. I don't think it's necessarily race related quips, but it is like over the top portrayal, which also isn't great either.

39:37Oti: 100% agree, man.

40:08KT: The master also called them Japanese fatheads. And I don't know that's like super pointed or that was just somehow Tarantino translation.

40:18Oti: Yeah. I don't know what that was. Who knows?

40:21KT: We're going to finish off in racism, but something a bit lighter, perhaps not necessarily related from Ben. Why does Quentin Tarantino insist on including himself usually as a racist when he can't act? Thank God we're spared this time. Yeah. Friends and lovers. For a man that continues to put himself in acting roles that he doesn't need to be in in his own films and he's notably not in any of these films, that kind of says it all for me.

40:50KT: A sentence I never thought I would say friends and lovers, but I am really looking forward to watching Inglourious Basterds. Maybe this was the best film to watch to get me ready enough to watch something like Inglourious Basterds. For the first time for you, right? As well? All right, friends and lovers, usually this is where we finish off in a segment we call For Your Reference. This is a reference degustation. So we will be referencing Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, maybe not this Kill Bill, and we will be covering Inglourious

41:21KT: Basterds next. If you'd like to talk about any, any, anything else other than Kill Bill on Twitter and Instagram, we're at for your ref pod. Write us an email at hello@fyrpodcast.com. We're also on leave Hanzo swords alone podcast if you like to leave a rating and review. And we'll see you guys in the next course. See you. Bye.