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Film Essay: Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2

It must be said that when I became routinely aware of the existence of Hollywood films, the one name that always crossed my path and eyes was 'Kill Bill'. It wasn't very hard to guess it's genre from its poster...Uma Thurman in a yellow spandex suit with a 'killer-looking' sword were very much indicating that it was an action film and we Indians LOVE action picchhers. But I wouldn't watch it, not until a week ago and the reason was that I never quite liked those 'action picchers'. It's very UnIndian to say but I was always more into 'Drama' and other genres of movies that unsurprisingly brought me to Hollywood and World Cinema doors. And Kill Bill I had to watch it because of two people that I respect and admire very much from movie fraternity, viz. Martin Scorsese and Roger Ebert. As much as these two people were fond of each other, I was doubly in awe of them. One a master filmmaker and other, the most popular film critic of the world. They had both reviewed 'Kill Bill' and picked it in their list of 'great films' of last decade (2000-2009). And so I finally decided to give in and now let me recount my experiences with it.....

I didn't like 'Kill Bill'. Volume 1 was trying to make a momentum towards Volume 2 till 30 minutes were remaining and then 'O-Reni and crazy-88 Party Massacre' simply put me off. It stretched too long and ended too abruptly with part of O-Reni scalp flew on the stroke of Beatrix's Hanzo Hattori sword like a saucer. My primary interest going into the second volume, now when I had committed to it, was to find out who played this iconic badass guy, Bill. Now when everything got clarified in the film, I googled this 'Bill' guy. Turned out he was David Carradine in original...A prolific B-grade movie star of Hollywood and known to America for his headlining role in popular TV series of 80s, 'Kung Fu'. No big name, academy awardee, you see and although his Bill was great, his low-profile in Hollywood was yet another big reason to leave me disappointed. I couldn't even afford to like 'Kill Bill' on its face-value for it wasn't funny like hell or martial art-action heavy like some of those specialist films. It was a 'cross' and Tarantino as I got to learn later, had drawn the inspiration chiefly from Roger Corman's big-money churning B-grade movie repertoire of late 80s. Uma learnt how to fight like the starring ladies of those films and Quentin learnt how to direct them like Roger. It was a money-making exercise in disguise of a tribute (or a 'rip-off')to those genre and now greatly admired B-grade movies. It could also be my inclination towards other genres of film making that I didn't manage to like Kill Bill but hey, I liked, actually loved, 'The Raid Redemption' and Its sequel, 'The Raid'. 'Mad Max: Fury Road' completely blew my mind and these films were great because they were original and Quentin's NOT. 'Kill Bill' failed me, predictably as I can say now and then when I was just becoming conscious of my true instincts. I should have trusted them in this case!!!!

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