How Tarantino created a feminist heroine in 'Kill Bill', who then turned against him

“Did Pai-Mei teach you her five points to make a heart explode?” asks Bill, understanding that whoever is, in his own words, his favorite person—something that has not stopped him from trying to kill her on repeated occasions—has just to kill him

“Of course,” she answers through tears.

And this is how Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) puts an end to the saga of

Kill Bill

(Quentin Tarantino), whose title is born from her desire to kill the man who took away her opportunity to be happy.

Its well-known second part turns twenty years old this April, but the Black Mamba—also known as The Bride—continues to generate great interest today: “

Kill Bill

enriches the audiovisual panorama of its time and also of today.

It has become an icon, and icons never get old,” says María Castejón Leorza, film critic and author of the essay

Rebels and dangerous movies

.

We all remember how the story begins: a group of murderers, including Bill, the protagonist's ex-partner, tries to kill her on her wedding day, an event that symbolizes for her a rebirth and a change of life away from the bloodthirsty and of crime.

After time in a coma, the martial arts expert wakes up using revenge as a motive to continue living.

In this second part, although she has already managed to eliminate two of her main enemies, she still has to finish off three others, including the one whose orders the others obey: Bill.

Uma Thurman in a scene from 'Kill Bill 2' in which she is pregnant.©Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection (©Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection)

Judging by both her past actions and her future motivations, one could say that Beatrix Kiddo is a lethal weapon in herself, but also much more than that: the Black Mamba may be tender, but also capable of withstanding the torture of a severe teacher to become an unbeatable fighter;

She would never kill a mother in front of her daughter, but she does not hesitate to plunge her katana into her rival's body when the little girl is not present.

She is full of contradictions and has a series of attributes that make her different from any character that had been seen in the movies until then, becoming the favorite of many moviegoers.

“The character of Beatrix has many qualities to like her: like a good heroine she has a very clear objective and nothing improves her no matter how much she suffers and, therefore, she has the classic components of the fictional hero.

However, she is interpreted with many nuances in her emotions and a great sense of humor that makes her an accomplice to the viewer,” highlights Paloma Rando, screenwriter and editor specialized in culture.

Thurman in a scene from 'Kill Bill 2'.©Miramax/courtesy Everett

A Trojan horse

“Beatrix Kiddo is the most important female character in Tarantino's filmography, usually full of men.

There are others, of course, like Pam Grier from Jackie Brown, the girls from Death Proof, Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction, Shoshanna from Inglourious Basterds or Sharon Tate from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

However, Mia Wallace is secondary, Shoshanna, despite her importance, is overshadowed by the bastards of the title, Sharon Tate is a real character, Jackie Brown is far from the director's usual films and the protagonists of Death Proof function more as an idea and no one remembers their names,” explains Jordi Picatoste, journalist, film critic and author of the book

The Tarantino Effect.

Indeed, it is not especially common for a film director aimed at the general public to dedicate a leading role to a woman, much less performing a series of actions commonly associated with the male gender.

It is possible that, had it not been for a director as well-known as Tarantino who proposed the film, it would not have had the warm reception it found then, nor the enormous popularity it subsequently acquired: “A large part of the success of

Kill Bill

was precisely that it was directed by him, since many people go to the cinema to see his films regardless of the synopsis.

The same thing happened on his day with Thelma and Louise, directed by Ridley Scott,” says María Castejón.

Certainly, there were already other similar cases that enriched the audiovisual panorama from the point of view of the gender perspective through this method that works, in the words of Paloma Rando, like a Trojan horse: “In the previous decade we had had other great action heroines like Ellen Ripley (

Alien

) and Sarah Connor (

Terminator

), both the result of films directed by great blockbuster directors.

Therefore, although the case of

Kill Bill

and Tarantino is not new, it can be considered the first of the 21st century.”

David Carradine and Uma Thurman.©Miramax/courtesy Everett / Ever Everett/Cordon Press

Another of the most novel and refreshing characteristics of the Beatrix Kiddo character is that she does not try to look like a man to be feared and revered at the same time.

She demonstrates her great resilience without giving up or hiding her more feminized traits, but she is also not sexualized, as occurs in other action films such as

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

(Simon West).

She can dress as a bride with great enthusiasm, love and protect her daughter, fall madly in love, cry and scream without holding back when something hurts her, and all this without being ashamed and without fear of appearing more fragile or vulnerable.

“I do not believe that traditionally feminine qualities are, per se, good or bad, but, having removed them from action films, the fact that they are part of the character without implying the elimination of the rest of the qualities that imply strength, is something that makes a difference,” says Paloma Rando.

And, without a doubt, everything described above can be things for women, but also other activities culturally reserved for the male gender such as martial arts, physical work, resistance, heroism and action.

Both facets can coexist without stepping on each other, even though this is something generally understood as a contradiction: “Women doing women's things can also be handling a katana,” says María Castejón.

Uma Thurman and Tarantino talking during filming.

©Miramax/courtesy Everett Everett/Cordon Press

The beauty of embodying comics

Choosing a favorite scene from

Kill Bill

can be a difficult task.

Most of them are recorded in unforgettable spaces, are full of black humor and accompanied by a heterogeneous soundtrack that mixes blues, western, folk and flamenco.

From

Can't hardly stand it

(Charlie Feathers), through

L'Arena (

Ennio Morricone),

Tu Mirá

(Lole and Manuel),

About her

(Malcolm McLaren),

Malagueña Salerosa

(Chingon) or

Satisfied Mind

(Johnny Cash).

Curiously, this mix coexists with a lot of references and details related to the Japanese imagination, a detail that, according to Paloma Rando, is one reason why it has become a pop icon: “The production design draws a lot from the comic. and Japanese culture.

Kill Bill are films designed using what are today called set pieces, something that could be translated as scenes from a location or a set.

These films try very hard to ensure that all these spaces have a dimension in themselves,” highlights Paloma Rando.

And probably the favorite sequence of many people is the fierce fight against O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), whose beginnings as an assassin are, in fact, narrated through the anime.

The image is unmistakable and usually appears between the pages of the books that compile the most relevant films of contemporary cinema: both fight with violence and, however, also with respect and nobility, like the ancient samurai, in a snowy Japanese garden that spreads under the dark mantle of night.

O-Rehn wears a folkloric Japanese kimono, very appropriate to the space in which they are found.

Meanwhile, the Black Mamba wears the characteristic yellow jumpsuit with which he is automatically associated with the character and which can never be missing in an event related to the world of comics: “It refers to Bruce Lee's in A

Game of Death

, but if we see it now “We don’t think as much about Lee as we do about Beatrix,” explains Jordi Picatoste.

Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman and Harvey Weinstein in 2004.Getty Agency

Tarantino and Thurman, confronted by Weinstein

Although the film was received as a reference for female empowerment, the truth is that the machismo of the industry represented by Weinstein was a point that pitted the actress against the director.

Uma Thurman told Tarantino twice that Weinstein had abused her.

Tarantino, who has acknowledged being aware of this information, downplayed the event and convinced Thurman to continue working with him.

In addition, the two clashed over a scene from

Kill Bill 2

in which Thurman was forced to really drive on a curvy road and she ended up having an accident when she crashed into a tree.

As a consequence, she suffered health problems in her neck and legs from which she took a long time to recover.

The actress did not feel protected during the filming of the film, which led her to have strong arguments with Tarantino, whom she accused of not caring about her safety.

In this Instagram post, where the actress makes public her joy over Weinstein's arrest, she used precisely the photo of the scene in which she had the accident.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Uma Thurman (@umathurman)

The coexistence of tenderness and violence

In the most problematic scene of the shoot, which ended with Thurman's accident, The Bride drives down the road driving a convertible to the rhythm of

Goodnight Moon

(Shivaree).

She has finally killed Bill and can look to a future without death or blood, caring for her daughter without potential rivals to face.

However, for a moment, it may seem that her gesture contains a certain bitterness, which leads one to think that, deep down, there lies within her an iota of regret.

This doubt is dispelled when, during the last seconds of the song, she smiles slightly and winks.

“Beatrix Kiddo crystallizes much of the cinema that Tarantino learned in his adolescence and youth, where revenge perpetrated by women was common, whether in blakploitation films

—related

to conflicts related to racism—, or rape and revenge films — rape and revenge—which could occur in European, American, Australian or Japanese cinema,” explains Jordi Picatoste.

Today we have other references in general cinema, such as

A Promising Young Woman

(Emerald Fennell), but at the beginning of the 2000s it was not so common to see this type of narratives in proposals designed for the general public.

And the saga not only breaks with many female archetypes, but also addresses issues that have hitherto been quite unheard of in

mainstream

cinema , such as the anger, indignation and rage that sexual assault can generate.

Both in the case of the protagonist, raped while she was in a coma, and in that of other characters such as O-Rehn, who witnessed how her mother was sexually assaulted, this conflict is present in the saga and is one of the triggers of violence. : “Revenge is another of the issues that make it so different, since this desire is not something socially permissible for women, unless it is to harm one another,” explains María Castejón.

However, despite all the pain, violence, rawness and torture to which she is subjected - and which she also inflicts on her rivals - she is unlike any of the other characters.

“What most enriches the character is the tenderness that Uma Thurman conveys.

Her interpretation has many nuances that were not previously allowed to action heroines, who had to represent all the details of their characters, passing them through the sieve of harshness,” says Paloma Rando.

When Beatrix is ​​finally safe with her daughter, after all the suffering she has experienced, the struggle to leave her past behind and get rid of her enemies, to regain happiness and, ultimately, to survive, she cries in the bathroom giving thanks while hugging to a stuffed animal

Her life can finally begin again and the longing for justice and revenge no longer resides in her.

“The lioness has been reunited with her cub and all is well in the jungle,” reads the phrase that precedes the final credits of the film.

Well, that's what she is: a contained fierceness that coexists with her vulnerability and that is unleashed when what she loves most and her own freedom are taken from her.