Oftentimes, Kill Bill seems to portray Tarantino's unnerving fetishes, rather than emancipation. This ought to be satisfying in itself, but the way in which she is repeatedly brutalised in the process, is, admittedly, less so. Repeatedly, we see Beatrix avenge the transgressions made against her with extreme violence. Whereas Lady Snowblood draws from post-war Japanese political anxieties, Kill Bill is admittedly stylish but without substance.
As the protagonist, Yuki Kashima is capable of the same unrelenting cruelty and penchant for dramatics as her western counterpart Beatrix ‘The Bride’ Kiddo Tarantino parodies the work down to similarities in their promotional material.Īll in all, this begs the question: why did Tarantino remake a distinctly Japanese theme of the cyclical nature of violence and conflict, re-centred on the interactions of a white woman with the destructive potential of the exotified ‘Orient’? In hindsight, this is how Kill Bill reads irrespective of intentionality-everything from Hattori Hanzo’s grief at forging katanas (which he views as ‘instruments of death’) to O’Ren Ishii’s hardened, blood-soaked stint as Yakuza boss and its subsequent culmination at the hands of Beatrix Kiddo herself. Tarantino clearly utilises similar tone, themes and even the non-chronological ordering of its narrative-in which pieces from the titular character’s past slowly become unfurled. Rather, it is more accurate to say that Lady Snowblood and its original manga run is the template for his now-iconic two-parter Kill Bill. For the well-versed in Japanese period dramas and revenge narratives the inspiration filmmaker Quentin Tarantino draws from the 1973 film Lady Snowblood is blatant to the point of surpassing homage.
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