Homage to Uma

Quentin Tarantino has always been keen to look east for inspiration as a filmmaker. Having taken his cues from Ringo Lam’s City On Fire to fashion the revelatory pulpy nihilism of Reservoir Dogs, it’s been a recurring theme.

Never has this been more apparent than with Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2. Not only are the films a riotous, celebratory homage to the frequently dismissed ‘chop-socky’ cinema of Hong Kong and Taiwan and various Japanese samurai epics, they also reference any number of below-the-radar, chick-fighting ‘rape and revenge’ fantasies. Predictably, many of these films are also oriental in origin.
With few exceptions, catfights and bad-girls are, in America and Europe, the preserve of trashy B-pictures. Unless of course you count the ludicrous played-for-laughs reverse-bitch-smacking of the Charlie’s Angels franchise and the like.
That’s not to say that mainstream Western cinema can’t produce bitches. There are plenty of hellbound noir girls in the mould of Peggy Cummings (Gun Crazy, 1950), Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity, 1944) or Jane Greer (Out Of The Past, 1947) around whom you really ought to sleep with one eye open. Frankly though, not that many of them could kick your ass – indeed even accepted hardened heroines such as Luc Besson’s Nikita are far too given to simpering to qualify for the hellcat premiership, no matter how well Anne Parillaud wears that little black dress. As for Thelma And Louise – oh please, that marriage-or-death moral is just far too Victorian!
No, for proper hellcats you really have think low-brow – and I mean extremely low-brow. We’re talking lurid girl-on-girl women-in-prison fare like 99 Women (1968) or The Big Doll House (1971); rampaging girl-gang tales such as Switchblade Sisters (1976) or the Ed Wood-scripted The Violent Years (1956), in which similarly marauding vixens rape a guy for cheap thrills (honest).
For those who like their foxy babes to be on the chesty side (or merely mutant), there’s the entirety of Russ Meyer’s back catalogue. Anyone in desperate need of on-screen bloodshed, meanwhile, should check out the Eastern kittens of Heroic Trio (1992) or the skullcracking, un-PC bisexual antics of the Naked Killer (1992) girls.
These are the movies that Quentin Tarantino has lived and breathed, and it certainly shows in his work to date.

Now, as Uma Thurman is limbering up to decimate the remaining Deadly Viper Assassination Squad – Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), Budd (Michael Madsen) and the eponymous villain Bill (David Carradine) – we take a look at the trashy cinematic women warriors that inspired Tarantino’s roaring, rampaging Bride, plus a few deadly creations of his own – so we might best learn how to fight like a girl.

Uma Thurman: Aka The Bride, Aka Beatrix Kiddo
Much has been made of Thurman's muse status for Tarantino, the theory being that she's the Dietrich to his Von Sternberg, the Deneuve to his Techine, the Renee to his Renato...

Christina Lindberg: Aka One Eye
Boarne Vibernius' Thriller -aka They Call Her One Eye- is one of those, semi-legendary videotapes that get passed around El Topo-style between exploitation flick enthusiasts...

Zheng Pei Pei: Aka The Girl With The Thunderbolt Kick
Aka Golden Swallow (sounds like a Chinese porno title, doesn't it?) is simply one of the best martial arts films ever made, and it's heroine is immeasurably cool...

Tura Satana: Aka Varla
The unquestioned queen of trash cinema. At the end of World War 11 she moved to Chicago and was raped by five men. This prompted her to learn martial arts and take up residency with a teenage girl-gang that might more properly belong in some twisted, delinquent B-movie...

Pam Grier: Aka Foxy Brown
Like Kill Bill, these were girls-seek-retribution type movies, with the gorgeous, statuesque Grier...

Lucy Liu: Aka O-Ren-Ishii
The daughter of Chinese immigrants from Queens, New York, Lucy Liu had been turning up in TV roles (The X-files, Ally McBeal) and movie bit parts (Jerry Maquire) for years before someone was far-sighted enough to cast her as a dominatrix in Mel Gibson's Paycheck...

Meiko Kaji: Aka Lady Snowblood
If there's one standout point of reference for Kill Bill, it has to be the groundbreaking girlie samurai movie Lady Snowblood which, like Kill Bill vol.1, climaxes (and that's definitely the right word) with a massive masked fight...

Chiaki Kuriyama: aka Gogo Yubari
You are fifteen years old in Japan of the near future. Economic meltdown causes the government to devise a punitive scheme whereby a random class of school-kids must battle to the death...

David Carradine: Portrait of the Martial Artist
Painter, sculptor, composer and, of course, the all-action hero who got everyone kung-fu fighting...

Tara Brady Reviews Kill Bill Vol. 2