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Kill Bill, Volume I and Volume II

Critical International Relations scholars have argued that popular culture has much to offer to our contemporary understanding of international relations. Popular films are crucial to the way international relations practitioners – statesmen, warriors, intellectuals of statecraft – make sense of their world, and of themselves and others in this world. Of central importance is the way contemporary films represent war and, specifically, deal with the violence that generally accompanies the path of the warriors’ actions. As war once again becomes a dominant motif in today’s culture, a political continuum seems to be forming that ranges from the wars that are being fought by American forces in foreign lands to the violence that fills our global mediascape. Post-September 11 Hollywood cinema is full of images representing intense emotional violence and extreme battle scenes. While it would be inaccurate to claim that such rawness is new, the violence shown on film since 2001 has nonetheless taken a larger dimension afforded by the fact that America is engaged in a total war against terrorism. Among the violent post-9/11 Hollywood films, Kill Bill (both volumes) stands out because its central theme is murderous revenge and ruthless destruction. The path of the warrior – what the warrior must do to realise his (or her in this case) warrior nature – is the film’s main plot. A pregnant bride (played by Uma Thurman) has been left for dead by a group of assassins, known as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, who have just slaughtered the entire wedding party. The bride used to belong to the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Their leader, a certain Bill (David Carradine), gives the bride the coup de grâce by shooting her in the head at close range. As he sends her to what appears to be a certain death, Bill utters: ‘This is me at my most masochistic self’. This is the opening scene of Kill Bill, Volume I. The bride actually survives the shooting; she falls into a coma and awakens four years later. We are made to believe her baby did not survive but at the end of the first