Continuing with my new series of resource links – from video essays, to cinematographer interviews, how-to tips and the like – today I want to take a jump back in time – to do a remix, if you will. If you aren’t concerned with the violence and blood-letting that has become something of a trademark for Tarantino’s work, then join me in revisiting an excellent video montage by editor Rob Wilson that explores Tarantino’s 2003-2004 masterpieces, Kill Bill 1 & 2.

Over the years, my own anecdotal evidence has highlighted an interesting recurrence. There are most often two fields of thought when it comes to Quentin Tarantino: people either love him, or hate him. It seems that the rarest of the Tarantino consumers is someone like myself however – and that is one who is neither a lover, nor a hater. In my own case, I have enjoyed his work overall – though, I can’t just chow down on some Tarantino… I must be in the right frame of mind to choose to watch his work. The exception to that rule is Kill Bill. I unexpectedly fell in love with it!

I had a recurring sense of déjà vu throughout the whole piece: “I’m sure I’ve seen (something like) this before!” But why? Like the montage below, watching the Making of Kill Bill revealed a lot. Tarantino went to extraordinary lengths to echo genre cinema. It is quite fair to say that almost every element of the film was used to both tell Tarantino’s story, and simultaneously pay direct homage to various forms of genre cinema (such as martial arts, spaghetti westerns, anime). And that is why I loved it. I have not seen anything come of Hollywood that quite matches Tarantino’s attention to so many cinephilic details as this. That is why I am happy to revisit this classic Tarantino film today – and I hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane too.