2. Evaluation: How our Characters Represented Particular Social Groups

Kym Ultio/The Bride

Kym and The Bride are similar characters as they are both seeking revenge on numerous people with acts of violence. In “Kill Bill”, The Bride commits revenge on her ex-colleges the “Deadly Viper Assassination Squad” by brutally murdering all of the members and eventually (though not until the second film) the leader of the Squad, Bill. Kym is seeking revenge on a gang which her boyfriend used to be a part of, and we know she has intentions of physically hurting them, as when she leaves to carry out her revenge, she grabs a knife and places it in her bag. Both characters names are unknown until later in the films, as this creates mystery in the characters, and also implies that they could be anyone, and anyone could seek gruesome revenge in the right situation. However a key difference is that Kym is seeking revenge on her dead loved one, as the gang forced him into suicide, and The Bride is seeking revenge for herself, as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad tried to murder her on the day of her wedding rehearsal. She is however, also committing revenge for another as she believes her unborn child was murdered on the same day and knows her future husband was. They both also have knowledge on the methods they use to get revenge. The Bride was in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, was in a relationship with the leader and spent numerous months training with the Samurai Sword, the weapon of her choice. Kym has connections to the gang who will have committed several crimes of physical assault, and was dating Joe, a key member in the gang, who could have passed information on to her. Both have similar weapons of choice, knives. While Kym has a regular knife which would be used for stabbing, The Bride has a Samurai Sword.

Kill Bill

Joe Young/ Brooks (The Shawshank Redemption) 

Joe and Brooks are similar characters as they both kill themselves. They do this for similar reasons, neither can face life in the “real world”, for Brooks, this is the world outside of Shawshank prison, he has been in there for so long that he can’t adjust to life outside of it. For Joe, this is a world where he is no longer a member of a gang. He is unable to live with himself because of the crimes he has commit and the hurt he caused to innocent people due to being in a gang. He also knows he will have to live a life in constant fear of the gang, and does not want to do this. A key difference is that Brooks’ choice to kill himself was entirely his own, no one told him to or made him feel he had to. Joe however, while he does feel like this is the consequence he deserves for his actions, is also pressured into suicide by the gang, who hate him for leaving, and fear he will pass on the gangs secrets. Another difference is that Joe’s suicide is at the start of the film, and is the trigger for the main plot of the film, whereas Brooks’ is in the middle, and we see his life before he wanted to commit suicide, and while he was contemplating suicide, so we can understand why he has done it, however, later on in “Sweet Revenge” we may see flashbacks from Kym or even the gang of Joe, so we can understand what he did whilst in the gang that made him feel so guilty, and we can see what the gang did to drive him to suicide. We sympathise for both characters, even though we know that both are criminals, as Brooks was in prison and Joe was in a gang.

As 'Kill Bill' is a stylised fantasy movie,  I also see a strong connection to Paddy Considine's role in Shane Meadow's 'Dead Man's Shoes' where he tries to get revenge on the men who bullied his brother to death.

Dead Man's Shoes

Paddy Considine

Audience reaction

The main point of having young actors the same age as our target audience was so the audience could directly relate to the characters. Their costume is just regular teenage wear (Hoodies and Jeans) and their accent is northern, which is generally associated with 'connecting with the people as the common man', instead of our characters wearing expensive, designer clothing with southern less colloquial language. As these characters are 'normal' everyday teenagers, and there has been a tragic incident, it causes the audience to wonder how they would react to that circumstance and therefore relate to Kym which is vital as the rest of the feature film will feature around Kym and her murdering antics to seek revenge.