In Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill: Volume 2’, the revenge-seeking Bride is introduced to Pai Mei, a legendary and seemingly ageless kung fu master. Pai Mei is imperious with his long, sagely white hair and beard and his fiery gaze. He is a problematic character, but for the purpose of this column, all that needs to interest us is that he is the Master – Pai Mei is the real deal. No sales, no discounts.
When the Bride meets Pai Mei, she is no rank amateur. She is a captain in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, a group of ruthless killers led by Bill, her mentor and then love interest. All of this points to the fact that the Bride is pretty good at doing her gruesome business. Be that as it may, Pai Mei insults her and her craft. Basically, he tells her that she knows nothing. (As we now know, only Jon Snow doesn’t know!)
Frustrated and eager to prove herself, the Bride accepts a challenge from Pai Mei: If she can land a single blow on him, he will bow to her and acknowledge her as the master.
Any anime fan worth their streaming hours knew how that encounter was going to end from jump.
Try as she may, the Bride cannot land one successful blow. Pai Mei toys with her, parrying blows and spear thrusts without batting an eyelid.
The thing to keep in mind, though, is that the Bride is already on some kind of level. Which leaves the yawning question: What in the world is Pai Mei’s power ranking?
That question is never answered in the film. But it is clear that Pai Mei is on a whole other level. And if the Bride is to become any better at her craft – yes, killing people – she will have to upgrade her skills. She will have to find a new level.
In the film, this involves slogging buckets of water up and down a steep flight of stairs, practising three-inch punches until her hands are nearly broken and going through kung fu movements she thought she had mastered. In order to get better, she has to go back to the beginning and rebuild, refine and relearn.
There is a wonderful story about perfecting one’s craft in the Bride’s training montage: If you want to get better at anything, the basics, whatever they are, constantly need to be revisited.
I think athletes are the most aware of this fact. They go through what one would deem to be the most rudimentary and boring movements over and over again even though they have ‘mastered’ them. They practise and practise; the really good ones always know there is something new to learn and always look for an opportunity to learn.
One of my editors, quite formative in my writing education, told me the same thing. That no matter how good your craft is, no matter how much acclaim one garners, the true artist knows their skill is always halfway.
“And when you’ve seen what the top looks like,” she said, “you realise halfway is nowhere at all”.
