I got the prop guys to give me my two-gun rig.  Quentin had cut the fast-draw sequence out of the movie.  We’d gone to a lot of trouble to design the outfit, and we figured that if he saw me play with them enough, he might find a place for it.

The scene with Uma was truly awesome.  It’s a love scene, really; though, true to Tarantino’s mystique, I would shoot her in the head at the end of it.  There was a special soft light in the desert, as a result from the overcast caused by a forest-fire nearby.  With a light breeze blowing her hair, and picking up the hem of her wedding gown, Uma was just gorgeous.  About halfway through the sequence, Quentin remarked that he thought this was my best scene in the movie.  I replied that it might be the best scene in my entire career.

For two days we worked on it, getting better all the time.  Then we moved inside the church, and “The Viper Squad” showed up in skin tight black leather outfits and blew away the wedding party with M-16′s.  (Daryl Hanna, Vivica A. Fox and Lucy Liu looking about as sexy as it gets, and Michael Madsen providing the rumpled macho side of it, with a ton of turquoise jewelry and mismatched lizard boots)  The noise was a lot more than deafening.  My ears were blown long ago, from guns and rock & roll, but some of the others might have a hard time hearing their beepers from now on.

Samuel L. Jackson showed up to do a cameo as the church organist, dressed like a Harlem pimp, and Bo Swenson towered over us all as the Pastor.  At lunch I decided to repair The Silent Flute.  I got some lacquer from Props, and drenched the bamboo with it to fill up the cracks.  Then I hung it up on a wire to dry while we went for lunch.  It should be fine again, once the lacquer cured, if we didn’t have a sandstorm while it was drying.

After I finished, I stayed overnight to watch Michael Parks play the sheriff the next day.  I love his work.  The little chapel looked sad, all shot full of holes, and the wedding party was laying around the floor, with fake blood all over them.  I had a short conversation with the dead bridegroom before I realized I was talking to a dummy.  The fact that half his head was missing should have clued me in, but I’m a little slow.

The company moved to a new location outside of Barstow, a little town way out in the Mojave desert, with nothing going for it, except that it’s one of the towns mentioned in the song, Route 66. There I spent two beautiful days doing a scene with Michael Madsen, who turned out to be a great guy, and a fine actor.  He does a whole lot of shtick, his eyes squinting and darting around, his hands never still, playing with his hat, gesturing, scratching his chin.  Plus, if that’s not enough, he’s drinking schnapps and spitting tobacco.  But, somehow it never seemed corny.  Quentin told me quietly, “Don’t try to fall into what he’s doing.”  I said, “Are you kidding?  I wouldn’t dare!  I’m not moving a muscle!”  I didn’t.  I played it absolutely straight.  The contrast between the two brothers should be cool.  Me, the elegant, stoic master-assassin, and he, the shit-kicking trailer-trash redneck.

I slapped on the gun-rig again for the scene, and, as we’d hoped, Quentin let me do a little with it.  Each day, we worked right up to sunset, with the shadows creeping across the desert over Michael’s big final speech.  It was beautiful.

Then I sat at home waiting for my final scene with Uma, the one where we fight to the death.  I worked with my friend Peter on my 15-page monologue daily, trying to get it down pat.  I’d learned that, with Quentin, you have to be absolutely letter-perfect.

On the day, I showed up on the set to find that it was all changed.  I’d have to learn it all over again.  Well, if I could learn quotes from The Tao Te Ching with one glance, I could get this down.  We worked away at it, day by day, my concentration complicated by all the props I had to work with.  Quentin had me making sandwiches, pouring tequila, and, Yes, Baby!  Twirling my six-shooters, and shooting up the place!  Our subterfuge had worked!  Quentin fell for it.

The final fight with Uma was completely rewritten; to become something no one would expect.  I won’t spoil it by giving it away.  You have to see the movie.  Pai Mei’s Five-Point-Palm Exploding-Heart Technique is still in, but the Samurai sword fight that precedes it is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  Pure vintage Tarantino.

I can’t wait to see this epic, myself.  It’s wonderful when I’m in a movie that I really want to go see.

Though this was the final scene in the film, there were still a lot of bits and pieces to pick up, but my work was finished, or so I thought.  There was a big party on the set after we wrapped.  The lights were turned low, and neon disco mobiles appeared in the fake night sky, while the state-of-the-art sound system played Salsa Music, and everyone (except me, of course) drank Dom Perignon champagne under the (real) swaying palm trees.

A couple of weeks later, I was called back to do my end of a phone conversation with Daryl.  We called her up on a cellphone, and she did her side of it from her home in Colorado.  Then I repeated some of the storytelling I’d shot in Beijing, so they could get a better close-up of Uma in her sleeping bag.  The Silent Flute was in great form.  The repair had worked perfectly.  Quentin was in great form.  We had a lot of giggles.  The picture was in the can, now.  This stuff was just the icing.

And that was it.  I felt lost, suddenly.  This movie had become my home.  Almost ten months it had been since I’d started the training.  And now it was over.  But, I felt fulfilled, for sure.  Like a fighter after a big bout.  Banged up and worn out, but victorious.  I’d walked away with The Belt.  I’d just finished what might be the best work I’d ever done, and I’d made many great new friends.

I’m sure glad I’ve finally figured out how to be a nice guy.

At night, though, we partied.  Oh, yes, we partied.  Beijing is a party town.  Discos abound.  And Quentin is the very definition of a party animal.  He throws his limitless energy into play just as thoroughly as he does into work.  This was a good thing, as the apartment they had me stashed in was truly bleak, though luxurious, and tucked around in the back behind heavy security.  I felt like I was in The Witness-Protection Program.  Sometimes it was more like a minimum-security prison.

One night Quentin called me up and said, “Hey, they’ve got a cigar lounge in the hotel.  Do you smoke cigars?”  “Well, sure,” I said.  So we spent a few hours smoking fine Cuban Churchills, drinking espresso and rapping.  We talked about everything.  Then, Q lit up another one.  Quentin is a man of great appetites.  It was a very mild Davidoff, which he said made a great second cigar.  I took a puff and told him it tasted like a milk shake.  He liked that.  Told me all he would have to do was write down things I said and people would think he was a genius.  I said, “Well, you are.  But feel free to use anything I say.”  So, four days later, he produced a rewrite of the script that included a five-page monologue, which covered most of our conversation that night.

I had to go back to New York for a concert with my band, The Cosmic Rescue Team”. While I was there, Production called and told me to go home.  They wouldn’t need me for ten days.  It was nine weeks before they called me back.  This was okay.  I played with the kids and the dogs, saw every movie in town, knowing whatever I missed, I’d miss forever on the big screen.  Beijing has none of those.  Every day I practiced my kung fu and Samurai fights.

Finally, sometime in July, I took off for China with my darling Annie.  No way I was going to go this thing alone.  I’d arranged to be moved from the ‘Witness Protection Program’ to a very romantic, and gorgeous, corner suite, right in the middle of things.

They’d been shooting for almost two months: almost entirely action.  And were a month behind schedule.  I took a walk through the “House of Blue Leaves” set, which had been under construction when I left.  Now, it was in shambles.  Utterly trashed by the sequence in which Uma takes out “The Crazy Eighty-Eight” with her Samurai sword.  (Actually over a hundred: “They just called themselves The Crazy Eighty-Eight,” was my line.  “Why,” Michael Madsen says.  “I don’t know.  I guess they thought it sounded cool,” I reply.)

The beautiful set was full of smashed furniture, blood everywhere, dismembered dummies floating in the Koi Pond.  When you see this sequence, you’ll flip.

My first scene was at a campfire, which they’d set up on a sound stage.  I walked toward the set, past the fight crew playing basketball.  Outside the big doors was a sign which read, “Please do not spit” in two languages.  Expectoration is rampant in Beijing.

As I passed through the darkened soundstage toward the glow of the campfire, I heard the Chinese crew members whispering, what sounded like “Beer…Beer”. I learned later they were saying, “Bill…Bill…That’s Bill!” This was the 52^nd day of the film called “Kill Bill”, and this was the first they’d seen of ‘Bill’.

Uma was snuggled into a sleeping bag, looking absolutely beautiful.  No one is ready for how lovely she is in this film.  Nor are they prepared for her expertise with the sword, or, for that matter, the depth of her acting performance.  She has become my favorite actress.

My job today was to tell her, as a kind of bedtime story, the history of Pai Mei’s “5 Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique” (another five-page Tarantino monologue) while providing myself with musical accompaniment on ‘The Silent Flute’, a five-foot long bamboo flute which I’d made in ’76 for the movie, released in the USA as “Circle of Iron”. Quentin was jumping up and down with glee, as for nine weeks he’d been shooting nothing but action.  This was the first time in the movie he’d heard his words spoken, and Quentin’s movies are all about his words.

I had a few days off to visit The summer Palace and The Great Wall (had to do that) and then, it was work, work, and work.  Starting out with the Kung Fu/Samurai fight with Michael Jai White, the dialogue for which we received the morning of the fight, written in Magic-Marker on the back of a call sheet.  That, I would learn, was Quentin.

We shot that sequence for four days.  Exhausting, yes; but nothing but fun.  Michael is a Prince, besides being a formidable opponent. And, God, can that man eat. Well, his body needs a lot of fuel.  His deltoids are the size of my head.  Before I got to fight him, I had to take out his four henchmen.  That, with the help of Yuen Wu Ping’s hot choreography, I accomplished in two moves.  But, we spent half a day shooting it from every possible angle.

I received a serious cut on the arm during my battle with Michael.  Not his fault, I hastily add.  A badge of honor.  I thought briefly about rubbing salt in the wound so I could keep the scar as a memento.  I went on with the routine, until we had to stop because of the big, spreading stain of red on my off-white tunic.  A Band-Aid and a fresh shirt, and we went at it again.  You’re gonna love this fight.  It’s dazzling, and the end is a big surprise.

Then we moved on to The White Lotus Temple for the sequences with Pai Mei, the evil master.  Quentin had decided to forego playing the part, as he was having so much fun directing.  Also, he had available Gordon Wu, who had played Pai Mei in several Hong Kong movies.  Gordon is cool!  He’s super-dedicated.  He takes the role very seriously.  He’s a musician: a composer.  He comes bopping in, gets into makeup and wardrobe, and then assumes the lotus position and meditates.  When he rises, he is Pai Mei.

The temple was a real one, very old, even by Chinese standards, way out in the sticks, and on top of a mountain; reached by a flight of four hundred steps.  I would have to negotiate a hundred and sixty of them at a dead run some thirty times this day.  Piece of cake, as it turned out.  Those three months of sweat had stood me in good stead.  Uma would have to do all four hundred of them, carrying two buckets of water on a stick as many times.  It’s not all autographs and sunglasses, you know.

As we were leaving The Temple for the last time, I suddenly realized that I had a chance to cut some bamboo for flutes from an ancient temple in China.  I couldn’t pass that up.  I vaulted over the wall and started at the roots with my jack-knife, then switched to a shovel and then an axe.  The root structure is important.  It adds resonance, and makes a good club as well.

Quentin came by and said, “Are you allowed to do that?”  I said, “Well, bamboo is a pest.”  He had a point, though.  There were signs all around specifying a huge fine for messing with the old trees.  The bamboo could be included.

I hurried.  One of the American crewmembers yelled down to me that someone was coming.  I feverishly collected the four trees I’d extracted, lopped off the tops and stuck them back in the ground.  If the rains came soon, they’d take root.  Getting the pieces in the car was tough.  And the authorities were getting close.  I had visions of a Chinese jail cell.  We made it out just in time.  I must have been a strange sight, walking through the marble lobby of The St. Regis with a bundle of twelve-foot bamboo stalks on my shoulder, trailing temple dirt from the roots.  Fortunately, six-star hotels have tall elevators.

Then it was back home to L.A. for me and most of the company, while Quentin took a small unit to Japan to shoot a motorcycle chase through the streets of Tokyo.

I’d have another month off (if they stayed on schedule) before continuing the saga in Southern California.  Had to keep working at the samurai and kung fu, though.  Much more fun to be had.

Uma Thurman, who brought along her ten-week old baby, and nursed him between sets. Lucy Liu, straight off of “Charlie’s Angels II”, definitely was a little ahead of the game. Daryl Hanna, whose acrobatic moves in “Blade runner” had made no use of wires or computer enhancements. Vivica A. Fox, who is just tough. A great lady, who is a natural Streetfighter. And me, of course, the only male in the bunch. Michael Madsen, who would play my brother, was excused as his weapon of choice was to be a 12-gauge shotgun.

From 8:30 AM, or so, until 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, we practiced.kung fu, or wu shu, actually (That’s what you’re really seeing in films like “Crouching Tiger”), and Samurai sword techniques, along with wire practice, weight training and cardiovascular activities; you know; treadmills and those bicycles that don’t go anywhere. Eight hours of that every day. Well, seven. We did get lunch. Hey, Olympics athletes don’t train that hard.

We did this for three solid months. Before we started, I had no illusions about what kind of shape I was in. I knew it would be rough. I was certain, though, that my thirty years of hanging around the edges of a loose kind of mastery of kung fu would give me enough of a head start to keep ahead of the ladies.

Not exactly the case, I’m afraid. Girls can kick! For the first week or so, my main concern was to pace myself carefully enough to keep from passing out in the middle of a drill. Then, after I got my “sea-legs”, it was trying to avoid disgracing myself and totally blow any image I had of being good at this stuff. It didn’t help that wu shu techniques are just different from anything I’d been taught. “Point your toe,” they’d say.“ Not so hard(!!)” they’d say. Not so hard? In American movie fights, you go for it! And you miss! These wu shu guys, make contact, but delicately, giving the impression of power with a lot of body english. “That kick is ugly,” Melissa Tong, the Cantonese interpreter said to me once, translating for my personal trainer, Yaki Hi.

Well, yes, I was ahead in some ways. You don’t have to teach me how to execute a crescent kick, or a flying, double front kick, but I never had a good roundhouse. That was the “ugly” one. Well, I have one now.

Each of us had our own trainer. Yaki Hi, the one assigned to me, was a little pit-bull of a guy, who could broad jump almost ten feet from a standing start. All of these guys could do remarkable acrobatic things, particularly adept at flipping and flying, but I would bet on Hi against any two of the others in a real combat situation.

Rob Moses, my teacher and partner for the last twenty years, trained alongside me, and was he handy to have around. He showed me ways to look busy with a minimum of fatigue, playing with staffs and whip chains, and walking through the basic 12, which are like meditation for me after all these years. Rob was also a source of merriment in the midst of all the sweat. Every once in awhile he’d let loose and something would go flying. There was one of those big rubber ‘men’ standing off to one side. Rob had always wanted to punch one of those. So, one morning, about a month in, we all heard a resounding whack, like a rifle shot. All eyes went to Rob, who was standing sheepishly looking at the rubber man, who was DOWN! The water that was supposed to keep him weighted upright leaking out all over the gym floor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that before. The whole point of these rubber men is they’re supposed to be able to take a punch, and Rob had KO’d it with an outside roundhouse, maybe the weakest kick in kung fu. He went and got a bunch of towels to mop up the mess, looking embarrassed about the whole thing, but we were impressed. Well, Rob’s modesty is massive.

Then there was the Samurai training. I really went for that. Seems I’m a natural. I wish I’d gotten into it years ago, but, as Kwai Chang, they never let me use any weapons. Empty hands were the things. That was the whole point of Caine’s fights, wasn’t it? An unarmed little oriental guy knocking the crap out of big cowboys coming at him with guns and knives, and, in Bill Smith’s case, a nine-foot chain. Well, yeah, I know, I’m six feet tall and not Chinese, but Bill is really big, and I fought with my knees bent. And Mike Westmore had a couple of neat tricks to add a slant to these squinty Irish eyes.

The wirework was a joy. Painful, yes. The scars on my back from the harness could be permanent, but who cares. I was flying through the air, swinging a sword. I can’t tell you how much fun that was.

Okay, three months of that in a gym the company built for us in L.A. Then we moved the feast to China. Beijing in June is not a sauna: it’s a steam bath. Humidity hovers around 90, the mean temperature at least that number, every day. The ice in my Chinese Coke would disappear before I could get halfway through it. Air conditioning was not available. To make it just a taste more difficult, Beijing’s air is reportedly the worst of any city on the planet. Plus, there was this brown cloud over most of Asia right then, the result, I’m told, of not fossil-fuel, but wood…and dung smoke. The upside of it all was that I found that washboard stomach I’d always known was in there somewhere.

Quentin was training right alongside us. He was determined to play Pai Mei, the evil Master who is supposed to have trained The deadly Viper Squad. When we started out, he was soft, BIG and soft. Quentin towers over you. He was slow, and had no kick at all, though I wouldn’t have wanted to get in the way of a right cross from that softball sized fist. Quentin is an amateur boxer. At the end of the four months, though, he was slim and cut, and moved like lightning.

Uma lost all her ‘baby fat’, becoming more radiantly beautiful every day, and eventually dispelled any illusion I may have had that women are weak. She also towers over you. As does Daryl Hanna, whose six-foot-plus frame is mostly legs. She can land a kick on you from across the room. In the ring, you’d never be out of her reach. Viveca A. was born to do these moves. She is hot!

Lucy Liu was a whole different story. The rest of us just got down and sweated, but she dressed up every morning in a kimono, a Samurai sword tucked into her Obi, and acted out all day her role of an arrogant Japanese Samurai warrior princess, moving in little bitty formal steps, and shifting her body with sudden, square-cut moves. I didn’t find out ‘till after the movie was over what a sweetie she really is.

I tell you, it was a gift from heaven to be ogling these ladies, superior beings, all of them, while they developed. Hot! Sexy doesn’t come near describing it. My only problem was keeping up with them.

NEXT: THE SHOOT. STAY TUNED. IT GETS BETTER.