Kill Bill Vol. 1

December 11, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 110 min Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Kill Bill Vol. 1

Kill Bill Vol. 1 is the fourth film from writer, director and producer Quentin Tarantino. If you know his work and his love for old Sunday afternoon Kung Fu Theater flicks, you could likely guess this was his film after watching it without ever being told. Tarantino really brought his A-game, and the result is a stylistic master piece.

Kill Bill is Quentin’s homage to the old martial arts B-movies, and it is obvious from the very first frame of the opening credits. He succeeds in making a modern movie that today’s audiences are going to love while successfully catching the style and feel of the old classics. This includes some occasional, but intentional, lapses in the quality of the audio and video. We are taken on a tour of ways to shoot a fight scene including normal color shots, black and white, blue silhouettes and more. There’s even an extended anime sequence that amazingly is worked into the plot extremely well. All of the fights were staged old school, no fancy digital effects here.

In B-movie tradition, the story is very basic. No complexities here, we need only understand that these people want to whip each other’s butts. In this case Uma Thurman plays the role of a member of the “deadly viper assassination squad”. However, her team and leader turn on her at her wedding, beating her to a pulp, killing the entire wedding party and leaving the pregnant bride for dead. She’s in a coma for several years, and when she wakes up she’s really pissed off. Revenge is a very easy motivation to understand and that is all this movie needs to carry it from scene to scene.

We see lots of Uma and Lucy Liu in this episode and both do an excellent job of making the fight sequences work. Uma looks great in this movie, but we get to see her feet, and what’s up with those ugly toes? I’m not a foot freak by any means, and I certainly wouldn’t toss her to the curb over her feet, but check those crooked gnarled things out.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 gets 5 stars from us, and we’re eagerly awaiting Vol. 2. But do keep in mind Tarantino can be an acquired taste. If you liked Pulp Fiction and enjoy his style, everything that you like about his films is in this movie in abundance. The only real exception being the snappy dialogue. These girls are too busy trying to slice each other in half with a samurai sword to talk about Quarter Pounders in France. This is one of the all time great guy movies. It is ironic that the heroine and most of the primary villains are all female. Go see this one. Then see it again to catch all of the small brilliant little details left in there for the amusement of the true film buffs….or geeks like us with too much time on their hands.

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Posted by MFG Staff | Filed Under 5 Stars, Action, DVD, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, R, Sonny Chiba, Uma Thurman