Review: Kill Bill: Volume 1

By Jack on 2003-10-07 17:36:25

It's been six years since Quentin Tarantino's last film.  Friday heralds his return with an extremely violent homage to urban action films following the story of a female assassin attacked on her wedding day by her group leader, Bill. She wakes from a coma and seeks revenge.

Violence has never been so much fun.

It's been six years since Quentin Tarantino's last film (Jackie Brown, 1997) that might be why he's so excited about his latest film Kill Bill Volume 1.

While the story he's telling here is simple -- an assassin known only as The Bride (Uma Thurman) seeks bloody revenge against the former allies who tried to kill her -- Tarantino uses his famously non-linear storytelling style to retell Francois Truffaut's "The Bride Wore Black."

Kill Bill is part parody and part Tarantino's homage to samurai movies, urban action flicks, Hong Kong gangster dramas, Japanese anime, chop-socky kung fu movies, bad ass blaxploitation films, and spaghetti Westerns as he takes lowly exploitation cinema to new heights.

The violence is indeed highly aesthetic, sometimes poetic and often humorous, but in most cases extremely graphic. ?All this is played to the brilliant choreography of Yuen Wo Ping (The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). All of the fight sequences are stunningly well executed. Regardless of what Tarantino tells you, don't take your children to this film.

Robert Richardson's cinematography, both in color and black and white, is fluid, brilliantly lit and dazzling to behold. Sally Menke's editing moves us swiftly through the chapters, while costumes and sets are eye-catching delights. A terrific anime sequence makes a striking and original way to give us O-Ren Ishii's back story.

Unfortunately, to finish the film I'll have to wait, along with everyone else, since Kill Bill: Volume 2 will not be released until February 2004.

Written, Directed, Produced by: Quentin Tarantino
Cinematography: Robert Richardson
Editing: Sally Menke
Starring: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Vivica A. Fox, Sonny Chiba, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah and more.
Trailer: Click Here!

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