Volume I

Let me start off by saying, I consider myself a Tarantino fan.  I love Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown.  I also like True Romance and Natural Born Killers an awful lot, which he had a hand in bringing to the screen.  Going into Kill Bill, I was ready to experience the same awe I felt when I first saw Pulp Fiction; that feeling of putting yourself in the hands of a great story teller and living in their world for a while.  Kill Bill did not deliver that experience for me.

First of all, Kill Bill does not feel like a Tarantino movie, which is good in a way.  After Jackie Brown, Quentin may have done all he could do with dialogue that does not tie in with the plot and discussions over meals.  So the fact that Kill Bill does not feel like Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown at all means that Quentin Tarantino is evolving, and he is comfortable out of his own skin.

The plot of Kill Bill is pretty straightforward.  Uma Thurman is The Bride.  Her ex-employer, Bill, tried to have her killed at her wedding and after waking from a coma four years later, she is seeking revenge on Bill and the rest of the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS, of which she was a member) who were responsible for her “death”.  The plot is told out of chronological order, which has worked in the past for Quentin, but unless it all ties back up at the end of Volume II, I think it is just a gimmick here.  I’m hoping that the end of Volume II will give good reason for his choices in the way the story plays out.

Lets talk about the violence, because that is all I heard about when I was reading reviews of the film.  I saw quotes like, “The most violent R-rated movie ever,” and “The most violent movie ever released by a major studio.”  Well, in my opinion, the violence and bloodletting is so over-the-top it is almost a cartoon.  So I found it to be violent in the same way that Tom and Jerry is violent.  The killings do not come off as realistic, but rather an almost hallucinatory alter-reality.  Actually, I was reminded specifically of a Japanese movie I saw in college called Gonza the Spearman, which featured the same style of violence that Kill Bill employs where the sword cuts result in curtains and fountains of blood.  There are even hints of Monty Python’s Holy Grail evident.  So I don’t think complaints about the violence of the movie have merit.  There is a lot of blood…a lot…seriously…buckets…gallons…of blood.  However, I can think of scenes in American History X, Battle Royale, and Saving Private Ryan that are harder to watch because they are closer to reality.  Kill Bill is a very bloody movie but not a very violent movie.  There are some scenes that are surprisingly cruel, but that is because of the context of the situation.

All the performances in Kill Bill are top notch.  Uma Thurman carries the mantle of Female Action Star with pride and arrogance, and she is matched well by Lucy Liu, Vivica Fox, and Darryl Hannah, although there really is not much to see from the latter two.  David Carradine’s Bill has great presence on screen, even though all you see are his hands.  Fans of kung fu movies of old will enjoy seeing Sonny Chiba as the sword maker, even though he does not get an opportunity to mess anyone up.  The man is aged.  Maybe has has some more action in Volume II.

For a movie that is supposed to be incredibly violent, there is not much fighting in it.  There are a few scenes that are nothing extraordinary early on and then the big fight in the House of Blue Leaves at the end.  As far as sword fights go, the end is damn good.  Not only is the action great, but it is very stylish without using slow motion or other tired techniques.  I still feel that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace set the bar way high for sword fighting in movies.  Maybe if Ray Park and Nick Gillard were involved instead of the cinematic fighting mainstay Yuen Woo-Ping (ooohhh…he did The Matrix.  He should just add that to the end of his name¹) it would have been a little more fresh.  I still enjoyed it, but it was more because of Tarantino's direction and less because of the fight choreography.

There are some bits that stand out in my mind that I did not like.  There is a flashback that is told with animation.  I’m an animation fan, but it just didn’t seem to fit into a Tarantino movie².  I think the flashback would have been much more powerful as a live-action scene.  If anything, I think the animation serves as an appropriate medium to up the ante on the blood spillage for the movie.  I liked the animation in and of itself, I just don’t think it worked in this movie.  I also didn’t care for the scene of Uma in the hospital when she is waking up.  I just don’t see why it needed to play out the way it did, unless the point is just to be shocking.

There is also much talk about the movie being split into two parts.  I think Kill Bill Volume I stands alone as a good movie with a nice hook at the end.  The ending feels right and it works for what they are doing.  It does not feel like the movie ends unexpectedly.  Certainly not all the subplots are tied up yet, but there is some amount of closure to be had.  The movie ends nicely and I am primed to see Volume II in February.

So, I liked Kill Bill, but it did not blow me away.  I think I expected more clever writing from Quentin and not as much blood.  I think the hardcore Tarantino fans will claim it is the "greatest film ever" and they will be wrong.  However, the people who claim that it sucks will also be wrong.  It's good, even great, but not as huge as his other films.

1.  I’m aware that Yuen Woo-Ping directed the first Drunken Master movie.  I’m just saying that every time I see him mentioned, it is followed by the fact that he did the fight choreography for The Matrix movies.  It probably pisses him off, too, because he has been making movies for 30 years.

2.  Mentioning Natural Born Killers here and stating that I am contradicting myself because it features sections of animation will only display your own ignorance.  Tarantino was so put off by Oliver Stone’s treatment of NBK that he practically took his name off of it all together.  He only carries a “story by” credit.