Film Review: Kill Bill, Volume 1
Quentin Tarantino’s Action Packed, Gore Laden Fourth Feature
Dec 23, 2008
Opening with the line ‘Do you find me sadistic?’, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Volume 1 proves to be a sublimely funny, if somewhat disturbing, gore-mongering splatter-fest of a story. With more corpses than you can shake several sticks at, Kill Bill relies far more on attention grabbing visuals than the usual dialogue-heavy Tarantino fare, a fact that only serves to widen its appeal.
The Bride’s Story
The basic theme of Kill Bill is that revenge is a dish best served cold. There’s bound to be further social commentary hidden in there somewhere but the audience may be too busy wiping the blood from their eyes to notice.
The story of Kill Bill is divided into chapters and the action jumps backwards and forwards in time Pulp Fiction style, beginning with the slaughter of a wedding party in the church during the ceremony. Uma Thurman as a heavily pregnant Bride somehow survives the carnage, must to the consternation of the redneck cops who didn’t bother to check for signs of life. She spends the next four years in a coma only to wake up after a mosquito bite during one of the most disturbing scenes of the film.
After much stabbing and bashing of heads with doors, it emerges that the Bride used to be an assassin and that it was her former co-workers from the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS) who bloodied up the floor of the church. Once she has fully regained control of her faculties (starting with her oddly misshapen feet), the Bride sets off to wreak messy revenge on those she blames for the death of her unborn child.
Revenge Tarantino Style
Quentin Tarantino is the master of the ensemble cast and in Kill Bill he wisely avoids venturing in front of the camera himself. Uma Thurman as the Bride and Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii give the standout performances of the film with the scenes at the House of the Blue Leaves being the most stunning and entertaining by far.
The other members of the DiVAS, including Vivica A. Fox as Copperhead and Daryl Hannah as California Mountain Snake, have very little screen time for actors of their calibre. While Fox is involved in a wonderfully choreographed fight scene packed with amusing dialogue, Hannah lets her eye-patch do most of the acting for her.
As the eponymous Bill, David Carradine is not seen directly throughout the entire film but manages to verbally menace from the sidelines with the greatest of ease.
Kill Bill is a great film featuring an unusual mix of styles (from live action to anime), great visuals and witty dialogue. The only major criticism that can be levelled is that Kill Bill was split into two parts when, considering that each volume is only 90 minutes long, it could have been released as an excellent, and not too epic, epic. Instead, Kill Bill Volume 1 is a short, thrilling film that leaves the audience immediately wanting more.
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