A Breath-Taking Action Movie, with Talking Heads on the Side

Rating: 10/10 (10 October 2003)

Kill Bill: Volume 1
To use a metaphor, if `Reservoir Dogs,' `Pulp Fiction,' and `Jackie Brown' all feel like Ford Caminos cruising down a back-alley L. A. street at about 35 mph, then `Kill Bill' is a Yamaha crotch rocket motorcycle zipping down the highway at 150 mph. The difference is extraordinary.
All of Tarantino's trademark details are in Volume 1. Everything from Red Apple cigarettes to the box of cereal that appears in every Tarantino film. Including the level of violence in his film.
Violence is a strong subject in Tarantino films, which turns off many less-capable viewers. It is that same strength of violence that propels Kill Bill above the rest. Everything from Tarantino's trademark gun-related blood splatters to an exaggerated number of Kurosawa-esque arterial spurts, to an anime short to the levels of blood that had to be color-filtered into black and white as in `Raging Bull', the body count and the severed limb count rise above every mainstream Hollywood movie before it.
As this is an action movie, this is not completely unsurprising. Unsettling images and thoughts are another hallmark of Tarantino, and this one pulls it out in spades. Lucy Liu's character is set-up with a particular disturbing Aeon Flux-style anime short that involves a gruesome murder and the mention of child violence. Actually, there's two potential moments of child violence.
As such, Tarantino again masters his ability to call back to movies of before to bring these characters and moments to life. Cliches of Hong Kong `Chop-socky' Martial Arts films and American westerns to edgy modern cinema such as `Fight Club' and back to Japanese Samurai epics are resurrected in an age where they are not appreciated because of their. age.
As such, there is little room for the swaying character development that is a hallmark of Tarantino. A meager revenge plot facilitated with assassins and other unsavory characters. But no one should care if it's a little shallow on the plot - it's fun, fast, disturbingly high-intensity action at its best.
How would this movie compare to the `Matrix' or `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'? Kill Bill never loses sight of the major themes and the strength of the central character to push through to the other side, as both of the previous movies do with their artificial complexity. Instead, Kill Bill uses a multitude of cinematic ideas to express the same thought and process: Revenge.
Rarely does a movie deserve its hype. Kill Bill: Volume 1 deserves it, and more.
10/10. Tarantino scores BIG with this action movie.