A Brilliant Film.

Rating: Null/10 (11 October 2003)

I'm not going to go into plot details because they've been explored on this site so many times it's just old hat. I saw this film last night and I can't stop thinking about it. It has to be one of the most violent movies ever made, well the most violent movie I've ever seen. However the violence is stylized, and in the hands of any other director would really become graituitious. The film is most definately pulp and every frame bleeds(no pun intended) Tarantino's love for Asian cinema, spaghetti westerns, and various other references that this humble viewer wouldn't pick up in a million years. Many of criticized the film for being anti-asian ok I can understand that if this film was set in the real world, but to say that this is set in the real world is to say that the Indianna Jones films are set in the real world, which is just not the case. Like the Indy movies "Kill Bill" lives in our cinematic imagainations what I mean by this is that this film is a cinematic other world, I'm not exactly making much sense I understand that. But this is a post modernist film at it's best it is a n amalgamation of every genre film that has come out in the past 40-50 years. So anyone criticizing the film for portraying the Yakuza in a diferent light than most needs to understand that when Uma Thurman's character "The Bride"(whose name is bleeped out purely for effect)flies into Japan(a Godzilla set) she is not flying into Japan she is flying into our collective movie going imagaination of Japan. I don't know if that made any sense. I'm glad that Miramax and Tarantino decided to split the movie into two parts for one thing it needs an intermission the violence although stylized is still intense enough to warrant a intermission and it's good too b/c than a person like myself can get aquainted with Tarantino's references.
Another thing has to said about how Tarantino has now reinvented the action movie for one all the male characters are not the heroes in fact all the main characters in this first volume are all women. I will go on record here and say that Uma Thurman's "The Bride" will become an iconic image of this decade. And speaking of Uma Thurman, she does a fantastic job, with an entirely physical performance. We see the rage in her voice and eyes, and seeing her with a samurai sword gives us a thrill, and Sonny Chiba provides the films spirtual center...so to speak giving one of my favorite lines in the whole movie "I can tell you with no ego, that this is my finest sword. If in your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut".
There is so much more to say about the other actresses in the film who all do an amazing job I liked Lucy Liu for the first time, Vivica A. Fox who I haven't seen for a while does a great job. So much to say and not enough time to say it. I gotta say though if you can't handle violence stay as far away from this movie as humanly possible whereas unlike Tarantino's other movies where the violence stays off screen he keep the camera focused on it.

And as for Volume 2 in Febuary I am so there.