Ostentatious homage to the 1970s kung fu movies

Rating: 4/10 (30 May 2004)

Kill Bill, Vol. 1, at its heart, is really a simple tale of a wanna-be murder gone wrong and the revenge that courses through the intended victim. However, in Quentin Tarantino's hands, Kill Bill is an overblown blood fest.
Uma Thurman plays 'The Bride,' who is also known as 'Black Mambo.' She was a part of an elite killing squad with 4 other adept assassins played by Vivica A. Fox, Darryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, and Lucy Liu. These five killers are headed up by Bill, whose face we never see in the movie. For some unexplained reason, Bill and his four killers set out to murder a very pregnant Black Mambo on her wedding day. They torture and kill Black Mambo and her unborn childso they think. Black Mambo/The Bride awakens from a four year coma with revenge killing on her mind.
The movie switches back from the distant past, to the recent past, and to the present at lightening speed without making much of a cohesive plot. The flick is filled with Quentin Tarantino -esque pop culture references and pseudo-philosophical speeches from his characters. The only thing lacking in the dialogue is his normal excessive usage of the word n***ger.
Kill Bill, Vol. 1, is an ostentatious homage to the 1950s Japanese samurai, the 1970s kung fu, and the late 80s/early 90s Hong Kong action movies. I even suspect that Lucy Liu's character's name, O-Ren Ishii is a homage to the rap group N.W.A. (O standing for the first letter in Ice Cube's real name, Oshay. Ren for the deejay of N.W.A., and 'ishi' sounds a lot like 'Eazy-E.') I give the movie four stars out of ten for the plot twist at the end, the excellent swordplay, and the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA's spot-on original scores.