More of a ballet than a bloodbath

Rating: 9/10 (20 May 2020)

Like Welles and Fellini before him, Tarantino eschews chronological order in telling this martial arts tale of revenge. Not only does he follow his Western masters but also the Eastern filmmakers who have greatly influenced him. The fact that one of the major characters is of Chinese, Japanese and American lineage is no accident. It seems that Tarantino has made a movie that pays tribute to every action film he has ever seen.
But much of Tarantino's strength resides in his writing, as evidenced by his first three outings (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown), at least two of which are destined to be classics. In this movie the writing seems overwhelmed by the action, though the film still contains some very good lines.
But this is only Volume 1, and we don't even know what the main character's backstory is yet. Tarantino has Volume 2 to fill in some of the missing motivation as well as display his formidable writing and character development skills. With that, we may have another film classic to be. Or at least a glorious B-film masterpiece.
As for performances, the cast comes up with some great ones. Thurman, who is in nearly every scene, excels in a role that must have been extremely exhausting. She does away with more opponents in one scene than Eastwood ever piled up in all of his spaghetti westerns. Liu is especially effective as the ruthless gang lord who runs Tokyo, and who gives vivid meaning to the expression, "heads will roll."
As for the violence, the style is such that it is not that upsetting. By the end of the film, it is so stylized that it has become more of a ballet than a bloodbath. The scenes that are the most disturbing in subject matter are presented in Anime, the most stylized of all the filmic forms. I'm not saying that no one will be offended, but this is what the R rating is for.
Music is very creatively used, one example being what sounded to me like a Salsa number that heralds a snowy battle scene in Japan.
Does this break the rules? You bet. And that is why we love this guy.