Hands Down the Best Film of 2003 - Try to Beat It. (Possible Spoilers)

Rating: 10/10 (10 October 2003)

Once again Quentin Tarantino brings us a well thought out high imaginative masterpiece of cinematic art, violence, mayhem, gore, comedy and story.
In a Pulp Fiction like fashion the movie seamlessly (and violently) moves from the past to the present and back to the past. The movie uses cinematic techniques and elements from the classic (black and white) samurai movies, the spaghetti western and Japanese anime to tell a colorful story (not just because of all the blood and gore - but it would be remiss on my part not to mention that there's plenty of it - some comic - some not so comic) of a woman (Uma Thurman) betrayed by her associates and mentor who is out for revenge. All of the characters are cold blooded killers with little or no remorse about what they do and how they do it, while applying a very warped sense of east Asian Samurai-like honor to it all. In truth, we don't even know much about Uma Thurman's character and while she is portrayed as the heroine in this film, she may be for all we know the worst of the entire bunch (she does appear to be completely encased by her need/desire for vengeance and is following her path with a passion and cold logic that if you take a moment to think about should make this character that much more suspect as a true "good" heroine).
Could people that seem to be truly this evil really be considered honorable? In some strange way maybe they can, but these are not good people. They may say there is no honor among thieves/criminals but maybe in some strange sort of way at least for this small group there does seem to be just that.
We don't find out a whole lot about Bill except that he's the one that wanted to have Uma's character dead and buried, which if it had worked would have made this a very short movie. Bill appears to be some kind of evil mastermind with students and protégées littered all over the globe who had been trained in the martial art of the samurai long ago by a sword master and maker.
The movie is a very comfortable hour and a half (figure up to two hours depending upon how many previews your theatre runs) and doesn't leave you hanging as far as the story goes. The ending is dark and very good and neat making the movie by itself a complete item - it doesn't leave you with the lack of wrap up one feels when watching the Matrix Reloaded or any of the new Lord of the Rings movies (they made me feel like - what? that's it? its over?) - and allows you to excitedly look forward to the coming sequel because you truly feel as though this "Volume" is truly complete.