One of the best films ever made

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2004)

Quentin Tarantino may have been off the Hollywood radar for six years but the former Reservoir Dog' has shown he's lost none of his bite with a film that is truly a masterpiece of cinema. Proving that you can't define a film by one genre, Tarantino has put together a samurai sword fighting, spaghetti western, part kung fu revenge thriller, which is the work of a director at the top of his game. The story goes like this. Uma Thurman is `The Bride'. A former member of an elite assassination squad, she is viciously gunned down (along with the rest of the wedding party) by her former employers. Awakening after a coma of 4 years, The Bride extracts her revenge, going after each member with `Bill' the boss, at the top of her list. Thurman as `The Bride' is astonishing, her performance maintaining a hardened femininity in the mist of all the violence. Her costume, deliberately reminiscent of Bruce Lee in Game of Death', is iconic, her samurai sword as sharp as her beauty. Tarantino's use of anime to tell the background story of a character is effective, while the black humour that punctuates any grim scene is classic Tarantino, proving he can bring out two emotions from an audience that was only reaching for one. Other performances live up to the last with Daryl Hannah perfect as the seriously short tempered Elle Driver (codename: California Mountain Snake), while Vivica A Fox is a high kicking mean machine whose fight with The Bride is interrupted when her daughter comes home from school. Lucy Liu here is no Charlie's Angel', more Bill's Devil', now a gangland leader who is in the bride's sights for her part in the wedding day massacre. This is a film that has incredible style with substance to match, made by a director who is a film fan's filmmaker and not just a cog in the Hollywood machine. Some critics have attacked the film for it's violence, but this is being blind to its story. Yes it is gory, but it is shown in a cartoon manner, and while most films have stories set in the real world `Kill Bill' is set in the movie world where real time is exchanged for reel time. With a cool seventies soundtrack, and the promise of a Kill Bill volume two to come, Kill Bill is a movie fans dream.