"Revenge is a dish best served cold."

Rating: 10/10 (18 October 2003)

In 1982, Italian horror director Dario Argento made a movie called TENEBRE. The most shocking part of that little film was when a woman had her arm chopped off and blood sprayed to all directions. Well, over 90 people lose their limbs with even more squirting blood during the 111 minutes of 2003's KILL BILL: VOLUME ONE, so a question remains in mind: What's next?

The 4th film by acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino, (PULP FICTION, JACKIE BROWN) KILL BILL was chopped into two parts, or volumes. The first volume is the one in question. Released one week before the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake, KILL BILL: VOLUME ONE ranks as an incredibly superior and bloodier film. Tarantino's grindhouse dedication to the countless B Kung Fu flicks of the 1970s gets a grade A.

Uma Thurman is "The Bride" (a.k.a: Black Mamba) a nameless assassin who decides to leave the business and start a new clean life by marrying and having a baby. But it doesn't happen that soon, as her boss Bill (David Carradine) and four other killers pay a bloody visit to the wedding and slaughter the entire party before putting the final bullet inside The Bride's brain. Fast-forward and The Bride amazingly survived and remained in coma for the last four years. When she wakes up after being bitten by a mosquito and soon realizes both her husband and baby are dead, she has two choices: Either go on with life or kill Bill. Which one she chooses? You guessed right.
But before killing Bill, The Bride will have to kill all other four hitmen that helped the wedding shooting: O-Ren Shi (a.k.a Cottonmouth) played by Lucy Liu, Vernita Green (a.k.a Copperhead) played by Vivica A. Fox, Elle Driver (a.k.a California Mountain Snake) played by Daryl Hannah, Bud (a.k.a Sidewinder) played by Michael Madsen.
And in case you didn't realize yet, KILL BILL is not to be taken seriously. The convoluted and ridiculous plot line is only an excuse for powerful visual action scenes and dialogue.
The movie is not shot in chronological order and starts with B&W footage of The Bride gasping in the church floor covered with blood after the wedding shooting and receiving the final bullet in the head from Bill. This moment is followed by the music cue of Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) which is one of the many interesting choices Tarantino made for the soundtrack. In VOLUME ONE's climatic battle between The Bride and O-Ren-Shi, Santa Esmeralda's Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood plays with all the Spanish beats setting the perfect tone for the scene. When we first meet California Mountain Snake, Bernard Herrman's Twisted Nerve whistling tune plays adding a much needed sense of humor.
VOLUME ONE is, without doubt, the goriest film to ever receive an R-ranting by the MPAA, surpassing 1971's TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE. Over 90 people are mutilated, sliced, and diced like meat. Every time someone looses a limb, blood is sprayed like it was coming from a water sprout. In the volume's most impressive scene (Which just happens to be animated) we learn the back-story of Cottonmouth and see how she witnessed her parents' murder as a child by a Yakuza crime boss and later killed him at the age of eleven. The animie moment has tons of blood sprayed all over the screen and the entire audience remained silent. If Tarantino had shot that moment as a live-action flashback, an NC-17 sticker would have been quickly welcomed.
VOLUME ONE follows The Bride as she travels to Tokyo and acquires her sword from sword-maker Hattori Hanzo (an excellent cameo by ex-action hero Sonny Chiba) and gets her first taste of revenge by confronting O-Ren-Shi. The climatic fight takes place in a two-floor restaurant called House Of Blue Leaves. That is when the movie's heart-pounding moments begin. The Bride has a sword-fight with over 88 henchmen and, of course, wins (amazing considering her legs were paralyzed over a month before.) Then there is the individual fight with O-Ren-Shi's bodyguard GoGo Yubari, (Chiaki Kuriyama from the controversial BATTLE ROYALE) a Japanese schoolgirl that carries a steel cannonball as a weapon. Prepare yourself for GoGo's sub-climatic fight with The Bride, the film's most visually impressive moment. The climatic fight with O-Ren-Shi takes place in a snowy Japanese garden and it leads to the open "to be continued..." ending that will leave the audience gasping for more after the final revelation.
Since I already stated this is a style over substance popcorn flick with a brain, does that mean the acting is flat? Uma Thurman doesn't play The Bride, she IS The Bride. She has the most powerful presence during the entire projection. And all of this is because of her break-trough performance: Not a dramatic one, but a physical one. Equally stunning is David Carradine as Bill. He only appears for three minutes in VOLUME ONE, but his presence is felt all the way. In 2001, Francois Ozon made a movie called 8 FEMMES where eight women confronted themselves because of a recently recently killed man they were all involved with. That man only appeared for two seconds in the movie, but you could feel his presence through the entire projection. Same thing with Carradine here. We only see his hands holding a sword, but you can just feel Bill. The remaining cast all deliver their best over-the-top performances very well, with Daryl Hannah being deliciously over the top (In a good way) as California Mountain Snake, a deadly assassin with one beautiful blue eye.
Did I just spoil the entire movie? No, not really. The trailer already shows you most of the scenes with the blood being digitally removed. Does that mean you should go see KILL BILL because of the grindhouse Lucio Fulci-like gore? No, KILL BILL is not just about blood-splattering fights, hot chicks, or character development. It is a movie about cinema. A movie on movies. The entire thing takes place in the world of movies. A world where everything is colorful. A world where you can easily escape a hospital. A world where you can cure yourself from paralyzed legs using brainpower. A world where woman are considered equally superior to men and have a similar killing spree wish. A world where characters take incredible amounts of damage and still stand up like nothing happened. A world where a woman who just woke up from a coma can defeat 100 highly trained villains.

Bring on part two... Here comes The Bride...

5/5