Overrated

Rating: 4/10 (20 November 2003)

This film seems to be nothing more than a lame excuse for showing violence. And while showing showers of blood (way overdone, really unrealistic and not even a bit funny) it does almost everything wrong, what a film can do wrong. There is no acting at all.. save Uma perhaps, who at least changes the look on her face. Lucy Liu for example is awful (though pretty). The "idea" of showing the plot not chronologically isn't new and one might get the feeling that this is Tarantino's effort to link to Pulp fiction. In this case it doesn't work. At all. While the plot may reveal itself as quite a bit better than thought in Vol.2 (who knows) this part is just boring.
Worst of all was IMO the sound engineering, something that is a flaw in a lot of films from the USA but this one takes the lead. There were however some nice scenes regarding camera work. But in battles as ridiculous as these, that won't help too much. Speaking of the battles. In Matrix and Star Wars we got at least an explanation for what is happening, in Asian films flying sword-fighters are something mythological. Here none of this applies and all we see is a 30year old women who spent her last four years in a coma and doesn't need even half a year before she moves like Marvel Super Hero. A little kryptonite would have helped.