Arguably Tarantino's best, certainly THE best film of the year so far.

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2003)

A long time ago, in a cinema far, far away I saw a film called Pulp Fiction. Dripping with pop culture references, littered with quotable but more importantly, accessible dialogue and smothered in 'can't laugh will laugh' violence, it was the best film I had ever seen.
Kill Bill is NOT Pulp Fiction, but it is a descendant of all that Pulp Fiction stands for. And in my opinion Kill Bill is best used as an indication of how perfect a film maker Tarantino will become.
I won't bother with the plot, although important and omnipresent during the viewing of this first of the two volumes of Kill Bill, I always subconsciously held the premise that any questions would be answered in Volume Two. And what freedom that gave me to sit back and enjoy a craftsman so aptly and ably applying his tools. Tarantino IS the whole reason I hear media students arguing out style over content issues and never really answering them.
Shot in so many varied styles, you could be watching five different films from five different cultures - most noticeably the cross-referencing from Eastern and Western cinema (including a breath taking anime sequence) which is so seemless that Kurisowa might well have shot certain sequences with Bruce Lee flapping around as stunt co-ordinator - Tarantino repeatedly bombards his now devoted audience with aesthetic and aural set-pieces that look like they'll spiral off screen, but are executed with such control that they become perfection. From the first smashing domestic rumble to the blue lit silhouette sword fight, your pupils will dilate, and your eardrums will vibrate.
Ever present are the in-jokes (SPOILER* Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox) concealing a pistol in a cereal box with KABOOM written on the side, before attempting to KABOOM Uma Thurman into next week), and although dialogue may not be as sharp or as memorable as the rest of his cannon, Tarantino keeps the script succint and to the point, never losing sight of the fact that this story is about revenge. And when revengins being done, there's not much time for discussions about Big Macs.
I might have made them up, but I felt so many connections between this film and Pulp Fiction that I almost linked their stories together. There are the inconspicuous references (the close-ups on the Pussy Wagon keys, Uma drawing out an imaginary square to Vivica Fox) but my main question was are the 'Deadly Viper Assasination Squad' in anyway related to 'The Fox Force Five' that Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) mentions in Pulp Fiction? In it she describes a black demolitions expert (Vivica A. Fox?), a Japanese swordstress (Lucy Liu?) and a French seductress spy (Julie Dreyfuss?). Maybe my mind played havoc, but it certainly adds another dimension to Tarantino's incredible movie intellect.
Does style dominate? Yes. But is content ever sacrificed? Hell no. My proof is that The Bride (Uma Thurman) is so filled with rage, bitterness and betrayal that I haven't met a person yet that didn't root for her. And character is what Tarantino's films are about.
As ever the music is perfect. When a track needs to fit, Tarantino will use it (Nancy Sinatra's 'Bang Bang' after Uma's skull crunching gunshot wound), but give him the freedom to apply music to a sequence with no musical boundaries, and he'll throw in a tune that opposes everything we see but still drags image and sound screaming and kicking together (the heightened strings in the anime sequence, just before the blood rains down).
In short see Kill Bill. See it for the soundtrack, the action (allegedly the whole film cost only 2/3 of The Matrix budget), the central FEMALE character (Thurman's performance is unbelievable considering her alluring, free-spirited turn in Pulp Fiction), the pure education in global cinema, but see it most of all so that you can remember just how good you had Tarantino mapped out to be. He's getting even better, soon enough every director from Woo to Scorsese will be shaking in his boots.
And if you can get Bernard Hermann's 'Twisted Nerve' (from Daryl Hannah's introduction sequence) out of your mind, I'll give you a tenner.