Tarantino-san

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2004)

All the attendant of a wedding, including the pregnant bride (Uma Thurman), have been killed by an assassination squad. The sheriff and his son think that this has been done by professionals. Although she was shot in the head, the bride is not dead but is in a coma. Four years later, the bride wakes up. She realizes that she has lost her child but also the husband she was going to marry. Since she knows the name of all the murderers (they were former assassination squad fellows), she decides to seek revenge by killing them one after the other. The first is Vernita Green aka Copperhead who lives in a suburban house. The second is the terrible O-Ren Ishii, boss of the Japanese mafia, who is protected by the 17-year old Gogo Yubari and the crazy 88 bodyguards.
In fact, Kill Bill vol. 1 is not a movie but half of a movie as its title obviously indicates. You can't be satisfied watching this one only (especially since vol. 2 is much better and contains the entire plot). In this first part, Uma Thurman is taking her revenge on those who killed her baby, her husband and almost killed herself. This movie is a tribute to Samourai movies. It is very violent but very well directed. It is probably Kill Bill Vol 1 that is, to this date, the best technical achievement of Quentin Tarantino as a director. The manga sequence is great, even if it is hardly watchable for those who don't like to see blood on screen. The whole fight sequence in Japan is a masterpiece of action movie and a lesson of cinema. Among the two main components of Tarantino movies (that is: 1 violent fight scenes and 2 funny talkative scenes), this volume 1 contains 80% of component 1 and 20% of component 2 (it's the opposite in volume2). This first part is just an appetizer to the second. Don't miss volume 2. I give this one 8/10.