Tarantino's genre film

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2006)

After long threatening to make a pure genre film - a film the plot and episodes of which are constructed by genre convention, and always secondary to the enjoyment of the action - Tarantino has produced a quirky but faced-paced homage to the Chinese and Japanese martial arts films of the 1970s (and some of their American clones as well).
There's certainly no denying that the action sequences are rapidly paced, and professionally shot and edited. The story is loose and a little hackneyed, but that's exactly what a genre-film plot ought to be, since it is really just an excuse for the action. So of course the dialog is riddled with cliché; that also is as it should be.
I suppose most of this will be missed by those unfamiliar with the '70s martial arts film; but they may be able to enjoy it as just an irony-laden action film of the current era.
At any rate, anyone who thought the Chiba Street-Fighter films fun stuff, or who harbored a secret passion for TNT Jackson, will certainly enjoy this film.
The one weakness is Uma Thurman. She was well-cast in Pulp Fiction, but I haven's seen anything with her that I've liked since. Here, she is just way too "over the top" for this kind of film. The martial arts hero has to be cool unless really really angry - but Thurman has her rage-meter pushed to the max from beginning to the end of this film, and it gets awful tiresome after a while. Wish they had brought over Sue Shiomi for this one.
Finally, a word about the sequel, Kill Bill II; and the word is BAD. Worse sequel to a good film I can remember.
But this first film is a lotta fun.