If you love the "Death Wish" movies, you will like this movie-spin off saga

Rating: 9/10 (8 April 2013)

The way I see Uma Thurman play "The Bride" in this action-packed, martial arts movie was not exactly clear-cut. But thinking about all of the Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" movies, I think "Kill Bill Vol. 1" was a definite allusion to the "Death Wish" movie saga.
The gist of the story focuses mainly on The Bride, who survived a mob hit by several members of an assassination squad which included Cottonmouth, which killed 9 members of a wedding party at a church, with the Bride being a sole survivor.
After waking up from the near-death attempt by this killing squad, she recalls all of the names of the five people involved, including Cottonmouth.
Then, the focus goes right into The Bride's main death wish as revenge for the murder attempt on her by this squad--more specifically, to make a hit on the character, Cottonmouth, also known as O-Ren Ishii. The rising tension of this focus on three main thoughts by The Bride.
1. The Bride narrates a bit of the past on O-Ren, who grew up in a nasty Japanese culture of the Yakuza mob, and was able to kill off some of her family members by surprise when they caused O-Ren trouble in the past. Then the Bride said that she went up to the ranks to become one of the top assassins, and then was accepted into the 5-person death squad later on who almost killed her.
2. Next, the Bride then heads off to Okinawa to meet up with Hattori Hanso, at his sword-smith's place, and even with her not-so-perfect Japanese, she was able to get from Hanso the weapon that will also be a focus for the sequel, Kill Bill vol. 2--a long sword hand-made by him called a katana, which was used in both samurai and ninjitsu martial arts in Japan.
3. Then, just before the showdown at the House of Blue Leaves as the Bride comes to Tokyo, where O-Ren was, the Bride narrates the main people in O-Ren's mob, like Charlie Mo and his Crazy-88 fighters, and Gogo, O-Ren's bodyguard. Also mentioned is Boss Tanaka, who mentions O-Ren's translator, Sophie, about being a half-prostitute during a mob council, just before O-Ren quickly decapitates Tanaka for mentioning that..to tell how evil O-Ren is.
To set up the end of O-Ren, The Bride kidnaps Sophie, presents her to O-Ren, and then, slashes one of Sophie's arms off to provoke O-Ren to the Bride's final series of fights. With that, the Hattori Hanso sword is her angel as she kills off about 15 fighters, almost get killed by Gogo's markiri (spike-laden meteor attached with chain) but still gets a chance to finish off Gogo, and kills off or maims 80 more fighters, including Charlie Mo.
Then, the final duel between O-Ren and The Bride takes place. O-Ren sees the Hanso sword the Bride has, and says that sword was a fluke. As the fight starts, O-Ren's katana was good enough to slash the Bride to a near kill...but the Bride then gets up, and then, the Bride finally slashes one of O-Ren's legs. O-Ren then says sorry for persecuting the Bride, and then the fight continues, and then, the Bride finally kills off O-Ren with a slash that cuts off half of her brain. O-Ren realizes, as she falls and dies, that the Hanso sword was real after all.
Then, the Bride stands in a redemption prayer pose as snow falls in what was O-Ren's big yard of the house.
The final part focuses on the Bride's warning to Sophie--if you do not tell all of the information on the rest of the assassination squad, Sophie will end up like what happened to Cottonmouth. The Bride then takes a jet out of Tokyo and revises the death list, marking off Cottonmouth to indicate that she was killed, and targeting the main person on her death list for the movie's sequel--which is Bill.