I just loved Kill Bill, Vol. 1!!!

Rating: Null/10 (14 October 2003)

Many people will consider this Quentin Tarantino's best film yet. Others will hate it. It certainly has more style and focus than any of his previous efforts, which were frequently burdened with subplots. Well, no subplots here. The plot couldn't be simpler. Uma Thurman as "the bride," is the subject of an execution-style massacre carried out by her former associates in an elite assassination team, which is headed by the mysterious and faceless (at least in this first installment) "Bill." Unfortunately for them, she survives in a coma from which she awakes after four years, to discover that not only is her groom dead, but so is the baby she was carrying at the time of her wedding. The rest of the movie is simply her revenge as she knocks off the team one-by-one. If you have heard that the movie is violent, it is. However, the violence is extremely cartoonish and stylized. For example, when she lops off someone's head, arm, or leg, blood spurts out as if from a shower head. While the blood is stylized, the fight scenes are very good. In fact, Uma Thurman, an actress with a very uneven career, who never ever gave us much hint of exceptional talent, pretty much carries this entire movie on her back. Not only is she on-screen acting about 95% of the time, but she engages in several extended and strenuous sword- and knife-fighting scenes, many of which she obviously had to do without benefit of a stunt double. She's an absolute revelation here and if her career was a bit on hold the last few years, you can bet it's back on track with this flick! It's not just her fighting, either. It's her acting. She shows in this movie that she can deliver a line as well as any actress around. There are several classic scenes in this movie, but one of the least violent ones has her delivering some of the best lines. This is where she goes to Okinawa and drops in on the sushi shop of a man who also happens to be a master samurai swordsmith, played delightfully (and with incredible comic timing and charm) by Sonny Chiba, a Japanese martial arts actor with almost no presence in Hollywood cinema. Which raises the question of how he got the name "Sonny." Anyway, there's a moment when he's still acting the role of the sushi chef and he's engaging in some banter with her, and he asks her why she needs to to find "Hattori Hanzo" (him). Her reply is that she needs some "Japanese steel," by which she means a samurai sword. (Digression: the samurai sword is regarded by most of those in the know as the deadliest and finest sword ever made. It is unique in terms of being both thick-and thus heavy enough to deliver forceful blows-and yet almost razor sharp. Made of very high-grade steel, they are very difficult to break. At the same time, a good samurai sword is also a work of art. Each one (of the fine ones), with its grip and scabbard, is made by hand and decorated uniquely. It's ironic that one of the most efficient hand-to-hand combat instruments ever made can also be one of the most beautiful objects of art in the world. This movie, despite its rampant references to other movies and to pop culture of the past, is more than anything else a celebration of the samurai sword and bushido, the code of the samurai. The last major action scene of the movie is the swordfight between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu. Liu has become (probably to her chagrin) a character actress who normally plays either bad girls or evil women. In this case, she's an evil woman, and she plays the role to the hilt. She also puts up a hell of a fight in the final scene, but of course, there would be no Vol. 2 if she prevailed, so I hope I didn't spoil the movie for you. (Postscript: The usual humorless suspects think there's too much violence in this movie. To some extent, Tarantino has fanned the flames by saying (I paraphrase, but pretty accurately) "I want thirteen year old girls to see it. I think they'll find it empowering." This has appalled some social critics. Well, first of all Mr. Tarantino is not the most serious dude on the planet. Secondly, with its "R" rating (which should arguably be "NC-17"), a thirteen year old shouldn't be able to see it anyway. Tarantino really knows how to stir up publicity, and I'm fairly sure that's the true intent of his comment. The violence in this movie is caroonish and stylized and totally unrealistic except to the most naive and hypersensitive of people. Even so, I don't think there's as much harm in seeing Uma Thurman extract well-deserved justice at the point of a sword as there is in the brain-dead plot and action of the Charlie's Angels franchise. Uma looks like what the Angels merely play at: a woman so good at what she does that she can't be ignored. My daughter is a young woman, and I think she'll learn more about life from Kill Bill than Charlie's Angels. Some critics have said that this movie is much more violent than any of Tarantino's previous movies, and on one level that's true. However, the violence in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were much more realistic than the violence in Kill Bill. These hypersensitive critics need to get a life.)