Carnage a la Tarantino

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2012)

Quentin Tarantino's blood-soaked revenge thriller "Kill Bill, Volume 1" differs from anything the "Pulp Fiction" director has ever attempted. Unlike his previous crime movies, "Kill Bill, Volume 1" doesn't flaunt his distinctive way with dialogue and the characters are nothing like those in "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown." Tarantino still uses titles to establish locations and he divides this narrative up into several chapters. Although he plots the gritty action out of chronological order, this movie isn't as fractured as his earlier films. Furthermore, "Kill Bill, Volume 1" isn't as referential as his earlier work. Indeed, the characters don't mention other movies. Nevertheless, "Kill Bill" contains other kinds of reference. Spaghetti western aficionados will recognize his use of musical selections from two Lee Van Cleef horse operas, Luis Bacalov's "Grand Duel" and Ennio Morricone's "Death Rides a Horse." One character whistles the "Twisted Nerve" tune that Alfred Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrman wrote as well as Quincy Jones' "Ironside" theme. The closest that Tarantino comes to visual cinematic allusions is the yellow outfit the Uma Thurman wears; this is a reference to Bruce Lee. Celebrated Asian stars Sonny Chiba and Gordon Liu have cameos. Michael Parks, one of the most underrated of all Hollywood actors, reprises his role as Texas lawman Earl McGraw that he originated in "From Dusk Till Dawn."
The first half of this two volume film set features tall, slender Uma Thurman looking for the evil dastards that crashed her El Paso wedding ceremony and butchered nine people, including her husband. Our pregnant heroine was left for dead on the floor at the scene of this blood splattered massacre. Miraculously, The Bride survived this slaughter, spent four years in a coma, and only through the intervention of the man who very nearly killed her, the eponymous Bill, wasn't killed as she lay in her bed when one-eyed assassin Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah of "Splash") visits her. The recovery scene in Coma Ward RM 402 of the hospital is similar to but not as suspenseful as a similar scene in the Steven Seagal thriller "Hard to Kill."
The first volume follows The Bride (Uma Thurman of "Batman & Robin") as she searches for those homicidal maniacs who changed her life forever. She confronts the first in California and has it out with her, Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox of "Independence Day"), until Vernita's daughter arrives home from school. The two women call a truce just long enough for Vernita to try and shoot her through a cereal box with KaBoom on it. Afterward, The Bride flies to Okinawa where she meets Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba of "The Streetfighter") and persuades him to forge her samurai sword like no other to take on O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Lui) and her army of swordsmen. Reluctantly, Hattori fashions a sword for her, the first sword that he has made since he took a vow 28 years earlier to stop making swords. Part of the reason is that The Bride tells him that he is responsible in part for what has happened to her. Silently, Hattori uses his finger as a pen and scrawls the name Bill on a window pane. He takes a month to create an entirely new sword from scratch.
Basically, "Kill Bill" is a duel between The Bride and O-Ren. Tarantino stages some impressive battle sequences, specifically the non-stop fight in a restaurant between The Bride and O-Ren's army of Yakuza killers. You've got to have a strong stomach to handle the gory action as well as some of the unsavory characters, principally a hospital nurse named Buck who allows his friends to have their way with the unconscious Bride until a mosquito awakens her from her coma. Tarantino doesn't something else that he has never done. He has our heroine narrate the rise of O-Ren in the Japanese underworld and depicts her emergence as one of the top Tokyo criminals in anime. "Kill Bill, Volume 1" concludes on a surprising note.