Not what I had hoped for

Rating: 6/10 (7 December 2003)

Having enjoyed "Pulp Fiction" and even "Jackie Brown", I had great hopes for "Kill Bill: Vol 1". I was impressed with production design, score and cinematography in general, but couldn´t get myself to enjoy the completely over-the-top blood-effects, even though I knew they were supposed to be that way as a reference to certain cheap martial-arts movies. I should say that I haven´t seen any of those, so maybe that´s why I couldn´t enjoy "Kill Bill" as much as people who did. The shifting in time, which was a master-stroke in "Pulp Fiction", seemed forced to me in "Kill Bill" and I found most of the dialog either boring or silly. No complains about the really simple revenge-story, but the second half of the movie was nearly all fighting, which became somewhat tiresome for me. I liked the cast and was especially looking forward to seeing David Carradine as Bill - he seems like the perfect choice to me, even though I hear he wasn´t Tarantino´s first choice - so I was disappointed to see so little of him in "Vol. 1". I am definitley going to see "Vol. 2", but with greatly reduced expectations.