I heard someone say Fight Porn. There's no question.

Rating: Null/10 (10 October 2003)

Kill Bill
There's something almost hypnotic about a screen face full of Uma Thurman staring directly at us and demanding `Wiggle your big toe.' She says this so much it starts to dawn on me that maybe she's speaking in code. Or perhaps I then realized shes so convincing in this one scene,that she could be spouting any mundane detail and I would think she is whispering the secrets of her life. Truth be told,a life was almost what she didn't have. We know her only as `The Bride'. A young women whos whole purpose is to take aim and revenge at the very people who killed her daughter and laid her in a comatose state for 4 years. The film opens with just what the film trailers promise, revenge. This film is so raw ,obtuse and prurient, that I started to love it. Kill Bill slays,guts,beheads,shreds,kicks,cracks and amputates everything that comes on frame. In fact sword use was so often used that when I generally here gunfire from film,I hardly flinch,let alone notice. Taranatino made me jump twice. This film follows all the formulas of kung fu films of the 70's and spaghetti westerns of the 60's that Quentin even has a cute homage of Feature Presentation at the start. He acknowledges his own work and even continues his small micro cosmic universe that he created years ago. We see Resevoir Dogs get a chinese influence,Red Apples cigarettes and Uma winking at Mrs Mia Wallace. The film is brilliant and an experiment in squibs that I now understand the reason for 2 volumes(due in February). Who could possibly sit through 3 hours of this film and not become aghast? A marketing ploy this is not. He realized the power of his own creation. He realized the energy of it. He knew a break for the audience was needed. Surely he was right. Making this into more of an epic would hurt the timing and pace. It's storytelling is choppy and unpolished. We remember very little of dialouge that we usually get from Quentin. There is no `Dead nigger storage'. It would be to hap hazard to recommend this film for fan boys, as they are not interested in knowing if this film is good or not. There mind was made up months ago. Kill Bill was a blood thirsty treat bag and it reminded me of the first time I saw the Wild Bunch. That too was frightenly brash that I had to watch it again and again. Good films do that. I think I'm going to Kill Bill.