Tremendous fun!!

Rating: 10/10 (23 March 2008)

Let me just get one thing out there: this movie kicks ass!!! That thought repeated through my head many times as I leaned back in my seat, eyebrows raised, and took in the film for the first time.
There is little in the way of emotional attachment. That might be for the best. While you can certainly empathize at times, Uma Therman's character "The Bride" (a.k.a. Black Mamba) seems mighty grim as she pursues a quest of revenge against her former colleagues.
The plot, like the title, is laughable. Black Mamba gets ambushed on her wedding day. She survives, drafts a hit list 5 names long and sets out to get her revenge.
So how could such a simple storyline with limited emotional involvement turn into 3 hours worth of sheer movie bliss? Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed it, that's how! The genius is in the details. There's an abundance of nasty surprises that will challenge your tolerance and keep you wide awake. The slower interludes are loaded with tension, intrigue and humor.
No one's lovable, but everyone is memorable. Uma Thurman is terrific in the lead. You see her character from a few different aspects. Usually she's nasty and pitiless. Occasionally she's cute. At one point she has an outburst of grief that's pretty riveting. Lucy Liu is great as O-ren Ishi, the boss of the Tokyo underworld. While obviously lethal, she somehow maintains this beautifully elegant, almost fragile presence, all decked out in her kimono. Her henchmen are colorful and imposing, like the earlier James Bond heavies. Bill (David Carradine) is genuinely mysterious, all the more so because they haven't shown his face yet.
And then there's the action. The combat is phenomenal in its execution and mind-numbing in its scope. Just when you think that has GOT to be it, they keep piling it on. One sequence is the new Mt. Everest of Kung Fu. Seriously. That alone is more than enough to keep this film on the map. Be warned: it's not harmless Jackie Chan-style slapstick combat. The blood and gore is overwhelming.
As you would expect, the music selections are devastatingly cool, and they come from all over the map. There's '70s funk. Pan flute w/ orchestra. Tex Mex. A Japanese schoolgirl power trio. You name it
It's not just the music that's eclectic. Kill Bill is a very vivid fusion of American, Chinese and Japanese genres. (At least these are the most visible elements  bear in mind that Tarantino seems to have seen every movie ever made anywhere.) The Japanese settings are stunning, and there's an entire segment beautifully done in a Japanese animation style called anime. This degree of savvy and reverence for the region is extremely rare among Western filmmakers.
All these elements are combined with great virtuosity to form a supremely entertaining movie thrill ride. You never know what's going to hit next, but whatever it is, it is likely to saturate the senses and challenge the brain. I didn't want for it to end, but I must admit: that level of intensity for 3 whole hours would be a bit much. So I can understand why they split it into two installments. Some people bitch about the severance, but I enjoyed volume 1 enough to see it twice and I can't wait to go shell out more dough and see volume 2.
Most American action films indulge in their gratuitous carnage behind a veil of contrived morality. This has come to irritate me enough to turn me off the genre. One thing I find very refreshing in Kill Bill is the absence of such pretense. It's all thrills and spills; no apologies, no disguises, no lectures.
Critics who object to this film seem to do so because it fails to pander to their various expectations. Here's a little news flash, people: it's Quentin Tarantino. If you go in expecting a repetition of his previous work or a movie that is in any way conventional and/or predictable, you're going to be disappointed  and you deserve to be. I went expecting something bold, exciting and original, with plenty of violence and a few surprises. I couldn't have been more delighted.