One of the finest revenge movies ever made

Rating: 8/10 (10 November 2015)

"Kill Bill: Vol. 1" is an American action movie from 12 years ago. Now, action is usually not my favorite genre at all, but there is so much more to it. But let us start from the beginning. The writer and director is Quentin Tarantino and at 110 minutes, this one is much shorter than his more recent works. However, you could of course also see this one and the sequel as one movie and then it would be a 4-hour watch. I am truly surprised this film here did not score any Academy Award nominations, especially in categories such as Cinematography, Art Direction or Costume. It's top-notch in these areas and same goes for Thurman as lead actress. I am generally not even a big fan of her really, but she was amazing in this one. At least the Globes and BAFTAs did not overlook her.
This movie actually starts with the ending of the film if we take a chronological look at it with The Bride vs. Vernita. We even see in her list that she had already killed O-Ren at this point. But that is not a problem at all. This film is not about if she will succeed, but how she will succeed. We all know she won't be stopped on her path to revenge. We probably already know as well that she will kill the other guys on her list in the sequel. This was pretty interesting as the division in chapters made this a very clean-structured film, but the non-chronology messed things up again. Pretty smart move by Tarantino. I am usually more a fan of chronological films, but here it works very nicely, especially on rewatches.
It's obvious Tarantino had a great time making this movie. not only was he working with his muse Uma Thurman, but he could also make this a tribute to all the films and genres he loves being a film nerd himself. And there are some pretty gimmicky scenes occasionally, such as O-Ren's last words and camera shot, the one in which the Bride sends the young fighter back to his mother or when she acts really dumb before disclosing her real intention with Hanzo or the Charlie Brown joking. There are really quite a few memorable characters in here. It's not just the Bride, it's also O-Ren, Sofie Fatale, Gogo Yubari and others... This should also put an end to those criticisms saying Tarantino is not good at writing female characters.
The heart and soul of the film is probably the entire chapter featuring O-Ren. Everything before is good too: Vernita, the church scenes, the hospital scenes... but the Asian part of this movie is the best and the snow fight sequence at the end is a thing of beauty. Tarantino also truly managed to go out on a high note with which he made people very curious about the 2nd Kill Bill movie. I quite like that one too (and I will certainly review it at some point), even if probably not as much as I enjoy the first. "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" is a mesmerizing watch: great characters, excellent story and a blessing in terms of visuals. Highly recommended.