QT's gor(e)geous return!

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2006)

Six years after Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino tackles a new genre, one that has been exploited hundreds of times in all the B-movies he so deeply loves: the revenge flick. And in terms of style, Kill Bill: Vol.1 has a kind of "B" look: very little is told about The Bride (Uma Thurman) and her motivations. All we know is she was an ex killer, who was brutally attacked on her wedding day and shot in the head by former boss (and lover) Bill (David Carradine). After a four-year coma, all she wants is bloody revenge. And bloody it shall be...
Actually, a lot of people complained about the excessive violence in this film (a Finnish critic, whose opinion I don't share, compared Vol.1 and Sin City by defining both movies "a pointless violence choreography"). Come on, how can anyone take those scenes seriously? They are beautiful, but SO surreal: you lose a finger, and half the blood in your entire body bursts out like it was a volcano erupting! That's the brilliance of Tarantino's work: the movie is 5% talking, 95% killing, but the gore is so unnatural you can't help laughing at it and just enjoy the whole thing.
As I said before, Kill Bill: Vol.1 is more style than content: those who expect the usual pop culture-related dialogue will be more satisfied when they see Vol.2, as will the people who want more insight on the characters. There is though one person we get to know more about: O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), the number #1 on The Bride's death list. But in the end the best scene with her happens to be completely silent: her slow motion entrance in the House of Blue Leaves. It's an excellent sequence, brilliantly scored by Rza (the first time QT uses original music).
Oh, I almost forgot: there is one thing left from Tarantino's earlier films: impeccable acting. Vivica Fox, Sonny Chiba, Daryl Hannah and the aforementioned Liu and Carradine (who doesn't show up that much, actually) are great, but the film really is a one-man show, or rather one-woman: Uma Thurman was, to put it mildly, BORN to play the lead in this movie. She's so mesmerizing, no wonder QT calls her his "muse".
An almost perfect film, with only one defect: the last line spoken by Bill, which spoils the second part's main surprise. Apart from that, it's hell of a movie!
9,5/10