In 2003, Master Tarantino Forged us his Finest Movie ...

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2011)

A big slap in the face proving me once and for all that Quentin Tarantino is the most gifted and creative director of his generation. "Kill Bill Vol. 1" isn't just one of the most thrilling and stylish action films ever, but also a captivating tale of revenge, justice, honor and redemption, incarnated by one of the most iconic characters of the 2000's, "The Bride" : Uma Thurman in an Oscar worthy performance. And not only "Kill Bill" is a career-defining film for Tarantino, the director, but it also establishes his unique talent as a storyteller.
The movie opens with a blood-splattered face that belongs to "The Bride", whose name will be 'beeped' all through the film. We see the massacre and foresee the recurrent theme in Tarantino's films : revenge, defined by the opening sentence as "a dish served cold" and the haunting music that interrupts the Bride's "Bill, it's your baby " directly plunges us in the darkness of her comatose state while she mourns an irreplaceable loss and wonders why 'her baby shot her down'. As usual, music plays a crucial part in a Tarantino film, with this unique power to get us in the right mood, and I can't think of any movie that pulled the strings of my emotions with such virtuosity, I can't think of a movie with a greater soundtrack. Music is Tarantino's language that translates what images and words can't express. And considering the film's style and the scenario, this is saying a lot.
"Kill Bill" pays tribute to the famous Kung-fu Asiatic B-movies that replaced the Western Spaghetti during the 70's. These movies were famous for their choreographed fighting, Shakespearian-themed badly dubbed over-the-top dialogs, and stylish violence. What they lacked in budget, they made it up with style, something that the action genre cruelly lacks now. Call them cheesy, dated, laughable, but never underestimate the talent required for probably the most difficult genre to handle. Action requires a meticulous editing, and a tactful direction, and more than anything, it needs authenticity in the story, the hero, the motives, the emotions. "The Bride" is a wonderful cinematic creation embodying all the classic heroic virtues, a woman who got the crap of her life, beaten, husband and relatives massacred by Bill, leader of the 'Deadly Viper Assassination Squad', and an unborn child. She couldn't even get a break at the hospital, when the nurse, Buck, used her as a sex doll. But Buck brings a client the wrong night when she decided she won't take it anymore. He gets his comeuppance, and she gets her car, poetic justice.
The fight scenes in "Kill Bill" transcend the charm of 70's Kung-fu films, revering through them a whole culture, that brought up so many iconic images and beautiful stories of virtue and courage. As a kid who grew up with the mangas, I can't describe how I felt when watching the chapter about O'Ren Ishi, and how the violence orchestrated by the incredible Luis Bacalov's "Big Duel" music brought tears to my eyes. And our empathy to O'Ren's back-story foreshadows our satisfaction when The Bride will get her revenge. When O'Ren kills Boss Matsumoto who ordered the death of her parents, she was literally savoring his blood like the exquisite taste of the cold dish. More than the music, the images, the action, "Kill Bill" takes time to introduce all the Bride's targets on which she swore revenge. The first to die is Vernita Green, now a homemaker with a five-year old girl, coincidentally the same age as the Bride's daughter  if she was alive. She'll witness the brutal death of her mother, a sad illustration of the implacable 'eye for an eye' rule.
Each character has one moment to shine in. Elle Driver is introduced under a nurse's disguise, visiting the comatose Bride for a lethal injection, whistling the iconic 'Twisted Nerve' theme, before a serene male voice interrupts her and cancels the order for ethical reasons. O'Ren is chronologically the first target, her crew is composed by Gogo Yubari, a sadist schoolgirl-dressed bodyguard, Sofie Fatale as the half-French, half-Japanese right-hand and her henchmen, the Crazy 88, lead by Johnny Mo. Before getting O'Ren, The Bride asks the legendary sword-smith Hattori Santo to forge her a sword. This part is the last calm little moment before the storm, conducted by the beautiful Zhamfir's score "The Lonely Shepherd". Here again, I applaud Tarantino's musical taste as the themed beautifully embodied Samurai values with a Morriconesque melody, a beautiful melancholic sound before the music gets more frenetic. Following the "Bumblebee" song, the Bride tails O'Ren in Tokyo to the last stand in a Japanese restaurant, where a bare-feet female band plays some catchy Japanese Rockabilly.
The fight that follows is the climax the movie needed, screaming villains, sounds of strident gurgles, geysers of blood painting the floor in red, over-the-top, stylish, a pastiche of whatever fascinates us in Martial Arts films. And we know the Bride will be victorious, because she deserves to. And Tarantino has a way to show the fight, after having thrilled us with a poetry that would have made Kurosawa proud, the last shot of the Bride dominating the restaurant's floor is like a "Ran" painting. And the concluding fight with O'Ren, with the 'Santa Esmeralda's instrumental sound, concludes with O'Ren apologizing for having mocked the Bride, as a last redemption ... before joining her parents.
Of course, the movie features Tarantino's trademarks, the non-linear narrative structure edited by the late Sally Menke, the action, the violence, a foot-fetish to the extreme (not for my displeasure though) but more than anything, it's about honor and revenge, and the last minute featuring the shots of the second volume, transported me again with Zhamfir's music, brining some tears back, and hooking my heart with one of the most shocking finales ever, with the last line starting by "One more thing, Sofie "