A sumptuous tale of revenge

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2004)

Any new Quentin Tarantino movie has to rank with what you might call 'event cinema'. I say this because few directors give you that feeling that what you are about to see will be something really special, but Scorsese, Spielberg, James Cameron, Ridley Scott and Michael Mann give me that feeling. Now I would put Quentin up there.
As it says' it's the 'fourth film' by QT. But Tarantino's brilliance as a story teller and director is upstaged by even his casting (remember Mr Blonde in Reservoir Dogs - who else could have played that, and still, for me, is the best Tarantino creation). The Bride, played by the often excellent Uma Thurman is a brilliant character, only upstaged in Vol 1. by Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii.
**SPOILER AHEAD** Okay, the film opens proper when The Bride pays a call to Vernita Green, but the film shows the Bride's Death List 5 - the five people she is going to kill, with O-Ren already wasted. We know QT uses the flashbacks and back and forth mode of story telling, but would'nt it be more exciting to know, or in this case, not know, O-Ren's fate? **END OF SPOILER**
After the disappointing Jackie Brown, 'Kill Bill' had to be something special. With his first two films QT had set an incredibly high standard for himself and with KB 1 and 2 he shows an awesome return to form.
The story itself is simplistic, but as the man said, how complex do you need a revenge flick to be?
Gunned down at her wedding by her ex-boss, Bill, the Bride recovers from a coma, setting out to kill those who put her in a coma in the first place. For Vol 1, the 'Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves' is a great finale, and is filmed really beautifully too.
The use of anime, black and white, blue photography is brilliant and does never detract from the film.
Sonny Chiba is fantastic as Hattori Hanzo, and another star is well, the soundtrack, featuring maybe the best piece of music I've heard in ten years, it's the 'Battle without Hounour or Humanity' and is used when O-Ren and her gang are walking through the 'House'.
Quentin Tarantino clearly has borrowed ideas from others in the genre to make it, but he takes that, and makes something a hundred times better.
Vol 2 is also excellent, but as kick ass, pulsating cinema goes, it does not get better than Kill Bill Vol 1, and ranks second only to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon as my favourite martial arts film. It's SO good, that you can watch it on it's own and enjoy as a 'complete film' - the ending is classy and the whole film itself is jawdropping. Simply put, this is awesome.