Wonderful, epic martial arts film...

Rating: 10/10 (16 April 2004)

...Every director has an epic. For David Lean it was `Lawrence of Arabia'. For Steven Speilberg it was the `Indiana Jones' trilogy. For Peter Jackson it was `The Lord of the Rings'. `Kill Bill' is Tarantino's epic.
The story of The Bride (Uma Thurman), a former assassin gunned down by her old comrades at her wedding rehearsal, and how she awakes from a coma four years later, hungry for vengeance. Her first targets are O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), the first now a Japanese crime boss and the second an American housewife. The Bride locates her prey, meets them, declares `unfinished business' and engages in a battle.
Of course, it's not easy. Vernita is a master with a knife and O-Ren has a massive amount of bodyguards. What I like about this is that the story isn't told in chronological order. It's unusual in a movie that the first target (O-Ren) in the movie is more of a challenge than the second (Vernita) but realistic (the first target is not always easier), but Tarantino decides to tell the battle with Vernita before the battle with O-Ren.
Tarantino's script is also written well. It's not as impressive or quotable as `Pulp Fiction' or `Reservoir Dogs', but it's better than ninety-nine percent of your usual Hollywood writer. His direction is the feat here though. He's always talked about how much he loves action movies, but he's never directed one up until now. Here he proves he can direct an action movie better than your usual Michael Bay or George Lucas. The camerawork is perfect and the camera tricks are clever. Going in and out of black and white, just showing the silhouettes of the characters fighting, playing spaghetti western type music during the fight scenes, all pieces of the puzzle of some great action sequences.
If Tarantino were Edward D. Wood Jr. then Sonny Chiba would be his Bela Lugosi. It's lovely seeing Tarantino work with his idols (Pam Grier, David Carradine) and Chiba certainly works here. Chiba plays a sword maker who The Bride goes to for help; he is positively charming, funny and cool in his scenes and you can just picture Tarantino behind the camera shouting `Excellent!'
Of course, it's still only half the story. No major plot points occur, the characters aren't really developed, and there are no plot twists until the very end. If you're looking for all that, then chances are you'll like Volume 2 more, but if you're the kind of person for great action with some dramatic elements, you'll love Volume 1, 8/10.