chock full of cheap thrills

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2004)

i was lucky enough to see a pre-release two days before opening night.
quentin tarantino is a hollywood phenomenon. the amount of success he's had for the small quantity of work he has done draws suspicion of selling his soul to satan. as a virtual unknown he's butted heads with giant oliver stone (for butchering his screenplay to natural born killers, of which he had his name removed from), caused a frenzy with his directorial debut resivoir dogs (which was brilliantly ripped off from ringo lam's city on fire), and was hailed as a god with his sophmore effort pulp fiction - which made bruce willis and john travolta cool again, made neil diamond sound sexy, and had the mouths of america watering for a big kahuna burger. his third release, jackie brown, was a masterpiece in terms of bringing it's charachters to life, but was almost too mature for it's own good, but not enough to make us lose our anticipation for #4- KILL BILL. KILL BILL is a simple tale of revenge. a nameless bride who was once a deadly assassian leaves her organization to get married and have a baby, but the whole wedding party gets slaughtered, the bride gets a bullet through the noggin, but miraculously survives through a 4 year coma, wakes up, and wants to kill the man responsible- bill. that is the plot in it's entirety... but in KILL BILL story is second, style is everything, and this movie oozes style. KILL BILL is a tribute to the grindhouse films of the 1970's (for all you youngn's out there, grindhouse is a term for the theatres that played all of the low-budget action, B-movies(what they used to call independant films), exploitation films, kung-fu films, and samurai films in the days before the invention of the video-cassette) and is chock full of swordfights, fake blood, campy dialogue, cool cars, and evil villans. tarantino even goes as far as using 70's cult legends like sonny chiba (the guy from the street fighter movies), gordon liu (the guy who plays the abbot in just about every kung-fu flick that has shaolin in it's title), and yuen wo ping (the dude who directed fist of legend). there are no special effects that couldn't have been done in the 1970's, but the cinematography, direction, editing, and action choreography are exquisitely cutting edge. KILL BILL was never intended to be split into two volumes. it was written and filmed as one long movie, but near it's completion the studio, being greedy, wanted it cut into two parts. seeing as how this was a 4-hour long film told through individual, out-of-sequence chapters, a split was not unrealistic. parts 1 and 2 were originally suppossed to be released 2 weeks apart, as tarantino wanted both in the same theatre at the same time, but again the studio changed that so part 2 would coincide with the dvd release of part 1- after all, if both films were released simotaniously, the public would expect 1 dvd with both parts- this way we'll have to buy part 1, then part 2, then the deluxe box set with both parts and a collector's pin. i'm assuming all of you have seen vol1 already. if you havn't, then treat yourself to one of the modern masterpieces of american cinematography. if you have, then going to see vol2 is a no-brainer, because you've only seen half a film. vol2 is evry bit as good as vol1, though it is definitely different. there are no over-the-top gorefests like with the crazy 88's, the action is much more subtle, but every bit as memorable. the story really unfolds in vol2, and you learn everything you've ever wanted to know about bill, the DVAS, black mamba's real name, and why she was getting married to someone else while she was carrying bill's baby. this film is a true work of art and should be cherished as such. watching KILL BILL made me feel both privledged and enlightened. tarantino struck gold by recycling his love for low-budget movies and reminding us what the art of filmmaking is all about- entertainment. america's greatest asset.