Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) - Review

This could've been an amazing revenge movie, but it is ultimately brought down by numerous flaws such as plot holes, no character development, and a ton of overly-sadistic violence.

This story is about a woman known as The Bride who was knocked out at her wedding where most of the people who attended it, including her husband and, supposedly, her daughter were killed. After waking up from a 4-year long coma, she seeks revenge on everyone who betrayed her and attempts to murder them all one by one.

Quentin Tarantino likes to make his plot lines out of order. Usually, this is a good thing because it leaves a lot of room for re-watching his movies. In fact, that is one of the things which made Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs so good. However, it doesn't work for this movie because some of the scenes in it make no sense at all and they don't seem to fit anywhere in the plot line of the movie. It made me think that I somehow missed an earlier movie. An example of these scenes include the scene when she fights a mother and kills her in front of her daughter.

There is also no character development in the movie. This movie's final act requires for you to care about the characters in the film and the connection I was supposed to have just wasn't there for me. I didn't feel this because the characters aren't very developed in the film. Because of this, it was hard for me to care about any of the characters in the film, and I could care less for which ones lived and which ones died. Character development matters in films where the main character is facing death. Take this sentence and tell it to everyone who has ever thought of directing a movie before.

Also, there are numerous plot holes. By far, the biggest one is how the police are never called in the film. Examples of scenes in the film where the police should've been called include her killing a doctor and not even attempting to hide his body, killing a mother in front of her own child, and the massacre at the Japanese restaurant at the end. Since the film is grounded in present day, the police should have been called more often. Another plot hole in the film is how O-Ren Ishii got to the head of the Japanese Mafia despite having awful bodyguards and adequate fighting skills at best.

Quentin Tarantino likes putting sadistic violence into his movies. However, he takes it way too far here. People are decapitated, eyeballs are ripped out, young girls see their mothers murdered, and people have their limbs cut off. Some people said that the violence is presented in an over-the-top way, but I didn't see that at all. In this movie, the violence is presented in a more serious way with people screaming in agony and people wriggling around on the ground like a worm after their body parts are chopped off. This isn't fun violence. The violence here is appalling, deeply unpleasant, and viscerally disturbing. The sadism in this movie lacks any context and the movie is just being sadistic for the sake of sadism. Sadism also extends to other areas in the movie besides bloody violence such as how a doctor raped The Bride when she was in a coma, how the same doctor allowed other patients to rape her as well, and a guy getting his head slammed in a door for information until he dies. It's utterly grotesque and it makes you feel sickened after watching it.

Also, the fight scene at the end between The Bride and O-Ren Ishii felt very underwhelming, unimpressive, and slow-moving. I felt more suspense in the Crazy 88 fight and previous fights than that one. The problem with it is that it had long instances of them pausing and staring at each other and a couple very short scenes of them fighting each other. Because of this, it felt unnecessarily slow-moving. Also, the few instances of them fighting were unimpressive to say the least. Since that's the final fight, you'll expect that she'll have the most trouble killing her. However, I'll argue that the elite Crazy 88 and Gogo Yubari were more difficult for her to fight since they did more damage to her.

I will admit that there are some good parts to this film. Mainly that of the production design and cinematography. Sets are beautifully shot and gorgeous to look at. The film also has pretty great acting which is much better than what the film deserves. Also, the final few minutes are a pretty good ending and setup for the next film and the fight between The Bride and Gogo Yubari is actually pretty good.

However, these few and minor positive points don't overshadow the numerous flaws in the movie because it has a poor plot line, lack of character development, plot holes, sadistic violence, and a disappointing final fight. Unfortunately, because of this, I can't really recommend Kill Bill to anyone except die hard Tarantino fans and action movie and violence fanatics. Tarantino is a great filmmaker who has made many great movies in his career, but he unfortunately wasted his time and money on a self-indulgent vanity project like this one.

Final Verdict: 3/10 Awful