Kill Bill

I was surprised by how much I liked this film. I am only a moderate fan of Pulp Fiction, and I haven’t seen Quentin Tarantino other films Jackie Brown, and Reservoir Dogs. This being his fourth film (the 5th being Kill Bill Volume 2 arriving in theaters in February) Tarantino has shown expert direction skills implying different camera techniques and devices to give this film a sleek appearance.

The basic plot of the movie that a pregnant female member of an assassin death squad wishes to retire and get married. During the wedding ceremony her former co-workers as well as her old boss (Bill) arrive and massacre the entire wedding party as well as the priest. This character is played by Uma Thurman, and is only referred to in the movie as “The Bride”. Her name is bleeped out during a few sequences. The Bride doesn’t end up dying- just beaten unconscious, and instead is admitted into a hospital where she lies in a coma. A few years later she reawakes, and vows to seek revenge on her enemies.

This movie was very stylish employing different techniques such as black and white film, martial arts scenes in front of a blue screen while the fighters’ silhouettes are only visible, using animation for the flashbacks, dividing the story into chapters, and like Pulp Fiction- a storyline with a non-continuous time frame (meaning the scenes do not always appear in chronological order).

You can tell that Tarantino must be a huge fan of the Samurai film genre. You could see his Kurasawa influences (for those of you who have watched Jap Samurai films). The blood and gore in this movie were so abundant to the point where it seemed to be ridiculously unnecessary. But that being said, the battle scenes were very poetic and well choreographed- giving those scenes a sense of beauty amid the outlandish amounts of fake blood. Also, some of the scenes where limbs were being chopped off were comical when the blood shot out 4 feet.

The story was pretty good and it leaves the viewer with a cliffhanger aside from the obvious fact that she hasn’t “Killed Bill” yet. I definitely recommend this movie, and even the girls that I know who have seen it enjoyed it, which is pretty rare among action movies that have a lot of gore in them. Awesome movie and I hope the 2nd part is just as cool as this one was. How can you not like a movie that Lucy Liu dies in?