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Kill Bill Vol 1 - Movie Review - DVD - Buy Movies - Rent Movies
Kill Bill Vol.1 is Tarantino’s Eastern. Yes, he has infused his own brand of dark humour in this movie but Vol. 1 is a blend of 70’s Samurai, Kung Fu and exploitation movies (to name a few genres). He says it’s a homage to these types of movies he watched when he was younger. (E.g. Game of death, Lady Snowblood, any Kung Fu film by the Shaw Bros). So has he ripped off these genres of films because he has no ideas of his own or is he a genius? To be honest this does not really matter because what we have here is the best Martial arts/action movie of 2003.
Uma Thurman plays BLEEP, aka the bride or Black Mamba who, after being shot down bang bang in the head at her own wedding, awakes from a coma and surprise surprise wants revenge. She then goes on a bloody rampage to settle scores with old acquaintances i.e. The Deadly Viper Assassin Squad and ultimately their boss, Bill who was responsible for her and her wedding party being gunned down. From here what we have is a pulsating, violent movie that is going to be very hard to be surpassed.
Thurman is brilliant as well as athletic as the high kicking, samurai sword-wielding, yellow haired warrior gunning for revenge and she is supported well by Julie Dreyfus, (the multi-lingual one) and briefly by Vivica A. Fox (Copperhead) and Daryl Hannah (Elle Driver). However the best performance comes from Lucy Lui as O-Ren Ishii as the female leader of all the Yakuza clans who will take your F****** head if you bring up her half Japanese-Chinese American heritage as a negative. Lucy Lui rises to the challenge of being cast in a Tarantino movie better than anyone expected. The way she portrays a beautiful, feminine, softly spoken woman in one hand then a cold ruthless assassin in the next shows that she is a talented actress that probably has not found the right roles. This is Lui’s best performance to date, which will hopefully make the Charlie’s Angels movies a far distant memory.
Tarantino’s eastern is well directed which goes some way to cover the reality that some of the dialogue in this movie is weak but lets not get pretentious about this fact. This is not a film about conversation. There’s no “Royale with Cheese” or discussions about the right and wrongs of giving another man’s wife a foot massage. This is about a woman scorned who wants vengeance. This is about revenge, bloodshed and violence. This is a full-blown Martial arts/action movie where the fighting comes first and the dialogue a distant second. Too add to this Tarantino’s imagination and inventiveness goes wild by adding an Anime sequence about the roots of O-Ren that is not only absorbing but also bloody, sickening, and very brutal. This adds another element to not only to story and character but also to the ingenuity of the film.
However no Tarantino film is complete without a cool soundtrack and is very very cool. Some of the songs played in specific scenes of the film are actually relevant, have meaning and make a lot of sense. (They make even more sense if you’ve listened to the whole OST). So not only is this Quentin’s best film but the music is his finest and funkiest he has ever chosen to be played in any of his movies. From the haunting Elle Driver intro (twisted nerve) to the Mexican Latino beats of Santa Esmeralda you’ll be tapping your toes whilst being engrossed in the movie.
Another factor contributing to the brilliance of this film was the hiring of Master Yuen Woo-Ping as the Martial Arts director. Best known in Hong Kong/China for directing many a film including the fantastic Jackie Chan classic, Drunken Master and Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Master Woo-Ping does not let us down with his anti-gravitational, eye popping fight sequences that will surely live long in the memory i.e. Showdown in the House of Blue Leaves. Too add to Quentin’s masterstroke Sonny Chiba hops on board as Bill’s former tutor, as does the old skool Shaw Bros. favourite Gordon Lui.
Tarantino has clearly made this movie for is own entertainment as he has stated before and you truly do believe that you are there as a passenger coming along for the ride. Even though this is a graphic, violent movie it does not detract from the fact that this is truly a brilliant piece of filmmaking. Anyone can make a Martial arts/action movie paying homage to all the films they watched when they were younger but only Tarantino can do this and pull it off. This is QT at his best.
So has QT made the world sit up and take notice of his own brand and filmmaking? The answer is YES. Is he a Genius? In terms of filmmaking he’s not far off! Leon Nicholson |
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