By
Louis Dennig
Staff Writer
Whether you love or hate him there’s no getting around the fact that Quentin
Tarentino has filmmaking style to the nines. Tarentino’s unique style
shines out through the entirety of his fourth film, Kill Bill Vol. 1, a samurai
revenge film that takes a slew of old Japanese samurai movie styles and puts
them all into one incredible, and incredibly gory, work of genius.
Uma Thurman stars as “The Bride” whose real name is bleeped out
throughout the film for reasons that hopefully will be revealed in vol. 2. Thurman
delivers a flawless performance that could not have been delivered better by
any actress today. Her contained anger when talking to or about any of her sworn
enemies is so chilling that the audience knows they wouldn’t want to see
her in a dark alleyway anytime soon.
The film itself starts out with such a chilling and gory event that for the
rest of the movie the audience knows that anything could happen at any time,
and this feeling doesn’t go away, considering that anything does happen
at any time in Kill Bill.
“The Bride” awakes after a three-year coma only to remember that
at her wedding, her former employer, Bill, sent his “Deadly Viper Assassination
Squad (D.I.V.A.S.)” to kill her fiancé, her entire wedding party,
and herself, and her formerly pregnant stomach shows that her baby is also dead.
The following sequence is one of the most disgusting ideas ever shown on film,
but as Tarentino showed in Reservoir Dogs, he likes to push the limits of what
audiences can take.
Thurman then goes on a revenge rampage against the four D.I.V.A.S. members to
avenge her deceased husband and child. In Vol.1, “The Bride” gets
to take out her revenge on Vivica A. Fox and Lucy Liu, the first two people
on her “Death List.”
As Tarentino so enjoys doing, he plays around with time by showing the fight
between Thurman and Fox before the Liu battle occurs: as Thurman crosses Fox
off the death list at the beginning of the film, a black line already covers
Liu’s name.
Kill Bill has some imagery and shots that have so much style and ingenuity that
they are immediately recognizable as Tarentino’s work. For example, while
Fox and Thurman are dueling it out in Fox’s living room, the two are staring
each other down with a huge window behind them, which reveals a school bus stopping
and Fox’s child getting out. Also, whenever Thurman first sees one of
her adversaries a retro 60’s yellow and red spiraling “Batman-esque”
filter comes up accompanied by a siren signifying that someone’s about
to get his butt kicked.
Apparently, when Miramax first saw the script for Kill Bill there was a sequence
which they had no idea how Tarentino could make a reality without brandishing
the film with a NC-17 rating - and keep in mind there isn’t any nudity
in the movie. In the animated story of the origins of Liu’s character
the gore is so extreme, yet the animation so stylish and inventive, that it’s
not seen as nearly as unsettling and unnecessary as it really should be.
Finally, the battle between Thurman and Liu’s Yakuza 88’s (an army
of 88 samurai) is one of the flat-out coolest scenes ever. This fight, which
is too huge for words, features unrivaled fight choreography, and cinematography
great enough to encourage far more than one audible yelp from the audience.
All in all, Kill Bill, is a movie about watching a beautiful actress wail on
her adversaries with a samurai sword. However, with the added bonus of a fantastic
script and story, phenomenal music, and the incredible Tarentino directing,
this is one of the top three movies to come to Olin this year. And to think!
This is only one half of a movie; Vol. 2 will be released in April to coincide
with the DVD release of Vol. 1.
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