Film Review: Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

As the attention of the average filmgoer becomes shorter with each generation and as dire socioeconomic trends make money and time more precious for those attending cinema, the length of feature films is becoming an increasingly important issue. Recently, even such renowned filmmakers like Martin Scorsese became the target of complaints over the excessive length of their works. One of the most elegant ways to address such an issue is to simply divide a feature film into two or more parts. This practice isn't new, but it was less common in Hollywood until the start of the 21st Century, when it was enthusiastically embraced by major studios trying to exploit the popularity of novels with epic lengths. One of the more original filmmakers to embrace this technique is Quentin Tarantino, whose epic action film Kill Bill was divided into two parts - Kill Bill Vol. 1, released in 2003, and Kill Bill Vol. 2, released in 2004.

The protagonist, played by Uma Thurman, is the Bride a.k.a. Black Mamba, a former member of the Deadly Viper assassination squad, the most elite group of professional killers in the world. She has decided to leave her trade, settle down and start a family, but just as she is rehearsing her wedding in a small chapel near El Paso, Texas, the Deadly Vipers led by their leader and her former mentor Bill (played by David Carradine) arrive and massacre everyone. The Bride survives, but ends up in a coma after being shot in the head. Four years later, she wakes up, escapes from the hospital and, after a brief recovery, starts the campaign of vengeance against Bill and the other Deadly Vipers. Her first target is Vernita Green a.k.a. Copperhead (played by Vivica A. Fox) who, following the massacre, was allowed by Bill to retire and start a normal life as a suburban housewife. After taking her out, the Bride flies to Japan where she meets Hanzo Hattori (played by Sonny Chiba), a former master swordsmith who comes out of retirement in order to forge the weapon necessary to eliminate the next target on her list. This is O-Ren Ishii a.k.a. Cottonmouth (played by Lucy Liu) who became the leader of the Japanese yakuza and who is always followed by a small army of bodyguards led by the deadly schoolgirl Gogo Yubari (played by Chiaki Kuriyama).

The revenge plot of Kill Bill is relatively simple and it could have been told in a single feature film. But this wasn't the prime intention of Tarantino. He saw the plot, inspired by the 1973 Japanese period revenge film Lady Snowblood, as an opportunity to pay homage to countless exotic exploitation films from the 1960s onwards to which he had been exposed while working as a video store clerk and which, to various degrees, have inspired his entire opus. Those included spaghetti westerns, Japanese yakuza films, Hong Kong martial arts films and cheap European genre films that could have been seen in US grindhouse cinema theatres in the 1960s and 1970s. Tarantino gathered such a treasure trove of exotic cinema references that he felt the need to display it in its entirety, which ultimately required the film to be divided into two parts. Commercial considerations and pressure by Miramax studio boss Harvey Weinstein also played a part, with Tarantino wisely deciding to split his work into two parts rather than risk unnecessary cuts.

By allowing the plot to play out at a leisurely pace, Tarantino not only created more room for plenty of cinephile references, but also an opportunity for experimentation in style. Those include a memorable anime sequence that gives background to O-Ren Ishii, as well as even more memorable scenes of the final showdown between the Bride and O-Ren Ishii that take place in a Tokyo restaurant. Tarantino, who has, thanks to Pulp Fiction, developed a reputation for depicting extreme violence in his films despite them having relatively low body counts, seems to have enjoyed triggering his critics by scenes that feature decapitations, mutilations and dozens of characters meeting their end in the most bloody ways possible. Some of it was too much even for the notoriously hypocritical censors of the MPAA ratings board, so Tarantino had to tone it down and, among other things, shot some of the bloodbath in black and white, correctly assuming that it won't be as offensive to more sensitive viewers as presented in colour. But it is that very stylishness that makes Kill Bill look more artificial and, as such, makes the violence and the film less serious and easier to accept as almost self-parodical entertainment.

Tarantino was fortunate to have a good cast at his disposal. That involved Uma Thurman who plays what is arguably her most iconic role, a character that is both an embodiment of all the tropes of exploitation cinema and a feminist action heroine at the same time. David Carradine, an old B-cinema action star, appears only as a background presence, while the role of the übervillain is enthusiastically played by Lucy Liu. A large number of great actors appear in small roles and those include some who are, like Thurman, old Tarantino associates – Michael Madsen in a small role of Budd a.k.a. Sidewinder and Michael Parks as Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, a character who appeared in other films written by Tarantino (like From Dusk till Dawn and Planet Terror). A homage to Japanese cinema is played by casting old action star Sonny Chiba and young Chiaki Kurayami, one of the stars of the more recent Battle Royale. French actress Julie Dreyfus, on the other hand, plays a somewhat underwritten character of O-Ren Ishii's lawyer Sophie Fatale. Another important asset of the film, like in many of Tarantino's films, is the music, which is here based on various old soundtracks, old pop hits like Zamfir's "Lonely Shepherd" and some new material, like "Battle Without Honor and Humanity", an instrumental piece by Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei who would later become extensively used in various trailers and commercials. Tarantino displays such skill and provides so much entertainment to the audience that even the cliffhanger ending doesn't seem as annoying in Kill Bill than in many two-part Hollywood films at the time.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

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