Kill Bill Volume 1
When it (finally) came time for Quentin Tarantino to make only the fourth film of his storied and already legendary career, with him obviously in the driverâs seat to make whatever kind of film that he wanted, the still young neophyte chose to take on the Asian market with a homage to mostly Japanese crime, martial arts and samurai films, which while shallow in the acting and writing departments almost never shortchanged audiences on action, stuntwork, and if necessary, pseudo mysticism. This 2003 release (the first in a two part series) also injects a healthy dose of cold blooded revenge as part of the main story, and the portrayal by its star is stunningly daring to say the least, as the film starts with Uma Thurmanâs main character tracking down and confronting one of her five major targets, a former associate played by Vivica Fox, and the contrast is stunning: Fox is now a housewife, mother, and homemaker raising a precocious young daughter and has seemingly cleaned up her torrid life and freed herself from her dark past, while Thurman (the heroine) is now a gaunt, ruthless, completely dead eyed psychopath who despite not wishing to kill the woman in front of her daughter, repeatedly insists that she is STILL there to kill her no matter what, even as both women briefly act ânormalâ when the little girl comes walking into the room, and even moreso, Thurman reacts with utter contempt at the thought of sparing Foxâs life just so the child wonât be forced to grow up without a mother. An empty, unlikable, and even mildly cocky shell of a once decent human being, but Tarantino bravely announces that this is our main character and who weâre gonna root for here, so just take it or leave it. The motive for Thurmanâs killing spree is slightly hazy, as we basically know that she was shot up by a gang of her old assassin compadres on her wedding day while under a new identity, losing her child in the process and despite sustaining a head wound that should have been fatal, waking up four years later with a large steel plate in her skull (and no visible signs of any brain damage), and even worse, having been raped numerous times during her coma thanks to a shady orderly who had sold truckers and rednecks the opportunity to do so while she was unconscious and in intensive care, mostly due to her being a Jane Doe coma patient who was young, blonde and pretty. Of course, the backstory for Thurmanâs character would be much more deeply explored in the second half of this saga, but for now all we are told is that she was betrayed and gunned down by her former mentor named Bill (a shadowy turn here by David Carradine, where all we see of him are his hands while we hear his voice) even while the major crux of this first filmâs story involves her going after one of his main accomplices played by Lucy Liu, who since the massacre has now been set up by Bill to be the head of the Japanese Yakuza Mafia and her ruthless nature in beheading a disagreeable underling is tempered by her rather sweet nature in and of itself, a remarkably well done performance by Liu that sees her step outside her old comfort zone to bring a chilling combination of both evil and charm. To achieve this aim (and knowing that she is going to have to go through a LOT of henchmen to actually be able to get to Liu herself), Thurman travels to Japan where she tracks down a legendary yet reclusive swordmaker and trainer played by none other than Sonny Chiba, a Japanese film legend who not only starred in a large number of classic genre cinema from that country (as seen by his being referenced and shown on a movie screen in the opening scenes of True Romance) but is himself an actual REAL LIFE swordmaker and trainer in the art form of fighting with said weapon, having choreographed all the sword fight battles in this film as well, so the legitimate heft of having him return to movie acting to play this kind of role is pretty heavy indeed. Convincing the reluctant man to help her after invoking the mere mention of Billâs name (apparently the man had burned a LOT of bridges in his time), Thurman now armed with her new sword heads for Tokyo to take down Liu along with whatever and whoever the newly minted crime boss can throw at her. And while the final battle is indeed epic in all regards, it still seems patently ridiculous that A) A roomful of Yakuza thugs are faced with one woman and a sword, and yet NONE of these guys so much as even carries a GUN on them as an alternate line of defense?? And B) Weâre asked to swallow that Thurman by herself armed only with her sword can singlehandedly take on nearly a hundred equally armed men and women and instead of them simply swarming upon and overwhelming her all at once, we can actually see several in the background âpreparingâ to move in on Thurman while giving her plenty of time to cut down the handful in front of her at that time before theyâre finally ready to come after her too? Yes, itâs a corny B movie clichĂ©, but Tarantino should have shown enough respect for his audience to stage some of that a little bit better instead of making it seem as if every single bad guy present in that room had unfettered access to her all at once but yet only a few at a time would ever actually attack. But the good points are also impressive: Tarantino stages the bloody, gory violence with a style and verve that proves that he has moved forward from just being a mere maestro of dialogue (which is good since this movie doesnât have all that much great dialogue to begin with), and then there is Chiaki Kuriyama (quite literally recycling a character from an earlier film named Battle Royale) as Liuâs âpersonal bodyguardâ, a 17 year old schoolgirl with a psychotic streak a mile wide, already known and feared at her tender age for her ability to cut down older and stronger men as if they were hogs for the slaughter (usually after disarming them with her sweet and innocent good looks) and who winds up giving Thurman her toughest one on one fight of the film while swinging around a ball and chain. Julie Dreyfus also shows class and sex appeal as Liuâs âsecretary, lawyer, and translatorâ before she too starts getting limbs hacked off. However, I could have done without the way that Tarantino presents the backstory of the Liu character herself, resorting to a literal âanimeâ segment showing Liuâs character as a little girl witnessing the murder of her parents before coming back to take her revenge, as while the anime looks good and all that, the idea of using it solely for one major segment of the story seems unneeded, and worse, it takes us out of the movie completely at that point coming across as being self indulgent when the rest of the film was just fine in live action. However, itâs a matter here of style over substance, as Tarantino came up with this whole thing after becoming good friends with Thurman while they worked on Pulp Fiction together and thus promising her at the time that he would come up with a major vehicle that was built entirely around her (which it was), but it was Tarantinoâs respect for these types of films that he was emulating, his rabid attention to detail, and his proving to one and all that he could make a film with more action and violence than either Fiction or Reservoir Dogs combined while keeping the catchy dialogue to a minimum, all leading into the much more character driven Part 2, which would build on Thurmanâs connection to the Bill character played by Carradine (another classic bit of âretroâ casting on Quentinâs part) along with allowing us to get to know the other two major targets on her list played by Daryl Hannah (still sexy even while gruff and wearing an eyepatch) and Michael Madsen (as Billâs more remorseful brother). Overall, a shift in stylistic momentum handled for the most part pretty masterfully by Mr. TarantinoâŠ
8/10