Plot: What’s it about?
2003 was a big year for long-awaited films. Two big film series (Matrix, LOTR) were coming towards the end of their respectable trilogies, a clownfish and a short term memory fish were determined to find his son in the ocean and a director who had not directed a movie in six years was ready for a return, but this would be no ordinary return without risk. Many years ago after shooting was finished on Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman (Q and U) concocted a story about a woman out for revenge samurai style. Growing up in a small NY borough, every Saturday afternoon/late night on a local channel, it was common to have the “Drive In Movie” with chop socky kung fu flicks hopping the screen. Some were cheesy, but then again every once in a while the viewer would come across one that makes one wonder “how did this film make it on the air”? Nine years later after the big concoction on the Pulp set, the same studio that gave Quentin Tarantino a greenlight on a landmark film loved the footage and both agreed that it’s two movies and both volumes will be released a few months apart from one another. With the loyalty of his star out for a year before and the curiosity of the public after a great teaser trailer throughout the summer along with a few changes in the cast, Quentin and Uma had only two words to the title of their story: Kill Bill.
It’s a dark day in the South. An unidentified lady who’s only known as “The Bride” (Uma Thurman) is beat up and shot by a crew know as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. These assassins are led by a mysterious fellow named “Bill” (David Carradine), who lays the last bullet in her after a short talk. Darkness follows, and the wallows of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang My Baby’s Shot Me Down” *60’s guitar vibrating*.
After a four year coma, The Bride wakes up in her hospital bed full of rage, numbness and determination to exact revenge on all four of the assassins (Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, and Michael Madsen) to pay the heavy price for what they did and putting a stop through any obstacles that get in her way to accomplish her mission leading up to her final task of all: to Kill Bill.
With an event like this, to see Tarantino get behind the directors chair once again, the viewer asks “was it worth the wait?” In the words of Robert Evans, you bet your ass it is!
As the end credits rolled this one volume was one of the most mind-boggling viewings on both a big screen and a small screen and with all it’s varieties of genre represented, this was one of the best movies I had seen last year.
Yes it is a revenge tale and audiences have seen thousands of revenge tales time and time again but no one can prepare you for revenge through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino. Here, he brings his signature “non-linear” storytelling back with a vengeance and his ear for dialogue has not failed him one bit. He makes a samurai film with intelligence and backstories to fill five movies all at once. The visual look is amazing as he makes some transitions in the palette widely amongst the entire film mixed very nicely with some obscure and known tunes that play throughout the movie. An audience especially knows that something is really gonna come their way in the beginning after the studio logo complete with a Shaw Scope symbol in full Panavision and a generic 60s/70s drive-in Grind House “Our Feature Presentation” spot.
The film starts with a loud bang literally and never lets up. The performances by all, big and small, are one for the books. Uma Thurman brings that “I’m so mad I’m gonna kill them” anger to the table as The Bride or “*bleeeep*”. She lets her actions speak louder than words and the words she lets out are from the wise and all knowing. The action sequences are fast, fierce and full of energy and look out for that little girl in the school girl outfit, she’s not as innocent as she looks!!! With all that is fantastic about this movie, there are two upshots.
One upshot of this movie is that the action is mostly bloody and not easy to take for much of the audiences expecting the normal action fare, which this is not, and this film reaches for the extreme and beyond. The other is that the film ends and the viewers that are totally drawn in will have to wait and see what The Bride or “bleeeep” does next in Vol. 2. With all that’s great about this Volume, here is hoping that it will not fall under a case of how-do-you-top-that-itus weaking the second volume. (I don’t think so)
The viewer knows when a film has this great starting chapter of a multi-part series, there nothing but a strong urge to bring the next one on as soon as possible. At the end of this film, I so wanted the projector/DVD to have a secret set of reels/Easter egg for Vol. 2 to follow immediately. As Homer Simpson from Police Cops would say, “And that’s the end of that chapter!”.
Video: How does it look?
The movie is filmed in a lovely 2.40:1 aspect ratio that is anamorphically enhanced. Tarantino manages to fill every inch of the screen with something interesting or something that at least gets your attention. There is a ten minute animated sequence, quite bloody at that, and the film starts out in black and white. There are some gritty scenes, meaning purposefully gritty-looking, but for the most part “Kill Bill” looked magnificent. The film has a very stylized look and feel to it, similar to Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” this is a neat effect, and it seems to work here as well. Mixed in with the dialogue and subtitles, this seems the perfect visual way to present a film of this nature. Flesh tones looked natural (when they were supposed to, anyway) and let’s hope the red on your television works, because it will be earning its keep by the end of this movie. A brilliant transfer and nothing short of what we’d expect.
Audio: How does it sound?
“Kill Bill Vol. 1” has dual DTS and Dolby Digital soundtracks and each sounds superb. For the initial viewing, the DTS was chosen and, as expected, it delivered as most of the DTS tracks do. With almost 4,000 reviews on this site (as of this writing), it’s not hard to imagine that many (if any) have a better surround sound for the spattering of blood. If you’ve seen the movie or even heard about it, many people die and like the vampires in “From Dusk ‘til Dawn”, they literally spew blood. The surrounds make good use of this effect and even the “blip” whenever “The Bride’s” real name is mentioned, sounds good. A subtle, but great example of the 360 degree sound is when a mosquito flies around the room. Even cell phones ringing sound good, the standard rings are so crystal clear that you just might answer yours (pending you have the same ring tone). The Dolby Digital version is a bit louder, but not to say worse. Dialogue on each of the tracks is crystal clear and very radiant. All in all, a superb mix and one that I think all audiences will be most satisfied with.
Supplements: What are the extras?
This is where fans might get a little ticked. Not only has “Kill Bill Vol. 2” not come out yet (again, as of this writing), but there are hardly any supplements on this disc. That’s the bad news, the good news is that we can surely expect a two (or perhaps even three) disc version of this and the sequel in the future. There is a standard featurette entitled “The Making of Kill Bill Vol. 1” which actually tells us the origin of how Tarantino came up with the story. He went on to make “Jackie Brown” and Thurman went her way and then the two got back together and started making the movie again. It still has some of the typical material we might expect, but a nice inclusion nonetheless. There is a couple of music videos by “5, 6, 7, 8” in “I’m Blue” and “I Walk like Jayne Mansfield” and trailers for all of Tarantino’s films (including a teaser for “Kill Bill Vol. 2”. Fans, we’re going to have to wait for Vol. 2 and a more robust version in terms of supplements, but for the time being this is not too bad.
