Kill Bill: Vol. 1 «««½
R, 111m. 2003
Cast & Credits: Uma Thurman (The Bride), Lucy Liu (O-Ren Ishii), Vivica A. Fox (Vernita Green), Daryl Hannah (Elle Driver), David Carradine (Bill), Michael Madsen (Budd). Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
If the title, Kill Bill, fails to give you an idea of what director Quentin Tarantino's fast-paced blood filled revenge fest is about, then perhaps the quote on the black card as the film opens will get its point across. The saying is "Revenge is a dish best served cold." It's an old Klingon proverb we're told.
Those of us who've seen what was and is still the best of the original Star Trek movies titled The Wrath of Khan know full well who utters that quote. Tarantino is known to be a great lover of lots of movies. Was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) one of his favorites or did he find Ricardo Montalban's Khan to be the film's most memorable villain with the best line who stole the show?
I was surprised to see a movie quote like that open Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Then again, this latest feature being billed as "the fourth film from Quentin Tarantino" is full of nothing but surprises. Perhaps the biggest surprise here is it's practically all action without any of the memorable dialogue we've come to expect from him in Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997).
What makes Tarantino's films stand out is every one of them has no relation to the other. Reservoir Dogs was about a jewelry heist gone wrong in which the characters spent the whole 90 plus minutes discussing who the rat was. What made Pulp Fiction brilliantly clever was how the individual stories, though separately told, all made sense by the time it was over. Jackie Brown was a con story based on a book by Elmore Leonard and featured two engagingly Oscar nominated performances by Pam Grier and Robert Forster. I know some people out there will debate me on this but of these four that now includes Kill Bill: Vol. 1, I say Jackie Brown is still the best.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is not the kind of movie that wants to mess around with small talk. Nor does The Bride (Uma Thurman), a former assassin brutally left for dead by a faceless person named Bill (David Carradine) and his gang of hired killers called the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad led by Michael Madsen, Viveca A. Fox, Lucy Liu and Daryl Hannah.
The minute she awakens from a four-year coma, thanks to a mosquito casually sucking blood from her leg, The Bride knows exactly what she wants to do; knock everyone off who wronged her one by one.
The film has been said to be a tribute to all the violent martial arts movies and even Bruce Lee (Thurman's character wears the same yellow suit Lee wore in one of his films) that involve blood gushing from veins where someone's arms or legs used to be. I won't deny t it most likely is although I have never seen any martial arts movies, much less anything with the late Bruce Lee. I have seen very little Japanese animation films which Kill Bill also incorporates when we're told the story behind Lucy Liu's character, O-Ren Ishi. No doubt the violent close-up shots of character's heads being blown apart by bullets would be enough for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to say, "All right, enough already." Doing it all in animation, however, makes it not as graphic or unsettling. Or maybe it's the fact we, as a society, have become so immune to the violence we see either on the news, on television shows and movies that this stuff no longer phases us. I'll be honest the violence and sheer brutality in Kill Bill didn't phase me.
Instead of being reminded of past martial arts movies watching Kill Bill's fight sequences, I was more reminded of the showdowns from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns from the 1960s starring Clint Eastwood like A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966). You know the kinds of shots in the climax where the only two people left is the good guy in one corner and the bad guy in the other. Then you hear the build-up of composer Ennio Morricone's western soundtrack just before someone pulls the trigger.
We get a similar kind of shot in Kill Bill's climax as The Bride and Liu's O-Ren Ishi sum each other up before doing battle that starts with the Liu character apologizing to her nemesis for misjudging her. Then the music builds up.
The one and only problem I have with Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is I went in hoping for some of that "Tarantino-esque" dialogue that made watching some of his past movies so memorable. Kill Bill does have its moments where the characters mingle with one another as in an early scene where a Texas sheriff and one of his deputies discuss the carnage in what was supposed to be The Bride's wedding day. Then there is the way Tarantino sets up a shot where one of the assassins (Daryl Hannah) gets an interrupting phone call from Bill just as she is about to inject poison into the sleeping Bride in the hospital. Seeing Hannah's character argue with Bill on the phone right in front of the comatose woman is humorous and interrupts what would have been a killing moment.
The best scene is where The Bride utters the phrase "Wiggle your big toe" numerous times in the backseat of a truck as she tries to regain feeling in her legs and feet so she can walk again. The line she says, which turns into a story of how The Bride came to be in this precarious situation and giving us the lowdown on who the people are that did this to her, sounds almost like a parable.
"Everything I have told you would have been for nothing unless you wiggle your big toe," she says.
I found the dialogue to be rather dry and didn't quite compare to the humorous conversations Harvey Keitel and his band of thieves had discussing the lyrics behind Madonna's song, Like A Virgin, and why Steve Buscemi’s character doesn't tip waitresses in Reservoir Dogs. Or the trivial conversations about foot massages and miracles discussed by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson and blaming each other over who should clean up all the brain matter in the back seat of their car in Pulp Fiction. Or the way Jackson's arms dealer mulled over with Robert De Niro who exactly stole his life's savings in Jackie Brown.
Film critic David Ansen told Tarantino in the Oct. 13, 2003 issue of Newsweek how he thinks most people will come in expecting to hear some of that snappy dialogue in Kill Bill and they won't really get it.
"What I've delivered is good enough for now," Tarantino said. "It leaves you wanting more."
I suspect that "Tarantino-esque dialogue" is exactly what we're going to get when Kill Bill: Vol. 2 comes out in February 2004 (the film was cut in two parts due to the script's length and three hour plus running time).
I have a feeling that engaging in trivial conversation and exacting out revenge don't go hand in hand. As one of the characters near the end says, revenge is never a straight line. It's a forest. And like a forest, it's easy to get lost and forget where you came in.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 works because it not once strays off from the straight and narrow path. Like The Bride, the movie is always focused.
©10/13/03
R, 111m. 2003
Cast & Credits: Uma Thurman (The Bride), Lucy Liu (O-Ren Ishii), Vivica A. Fox (Vernita Green), Daryl Hannah (Elle Driver), David Carradine (Bill), Michael Madsen (Budd). Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Those of us who've seen what was and is still the best of the original Star Trek movies titled The Wrath of Khan know full well who utters that quote. Tarantino is known to be a great lover of lots of movies. Was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) one of his favorites or did he find Ricardo Montalban's Khan to be the film's most memorable villain with the best line who stole the show?
I was surprised to see a movie quote like that open Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Then again, this latest feature being billed as "the fourth film from Quentin Tarantino" is full of nothing but surprises. Perhaps the biggest surprise here is it's practically all action without any of the memorable dialogue we've come to expect from him in Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997).
What makes Tarantino's films stand out is every one of them has no relation to the other. Reservoir Dogs was about a jewelry heist gone wrong in which the characters spent the whole 90 plus minutes discussing who the rat was. What made Pulp Fiction brilliantly clever was how the individual stories, though separately told, all made sense by the time it was over. Jackie Brown was a con story based on a book by Elmore Leonard and featured two engagingly Oscar nominated performances by Pam Grier and Robert Forster. I know some people out there will debate me on this but of these four that now includes Kill Bill: Vol. 1, I say Jackie Brown is still the best.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is not the kind of movie that wants to mess around with small talk. Nor does The Bride (Uma Thurman), a former assassin brutally left for dead by a faceless person named Bill (David Carradine) and his gang of hired killers called the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad led by Michael Madsen, Viveca A. Fox, Lucy Liu and Daryl Hannah.
The minute she awakens from a four-year coma, thanks to a mosquito casually sucking blood from her leg, The Bride knows exactly what she wants to do; knock everyone off who wronged her one by one.
The film has been said to be a tribute to all the violent martial arts movies and even Bruce Lee (Thurman's character wears the same yellow suit Lee wore in one of his films) that involve blood gushing from veins where someone's arms or legs used to be. I won't deny t it most likely is although I have never seen any martial arts movies, much less anything with the late Bruce Lee. I have seen very little Japanese animation films which Kill Bill also incorporates when we're told the story behind Lucy Liu's character, O-Ren Ishi. No doubt the violent close-up shots of character's heads being blown apart by bullets would be enough for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to say, "All right, enough already." Doing it all in animation, however, makes it not as graphic or unsettling. Or maybe it's the fact we, as a society, have become so immune to the violence we see either on the news, on television shows and movies that this stuff no longer phases us. I'll be honest the violence and sheer brutality in Kill Bill didn't phase me.
Instead of being reminded of past martial arts movies watching Kill Bill's fight sequences, I was more reminded of the showdowns from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns from the 1960s starring Clint Eastwood like A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966). You know the kinds of shots in the climax where the only two people left is the good guy in one corner and the bad guy in the other. Then you hear the build-up of composer Ennio Morricone's western soundtrack just before someone pulls the trigger.
We get a similar kind of shot in Kill Bill's climax as The Bride and Liu's O-Ren Ishi sum each other up before doing battle that starts with the Liu character apologizing to her nemesis for misjudging her. Then the music builds up.
The one and only problem I have with Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is I went in hoping for some of that "Tarantino-esque" dialogue that made watching some of his past movies so memorable. Kill Bill does have its moments where the characters mingle with one another as in an early scene where a Texas sheriff and one of his deputies discuss the carnage in what was supposed to be The Bride's wedding day. Then there is the way Tarantino sets up a shot where one of the assassins (Daryl Hannah) gets an interrupting phone call from Bill just as she is about to inject poison into the sleeping Bride in the hospital. Seeing Hannah's character argue with Bill on the phone right in front of the comatose woman is humorous and interrupts what would have been a killing moment.
The best scene is where The Bride utters the phrase "Wiggle your big toe" numerous times in the backseat of a truck as she tries to regain feeling in her legs and feet so she can walk again. The line she says, which turns into a story of how The Bride came to be in this precarious situation and giving us the lowdown on who the people are that did this to her, sounds almost like a parable.
"Everything I have told you would have been for nothing unless you wiggle your big toe," she says.
I found the dialogue to be rather dry and didn't quite compare to the humorous conversations Harvey Keitel and his band of thieves had discussing the lyrics behind Madonna's song, Like A Virgin, and why Steve Buscemi’s character doesn't tip waitresses in Reservoir Dogs. Or the trivial conversations about foot massages and miracles discussed by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson and blaming each other over who should clean up all the brain matter in the back seat of their car in Pulp Fiction. Or the way Jackson's arms dealer mulled over with Robert De Niro who exactly stole his life's savings in Jackie Brown.
Film critic David Ansen told Tarantino in the Oct. 13, 2003 issue of Newsweek how he thinks most people will come in expecting to hear some of that snappy dialogue in Kill Bill and they won't really get it.
"What I've delivered is good enough for now," Tarantino said. "It leaves you wanting more."
I suspect that "Tarantino-esque dialogue" is exactly what we're going to get when Kill Bill: Vol. 2 comes out in February 2004 (the film was cut in two parts due to the script's length and three hour plus running time).
I have a feeling that engaging in trivial conversation and exacting out revenge don't go hand in hand. As one of the characters near the end says, revenge is never a straight line. It's a forest. And like a forest, it's easy to get lost and forget where you came in.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 works because it not once strays off from the straight and narrow path. Like The Bride, the movie is always focused.
©10/13/03
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