25/08/2012: Kill Bill: Vol. 1 [2003]

The Quentin Tarantino Blogathon rages on, with this month's movie being Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Once again, Tarantino chose another genre of movies to inspire him, this time drawing from the martial arts movies of the 70's, with a revenge story straight out of one. The Bride, after awakening from a coma realizes the baby she carried is gone, killed when Bill and and the four other members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad tried to gun her down at her wedding rehearsal. The Bride then sets out to seek revenge and Kill Bill.

 

 

Kill Bill: Vol 1 is Tarantino's 4th movie and while not my favourite, it is still pretty damn amazing. Once again, Tarantino uses his knowledge of a film genre to capture the style and feel of old Kung-Fu movies, while still bringing fresh ideas and originality to the movie. Kill Bill is bloody, highly stylized, and as always, entertaining. I can't decide if I want to watch Vol. 2 now, or wait for next month, and I can't wait to see if Vol. 3 actually happens.

The thing about Kill Bill is that the entire movie is based around one character, The Bride. She has no friends, no loved ones left alive and nothing to live for. All she wants is to kill Bill and get revenge. We never even learn her name, and the two times it is said, it is bleeped out, leaving us only to watch as The Bride creates her death list and set out to complete it. To play The Bride, Tarantino brings back Uma Thurman, giving her the role she will always be known for, and she does a spectacular job. Although, when I watched it this time, I knew that it was Zoé Bell  doing all the stunts, and while I probably imagined recognizing her face when The Bride was in the thick of the action it might be possible to pick her out.

If this is Death List Five who was on the first four?

Uma Thurman may be the star of the show, but once again Tarantino assembles an impressive cast, with a few regulars. If you are wondering where Samuel L. Jackson is, he's the dead organ player at the wedding rehearsal. Micheal Madsen also appears, but doesn't get much of a role until Vol. 2. For those of you familiar with Japanese cinema, you might recognize that Gogo (the chain ball wielding crazy one) is actually Chiaki Kuriyama from Battle Royale. Lucy Liu plays The Brides biggest foe, O-Ren Ishii in Vol. 1 as she battles her way towards Bill, and it is against O-Ren that The Bride fight the climatic end battle of Vol. 1. And what a battle it is, as Tarantino does away with any really important scenes in favour of an half hour or more of bloody martial arts, with The Bride against O-Ren, Gogo and the Crazy 88.

Kill Bill is a very violent movie, which if you've watched Tarantino, is never a surprise. However, I think Kill Bill is probably his bloodiest as he adopts the exact same special effects style of the 70's martial arts movies. There are no blood squibs and fancy fx in Kill Bill, as Tarantino forbade them in favour of the fake blood filled condoms used in the old Chinese martial arts films such that blood would splatter everywhere on impact. Kill Bill also used another old trick to deal with the MPAA's insistence that he tone down some scenes, and so he made them in black in white, an old trick to get around television censorship but this lends itself to the film's style as well.

Unfortunately Kill Bill didn't spawn a trend of sexy eye patches.

Like all of Tarantino's movies, Kill Bill has a unique style of it's own, mixing some impressive sets with lots of blood and some stark colour contrasts. Most notably of these is The Bride's trademark yellow jumpsuit. Tarantino also uses an interesting mix of colour with a few scenes of black and white and even a chapter of animation. The latter is done in the style of some animes, and while it might seem out of place at first, but I would say it fits right in. Also apparent is Tarantino's disdain for the chronological, as we start at one end of the timeline and jump back and forth throughout, unveiling things as he goes. While Kill Bill is already split into volumes, he also splits each movie even further, into a number of chapters, each with their own titles. There are really so many unique styles mashed into Kill Bill, that it seems impossible they would all work. But together they work seamlessly to create one hell of an experience.

Once again as usual, Tarantino nails the soundtrack, and claims that all the music he used was from his collection of movie soundtracks. The best use of music is undoubtedly at the beginning of the battle at the House of Blue Leaves, where one song seamlessly changes to another as The Bride lets the bodies pile. This is also in the same chapter as Kill Bill's infamous long take, which features one continuous shot as first The Bride and then Sofie Fatale enter the washroom.There is so many incredible elements in Kill Bill it is hard to believe, but that is why Tarantino is one of the best.

When it's all over, just sit back and drink your coffee.

Overall, Kill Bill Vol. 1 is another great movie to add to Tarantino's list of amazing works. I think the best thing about Tarantino is that if you go to watch all of his movies, everyone has it's own unique style, genre and influences so it isn't just like watching the same kind of movie over and over. Sure, you can see all of his trademarks throughout, but if you are in the mood for a crime movie, a WWII movie, a martial arts movie or pretty soon a western movie, Tarantino has you covered. I have little doubt that Django Unchained is going to be awesome, the only question will be where it will rank amongst the directors other works. Until Christmas I will just have to placate myself on all the great movies he has already put out.

Link:
Kill Bill Vol. 1 IMDb