Kill Bill Will Thrill (Kill Bill Vol. 1 (DVD))

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Product:	Kill Bill Vol. 1 (DVD)
Date:	22/01/06 (130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bloody, violent, action-fest

Disadvantages: Limited plot, part 1 of 2 films

In a remote Texan chapel, an atrocity has been committed. A wedding party has been brutally slain, their bodies battered, bloodied and riddled with bullet holes. Still in her white wedding dress, the bride’s body is perhaps the most tragic. Dead from a gunshot to the head, the wretched woman lies on the floor like a human tomb for the unborn child that she was carrying. But whilst the infant has indeed been murdered, The Bride has not. Four years later she wakes from her coma and miraculously comes to life.

The Bride is a member of an infamous team of assassins named the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, led by a man known simply as Bill. For reasons we are yet to understand, it was the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who set about the Texan massacre and the memory of those individuals who were responsible remains permanently etched in The Bride’s mind. She knows what she has to do. Armed with a blade fabricated from the finest Japanese steel and led by the need to avenge the death of her unborn baby, The Bride sets about the task in hand. Quite simply, she intends to Kill Bill.

I’m not a fan of Quentin Tarantino films. For me, Pulp Fiction was grossly over-rated and Reservoir Dogs bored me senseless. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when his 4th film, Kill Bill, entertained me more than any film I can recall in the last twelve months and beyond. I don’t think that Kill Bill could purport to be a masterpiece, but it does come pretty damn close and I have to say that I absolutely loved this film.

The idea for Kill Bill apparently came from a conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman (The Bride) on the set of the last Tarantino film, Pulp Fiction. Thurman had an idea about a woman who, apparently murdered on her wedding day, rises from the dead and exacts her terrible revenge on those who were responsible. It was such a simple premise that at face value, you wouldn’t imagine that it could be turned into such an entertaining film. At face value, the plot is almost threadbare and there is nothing in this story that we haven’t seen and heard a thousand times before. Nonetheless, what turns Kill Bill into such an epic is that it is absolutely overflowing with style, innovation and flourishes of imagination that mean you never quite know what is going to happen next.

Told in five chapters, the film tells us very little about The Bride, or her involvement with The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Furthermore, we never actually see Bill, but we can tell from his voice and from the way he interacts with those around him that he ain’t a nice guy. Gradually, as the film progresses, we start to learn more detail about the situation, as we watch The Bride preparing herself to take revenge and introducing us to some of the members of the Deadly Vipers. The first chapter sets the whole tone for the film with a bizarre showdown between The Bride and one of the Vipers in a suburban American homestead. The smashing glass and flying blades are offset against the presence of a little girl and as you watch the carnage unfold you just know that this film is going to be anything but conventional.

I could write ream upon ream about the creativity demonstrated in this film. It isn’t that art house creativity of symbolism and analogy. It’s what you might call “Lad’s Mag” creativity. Imagine a group of twenty something blokes with an unlimited budget and a basic script and you can imagine how they might toy around with things according to their own inspirations and film fanaticism. There might only be one “lad” actually involved here, but the result is still the same. Tarantino is clearly an enormous devotee of martial arts/Samurai movies and Kill Bill plays like a tribute to his favourites. I understand that throughout the making of the film, Tarantino would keep watching a relentless parade of such films, continually re-fuelling his mind with ideas and inspirations for Kill Bill and you can tell, because they are utterly relentless. He perfectly captures the odd blend of humour, ultra-violence, camp drama and breathtaking choreography that inhabits the world of these films. Sometimes, he switches from colour to black and white. Sometimes the screen splits in two. For one lengthy sequence, the action reverts to an anime cartoon. It sounds like an incredible mess, but it’s all put together in such a fluid way that you can’t help but be impressed.

It goes without saying that Kill Bill is an incredibly violent film. Hordes of Japanese henchmen are despatched on The Bride’s blade and the blood flows, spits and spurts in enormous quantities. But this isn’t a horror film and there is nothing here that will frighten you. Whilst Kill Bill may be the most violent film I’ve ever seen, it was also strangely amusing in that everything is exaggerated and overplayed to such an extent that you’d struggle to find it disturbing. A severed head leads to a seemingly endless fountain of blood. Feet, hands and arms are lopped off like unwanted branches from a tree, with their owners desperately trying to pick them up again before they get lost in the height of battle. It’s utterly, utterly hilarious and hugely entertaining. Why? The reason is quite simple. Whatever happens to anyone in this film happens because they deserve it. And we, the audience can live with that.

The film’s opening credits are testament to the support enlisted by Tarantino from Japanese choreographers, producers and supervisors. There aren’t many Western names credited to this film and this is probably the reason that the fight scenes work so well. This isn’t The Matrix. Reality isn’t bent through a series of computer-generated, special effect sequences. Kill Bill comprises a series of good old-fashioned fight fests, enhanced perhaps with some nifty wire-work and some nimble stuntmen, but with a much more “real” feel than any CGI production could hope to achieve. Working alongside all this is a quirky soundtrack, comprising a wide variety of styles and types that is both funky and dramatic. It’s a long time since I watched a film that made me want to go out and buy the soundtrack but with Kill Bill, I’m tempted.

The star of the show is Uma Thurman, who almost seems to have been born to play this role. She looks and sounds fantastic, managing the simple script with understated style and she makes a formidable foe. On the opposite side, with the Deadly Vipers are four other key characters, played by Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen and David Carradine. In this film, it is only Liu’s character that we seem much of and given that most of her life story is portrayed using via anime work, it’s not surprising that she never really comes to much. Her insane teenaged schoolgirl bodyguard Gogo Yubari is infinitely more entertaining. Daryl Hannah has only a brief time on screen, but her character is interesting enough to make us look forward to seeing a lot more of her in the next movie.

And it’s this that brings me on to my only real criticism of the movie. This film, subtitled Volume One, at times feels like a prelude to something bigger and better. The whole thing felt rather clipped as though it had originally been made as one film eventually sliced into two. I don’t have a problem with films that are part of a greater continuity but I do think that they need to work in their own right. I’m not sure this is entirely true of Kill Bill and although it’s nice to be left thirsty for more, I think it can go too far. With hindsight, volume one answers very few questions and in my mind this sets me up for disappointment in volume two that I’ll never find out the things that I want to find out.

But putting this concern out of my mind, I still thoroughly enjoyed the whole spectacle of Kill Bill One. Despite a fairly limited plot and a simple premise, I enjoyed every twist and turn of this film. Intellectually stimulating, it isn’t. Exciting, funny, entertaining and impressive it is.

Highly recommended

Summary: Exciting, innovative and fun - and so much better than volume 2!