a sword stroke too far (Kill Bill Vol. 1 (DVD))

Member Name: no_name

Product:	Kill Bill Vol. 1 (DVD)
Date:	28/11/03 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good bloody fun

Disadvantages: not for the squeamish. somewhat overlong

Let me be honest, I am somewhat ambivalent about the work of Quentin Tarantino. I try and approach each of his films with an entirely open mind. Reservoir Dogs was a quality film. Pulp Fiction was exciting the first time around and tedious the second. Jackie Brown was just plain awful (the structure of the ending plagiarised Kubrick?s The Killing and I love The Killing!!!!!!!!! [hence the exaggerated number of ?!?]).

And so it was that I sat in the squalor of my local cinema (for squalid it is) and prepared myself to enjoy Kill Bill. Did I? Yes, I think so; but wait, it was not so simple.

Like so many of Tarantino?s films there is an element of homage, an attempt to refer to genres he so clearly loves; in this case martial arts flicks, 70s blaxploitian (like Jackie Brown) movies, anime (there is even overtones of the 70s Rape/Revenge genre in the beginning, only the rape is symbolic in the attempted ritualistic murder of Uma Thurman). The film begins wonderfully, merging styles in the way that seems so easy to Tarantino and yet is remarkably sophisticated. It is at moments nearly whimsical and then startlingly hard and gritty. And so we are kept in thrall of how exactly what the movie is going to be; ok, it?s obviously going to be a revenge movie but how is the film to be structured; how is the narrative going to unfold?

Suddenly we are in the midst of the story; we are put into an everyday social situation that turns into Hong Kong martial arts flick and then back to everyday house and home drama. ?I?m not gonna kill you in front of your kid?? Tarantino is trying very hard to be creative from the off but he is perhaps a little too obvious; he?s not being so clever as he thinks he is, because it?s a little too obvious. The scene inside the house, Uma and her opponent smashing the house to pieces in their attempt to kill one another and then?

?in comes the kid? everything is sweetness and light. The two murderous
women are friends again and they go into the kitchen for coffee?

It is almost a little cliché.

I?m not gonna give away the story here because that would be churlish. Though in actual fact there is little story to give away: it is a murder/revenge story as made evident by the poster with Uma Thruman clad in yellow motorbike clobber and ?that? tag line. But of what little there is will remain hidden.

So if I?m not gonna give away the story what am I gonna give away?

The answer: all I have to give, my opinion.

It looks amazing; though Tarantino hasn?t the eye for images as a Scorcese or a Welles, he can conjure up a mean picture. He appears to be having fun with silhouetted Uma battling hordes of Yakuza with electric disco blue behind her. Quite simply, Tarantino appears to be having fun. Only he?s having too much fun. And here is my major gripe (with Tarantino in general and this film). I don?t care if the film is in two volumes, if it?s good: great I?ll pay twice; but is it too long because it?s too long?

Yes!

Tarantino can?t edit himself. Someone please give Quentin a pair of scissors to cut his screenplays up with. The anime sequence epitomises the film. It?s gory. Yes, it?s very gory but in such a wonderfully unreal, stylised manner. Tarantino said he thought violence just another aesthetic and in this film he creates a new aesthetic out of it and in a way different to the Matrix. Here blood spurts from wounds, spraying in controlled rhythms like the fountains outside the Bellagio in Las Vegas (if you?ve no idea what that is watch the end of Ocean?s 11 and you?ll get me) as the players do their dance of death. But I have digressed and shall now return to the point. The anime sequence (as with the balletic, bloody violence of the end) is too damn long. It?s fun; it?s almost sickening (though Tarantino never takes us over the edge, he knows how far he can go) but soon you start to
think ?hang on, this has gone on a bit too long.? At the very beginning of the film we?re met with an arrary of styles and genres and wowed. As the film progresses it runs out of creative steam a little and wallows a little too deeply in the violence.

There is also another element of fun here; though perhaps not the kind of fun that?s really amusing. Having Lucy Liu, who?s always seemed to be reasonably inoffensive in films (though I thought she was good [and the film itself excellent] in Cypher), cut someone?s head off than start shouting angrily and repeatedly saying ?F**king.? It?s trying too hard again. Tarantino is pushing at borders only some of which need to be pushed. He?s losing track of the story. He should return to Reservoir Dogs and think why the film did so well. In many ways it was because the film was taut. It a mere 90 minutes. In a sense the whole film was vacuous; it was all style; though it had some great performances (I love Keitel). But it gets away with it because of the style, the freshness that it brought and the fact that it was not self-indulgent.

Still it may seem I am being unfair to old Quentin. And maybe I am. To be honest I enjoyed the film, I?d say go and see it, it?s fun, it?s inventive, ok, it?s overlong and a bit vacuous; but then it doesn?t try and suggest it?s deep, that?s not the point. I?m just being hard on him because it could have been a much better film had he restrained himself a little more. Surely the mark of the Genius is knowing when to say no. Also there is the old scriptwriting phrase that sometimes it is best to ?kill your babies.? (nobody take me literally here, please!)

But like I say, give it a whirl. Pay your money and take your chance. I did, and you see what it did to me.

Summary: