Loading ...Movie Review - Kill Bill: Vol. 1
User Rating:
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 4)
Loading ...
2003 / 111 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz
If you took the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and hooked its nuts up to a car battery and pumped about a thousand volts into it, then you might get “Kill Bill”. That’s one way of looking at it. Yet another way of describing “Kill Bill” would be to call it a spaghetti Eastern. But the best way to describe this movie, I believe, is for me to make one simple statement: “Kill Bill: Volume One” is probably the ballsiest, most audacious film in the history of cinema. I’m really trying to think of anything else that even comes close to pushing as many envelopes as hard as this one…and I’m just not coming up with anything.
You wanna talk envelope-pushing? Okay. Violence. This is the goriest non-horror film I’ve ever seen. Not since the one-two punch of “Robocop” and “Total Recall” has there been this much blood gushing onscreen in an action flick. Gorgeous fountains of arterial blood are spraying like Old Faithful at certain moments in this film. It’s the only film I’ve seen where you can start a sentence by saying “My favorite gush of blood was…” I’ve never spoken of a movie that way before, so far as I can remember. (By the way, my favorite gush of blood is when a certain Japanese Yakuza boss has his head lopped off and we see Lucy Liu kneeling before him with samurai sword in hand and a geyser of beautiful, red blood fanning upward before her.) Limbs are hacked off in every conceivable manner, blood flows like the Red Sea in an old Biblical epic, eyes are gouged out, mouths are sliced open wider, any form of carnage you can imagine and probably a few that had never even crossed your mind are on display in this film. It’s frankly refreshing to see an action film with such a cavalier attitude toward blood-letting. And the carnage is filmed in a strangely beautiful manner. This is a gorgeously gory film, a phrase that I don’t think is warranted by any other movie. Not only that, but there is a scene in this film that is probably the most vulgar thing I’ve seen in a movie. I’ll give you but one hint: it takes place in a coma ward. It’s a scene that should be ugly and brutal with its mere use of language and yet, somehow, it’s so ridiculous to be hearing this discussion in a film that I was laughing hysterically. It also helps to know that the men responsible for this discussion will, no doubt, be dead in a matter of minutes. In fact, the violence in the movie is often so ridiculous as to inspire laughter. Not because it’s poorly done, no, not at all, but because it’s so over-the-top, so ludicrously sick that you are laughing at the fact that anyone had the sheer balls to place it on the silver screen.
Another area in which the movie pushes the envelope is the mere way in which it is constructed. It does unfold in a linear fashion but, from the words “A Quentin Tarantino Film” everyone should be able to guess as much. No, the real kick in the head is the very amount of invention poured into the making of this film. Not only is there more gore than you’d have if you took every ounce of blood in every studio film for the last decade and stuck it in a single movie, but there is a sequence done entirely in Japanese anime. That’s right, the movie has a five minute cartoon in the middle of it. Not only that, but the cartoon is effective and fits within the film flawlessly. There are flashbacks, some flash-forwards, black and white photography, Japanese dialogue, a sequence done in silhouette with some truly ghastly gurgling sound effects, a score that would do Ennio Morricone proud and a sequence that is such a great homage to Brian DePalma that it looks like an outtake from the movie “Dressed to Kill”. (This sequence is, in fact, more like vintage DePalma than anything DePalma himself did between “Raising Cain” and “Femme Fatale”. It even recycles a Bernard Herrmann theme from a little-known movie named “Twisted Nerve” and puts it to diabolically effective use.) The plot is not all that original: a woman is betrayed and beaten and shot in the head and left for dead only to recover from her coma four years later and seek vengeance against those who wronged her. We’ve seen Clint and Charles Bronson and even Steven Seagal do this many times before. But we’ve never seen it done like this. The plot outline may not be original, but the movie sure as hell is.
The film is basically an exercise in style and a tribute by Tarantino to every filmmaker that he has ever loved. It is a better homage to Sergio Leone than anything in “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” (the little flashbacks accompanied by a weirdo score whenever she meets one of her assailants were an especially Leone touch). It is also a nice nod toward the 70’s low budget kung fu films that Tarantino grew up on (cult kung fu legend Sonny Chiba is even in the cast as a master Japanese sword smith, and he steals virtually every scene he is in). There are clever asides to DePalma, as I mentioned, and to Japanese anime and even the whole blaxploitation genre (wronged, foxy female who can kick anyone’s ass). But it adds up to more than the sum of its parts. A lot of films could not mix all those disparate elements into a cohesive unit, let alone make that unit so relentlessly entertaining without so much as a hint of kitsch or cutesy tribute. Tarantino manages to make the whole concoction into a cool breeze blowing through the multiplexes to take out the proverbial trash. He envisioned the film as a three-hour epic but it has been hacked in twain by the geniuses over at Miramax. At first, this angered me. Now, I have come to a personal realization: if the next hour and a half is as entertaining and gleefully violent and utterly amazing as this one, I don’t think I could have taken the full dose all at once. The final sequence of the film is the “Crazy 88 fight” in which Uma Thurman’s Bride character takes on 88 fighters armed with samurai swords and hacks through them like Michael Douglas hacking a path through the rain forest in “Romancing the Stone”. And they don’t just attack one at a time the way they might in a lesser film. Oh no. The fighters are attacking Uma in waves of five or six or ten at a time and Uma dispatches them in the goriest ways possible. This sequence is a visual marvel that will leave any moment of “The Matrix” or its first sequel in the dust. It’s an eye popping, exhilarating marvel of action filmmaking and easily one of the greatest fight sequences ever committed to film. And, in the original three-hour version, this astounding fight would occur at the HALFWAY POINT! The mind simply boggles at this thought. This means that Tarantino likely has some even better things in store before this movie hits its conclusion. The very notion of that has me drooling.
I have already managed to congratulate Tarantino on writing and directing this bold vision, now I shall congratulate the others responsible. Kudos must be given to Robert Richardson and David Wasco, the cinematographer and production designer, for making the whole thing look so absolutely gorgeous and for staging the whole production in a breathtaking manner. Their contributions to this film cannot be overlooked. Wasco’s design of the House of Blue Leaves alone is something worthy of an Oscar. I must also laud Lawrence Bender for doing whatever a producer does to get this film off the ground. But the actresses in the film do the real feat. Uma Thurman is simply better than I ever imagined she could be as The Bride. Tarantino has labored to make her come off as The Woman With No Name, even going so far as to bleep out her name whenever it is given in the movie. And she is actually good enough to earn comparison with Clint in her role. She is the toughest woman I have ever seen in a motion picture. Period. End of sentence. She is a true badass in every sense of the phrase. She is a whirling maelstrom of rage and revenge and she plays it with just the right balance of anger and enthusiasm and just a hint of fun whenever a hint of fun might be appropriate. It’s an awesome, fiercesome performance that demands to be remembered come award time. I’m serious. I pity the poor suckers that don’t give her an Academy Award. I mean, I’d hate to be the one to deny her and then see her show up on MY doorstep. Not only that, but there is some real acting going on here amidst the bloodshed. There is an actual performance here, a great performance. Probably the best female performance since Frances McDormand charmed my socks off in “Fargo”. Her part demands her to be tough, vengeful, filled with rage, vulnerable, funny, clever and maternal in equal shares and she nails each bit of this effortlessly. I’ve never seen a character in ANY revenge movie that deserves revenge more than The Bride, and Uma makes you root for her even when she’s doing something that would normally be considered on the brutal side. It’s the only character I’ve seen that feels entirely justified when slicing someone’s arm off in cold blood.
The other actors and actresses also do a tremendous job. Lucy Liu gives a great performance as O-Ren Ishii. This shocked me to the core because I did not believe Lucy Liu capable of giving a great performance. Sure, she’s been decent in films like “Charlie’s Angels”, but a great performance? I never knew. But she gives one here. She is so good you almost feel sorry for her, knowing that The Bride will eventually come to put some hurt on her ass. She’s vicious and yet sympathetic and effortlessly cool all at once. She achieves the same wonderful alchemy that Uma does in her role, only to a lesser extent. I also enjoyed Julie Dreyfus in her limited screen time as the wonderfully named Sofie Fatale and I loved the actress who played, and this is another name I simply adore, Go-go Yubari. Just typing that name brings a smile to my face. She doesn’t get to do much, but she makes the most of it. Of that I can assure you. I even liked Vivica A. Fox in the film. She plays a woman who seems to have been transplanted wholesale from a 70’s blaxploitation flick and she is good enough to earn the mantel that has been passed to her from people like Pam Grier. She’s a tough, knife-wielding bitch with a real soft spot for her daughter, and I liked that. As I type these descriptions, I am realizing how great Tarantino’s writing and direction is. You see, none of these supporting characters have a lot in the way of character development (okay, O-Ren has an amazing back story done entirely in anime, but she’s the exception that proves the rule) but you know within two minutes of them showing up onscreen what type of person they are and what their deal is. This also goes for Daryl Hannah, who makes a welcome return to the big screen as the one-eyed vixen named Elle Driver. Her one scene is just absolutely fantastic and she’s more of a cast iron bitch than I ever could have envisioned her being.
The men don’t fare very well in this movie. If they aren’t merely boorish sex-crazed bastards, then they’re absolutely evil psychopaths. The single exception to this lot is Sonny Chiba as the Japanese sword master Hattoro Hanzo. I’ve never seen any of his movies, but after seeing his charming turn here, I think I need to. He exudes charm and intelligence and sheer charisma without even seeming to try. He is warm and wonderful in this film and I look forward to seeing more use made of him in the next few years. He’s great here. As the shitheels of the piece, I enjoyed the contributions of guys like Michael Bowen and Gordon Liu, as well as the brief appearance of Michael Madsen (I’m sure more screen time will be occupied by him in the next installment). David Carradine doesn’t even get to have his face shown this time, but his very voice is more of a presence than a lot of movie villains. His laidback drawl is the audio equivalent of greasy silk. I cannot wait to find out what makes this guy tick.
In fact, the motivations and reasons behind the main action of the piece (the betrayal and thrashing of The Bride) have not yet been made clear, but I am sure that we will find out what they are in Volume Two. Why am I sure of this, when I am still not entirely convinced that the last two installments of “The Matrix” are going to make any sense? Because I have faith in Tarantino that I do not have for the Wachowskis. I have faith in him because, with “Kill Bill”, he has earned my faith. This movie is a revelation, a piece of filmmaking that works on a multitude of levels all at once. Any movie featuring a man wearing the Kato mask Bruce Lee wore as a sidekick in the “Green Hornet” series fighting a woman dressed in the outfit Bruce wore in his last film (”Game of Death”) has to be making some kind of symbolic statement, if only on the career of Bruce Lee. I wasn’t sure about “Kill Bill” going in, but I have absolutely no doubts about it coming out. I mean, Shit, look at how much space I’ve devoted to it here. It’s as good as anything Tarantino has ever done. Maybe not better than things like “Pulp Fiction” or “Jackie Brown”, but it’s at least equal to them. “Kill Bill” is clearly a labor of love made by someone with a burning desire to see it onscreen. It’s also a booster shot for your appreciation for Tarantino.
