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Kill Bill Vol. 1 - 10/10/03 - R - 111m
Uma
Thurman - The Bride
Lucy Liu - O-Ren Ishii
Vivica A. Fox - Vernita Green
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Screenplay by: Quentin Tarantino
Studio: Miramax
Official
Website
JEF
Ok, I just didn’t get this film. Its getting good reviews
from both other critics and the public, and I just can’t understand
why.
Storyline: A woman (Uma Thurman) is brutally beaten on
her wedding day. And although she was near death, she manages to survive
the beating, and is now out for revenge to those that did this to her.
That’s it. That’s the storyline pretty much right there. Throw
in the fact that she’s apparently trained with a samurai sword,
and for one of her enemies she decides to use this sword as her weapon
of choice vs. a different scene where she uses a plain ol' knife.
The violence was just so extreme it was almost comical. I say almost,
but many of the people in the audience with us, were just laughing away
and the gore and violence. Was Quentin intentionally meaning this to be
funny? Something tells me that’s not what he was going for, was
a comedy here. But the audience loved it. The more limbs that were hacked
off, and the more extreme the spurting fountain of blood the more the
audience reveled in it.
Not only that, but an entire movie of almost 2 hours, was focused on Uma’s
character killing 2-3 people. 2 hours to show her revenge of only a handful
of characters? No wonder the film was pushing the 3 hour mark, and had
to be split into two volumes.
Everyone is saying (Including Quentin himself) that this film is a sort
of homage to the 1970’s “Hong Kong Theatre” films that
are popular on some late-night cable channels today. Me personally, I’ve
seen my share of these kung-fu style movies, and at times have been able
to appreciate the art of a film like this, but to call this film an homage
to this style is almost offending. I’d be curious to know what some
of the directors of those 1970’s kung-fu films are saying about
this.
I think I’m going to end my review here. It’s just not worth
me ripping this film apart even further. Upon leaving the theatre Lyn
told me that he heard in an interview that Quentin was sort of bragging
about the amount of drugs he did while filming this in China… All
I can say is that that explains a lot to me. You’d have to be on
drugs to create something like this.
I will not see Kill Bill Vol. 2!
Jef
PS> I did remember one more thing that really annoyed me during the
film… The soundtrack. It was awful, and so mish-mashed of both corny
sound effects, to strange music like a Mexican mariachi band to accompany
a kung-fu fight scene… It was almost like Quentin was trying to
assault your senses not only visually, with the gore and violence but
also with the background music. Don’t let the music fool you from
the trailer… that music was cool, and had a cool beat/rhythm to
it, but the rest… again, I just didn’t get it.
