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Quentin Tarantino returns from a six-year absence from the big screen with Kill Bill Vol. I. This film was split into two parts (the second part is due in February, tentatively) due to the 3-plus hour length. After seeing Vol. I, I know I am certainly happy that it was split in half.
Uma Thurman is The Bride, or Black Mamba if you are into code names. Not only is Black Mamba a member of a world class team of assassins, but she is also pregnant and marrying the love of her life. That is, until her team turns against her and kills her entire wedding party, her husband and the baby inside of her. A total of nine people die. Bill (Keith Carradine) is the leader of the assassins. He puts a bullet into the head of Black Mamba, but she doesn't die. As a matter of fact, she awakens five years later from a coma remembering every detail of her wedding day up until the bullet breaks the skin. She has to will her limbs to move so she can get back into fighting shape, as she plans on taking down the entire team of assassins one at a time until she gets to Bill himself. Thus the title of the film.
I want to say I enjoyed this film, but I still don't know if I really did. Part of me really wants to see Vol. II just to see how it ends and, well, if it gets better. Let's face it, up until this film, Tarantino was best known for his screenplays and writing than for his direction. Would Pulp Fiction have been as great without the cool dialogue and quotables? How about Reservoir Dogs or Jackie Brown? Tartantino wrote the scripts for Natural Born Killers, True Romance and From Dusk Till Dawn, all of which had some great dialogue driven moments and great, timeless quotes.
But as a director, while he had some great ideas, his films came off looking a bit cheap and, dare I say it, bushleague at times. Pulp Fiction is, admittedly, one of my favorite films ever, but there are NUMEROUS flaws in the film that take away from the overall feel of the film. It's safe to say that I loved the film because of it's witty dialogue and inspired acting. I still find myself quoting the film on occasion.
In Kill Bill Vol. I, Tarantino shows what he's been doing the last six years while preparing to make this film: watching decades worth of kung fu films and finding many different ways of paying homage to them. I am not well versed in kung fu films, but I know enough about them to know that very little of this film is constructed out of original ideas. What he has constructed is a well crafted homage to the kung fu films of the past mixed a little Anime and his signature style of telling a story out of order. It is broken down into chapters, much like a book. The film was not hard to follow, but if you are not a fan of a film jumping all over the place, you may not enjoy this film.
The sets and the action are very well done. While I don't think Uma Thurman can act her way out of a wet paper bag, she was incredible and believable as a well trained, samurai assassin. A scene where she fights an entire army of Yakuza members in a night club is incredible. While it's tough to say she could be believable at ANYTHING, she pulled it off here. And then she spoke and ruined the whole thing. Vivica A. Fox was also very impressive as Copperhead, Mamba's second victim. A comical scene where Mamba and Copperhead are squaring off in Copperhead's home, only to be halted when Copperhead's daughter comes home from school is very well done. The eventual showdown between Liu, who plays Cottonmouth, the leader of the Yakuza, was actually a bit of a letdown. It was short and uneventful. Perhaps the scene stealer of the action films was a young lady named Chiaki Kuriyama who plays the mace-wielding Go-Go. She was electrifying and dangerous while looking as cute as a button. A great performance.
I have a lot of complaints about this film, but I don't think it's quite fair to assess them until I see the second volume. I was looking forward to Taratino's witty dialogue, but there was little to be found. In reality, it's a very bland and boring script. It makes me wonder if he can walk and chew gum at the same time, or in this case, competently direct and write.
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