Quentin Tarantino returns to the big screen with a vengeance in
his new film
”
Kill Bill,
”
currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
Although this one-hour and 50-minute release from Miramax Films
is a graphically violent, blood-spattered adventure, it is also a
very good film.
Quentin Tarantino returns to the big screen with a vengeance in his new film “Kill Bill,” currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
Although this one-hour and 50-minute release from Miramax Films is a graphically violent, blood-spattered adventure, it is also a very good film.
I can tell you right now that if you are easily shocked by violence or can’t stand the sight of movie blood, beheadings or dismemberment, then this movie will probably not be your cup of tea.
Because if there is one thing that this movie has it’s plenty of violence.
Essentially what Tarantino has created is a living version of the popular Japanese Anime cartoons.
After a while, most viewers will be able to see beyond the violence, which becomes more like an out take from a Monty Python sketch, and enjoy the deep, rich textures and characterizations created on the screen.
As usual for one of Tarantino’s films (his first since 1997’s “Jackie Brown”), it is shown out of sequence. But for some reason that seems to work with his films and it only serves to increase the tension in some of the more climactic scenes.
However, unlike his usual working style, Tarantino agreed under pressure from Miramax Films to chop “Kill Bill” in two rather than trim its original three-hour running time.
This film also displays the incredible growth of model turn actress, Uma Thurman as she displays a wide range of emotions in an entertaining performance.
The movie centers on The Bride, Thurman, whose real name we never get to know. Throughout the film she is known only by Black Mamba of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Here, Tarantino takes a page or to from the Chinese martial arts B-movies that I grew up on in the 1970s.
On the Bride’s wedding day, the pregnant bride ends up bleeding in a chapel, left for dead beside her groom’s murdered corpse.
Four years later, Thurman’s character wakes up in a coma, under a different gruesome threat from a disgustingly amorous man.
From that moment on, Thurman’s character is focused solely and completely on exacting her revenge upon her former colleagues.
Her skill at fighting her way out of danger sets the stage for what is essentially an hour and a half of vicious and especially deadly hand-to-hand combat.
Her targets are former assassin squad colleagues Vernita “Copperhead” Green, Vivica A. Fox, attacked in her suburban home just as the school bus arrives; and O-Ren “Cottonmouth” Ishi, played by Lucy Liu, who is the sadistic head of a Japanese mob. The rest of the assassins Budd “Side Winder,” Michael Madsen, and Elle Driver “California Mountain Snake” (Daryl Hannah) show up briefly in flashback; David Carradine, as Bill.
The blood-soaked fight scenes are incredibly good and artfully choreographed by Hong Kong legend Sonny Chiba, who also appears as one of the most revered sword makers in the world.
This movie is too graphic for children and probably too much for the faint of heart, but those who can see past the violence will find a good movie.
