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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 1093
Released: April 13, 2004 |
| Our Price: $3.97 |
| Used Price: $1.50 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The acclaimed fourth film from groundbreaking writer and director Quentin Tarantino (PULP FICTION, JACKIE BROWN), KILL BILL VOLUME 1 stars Uma Thurman (PULP FICTION), Lucy Liu (CHARLIE'S ANGELS, CHICAGO), and Vivica A. Fox (TWO CAN PLAY THAT GAME) in an astonishing, action-packed thriller about brutal betrayal and an epic vendetta! Four years after taking a bullet in the head at her own wedding, The Bride (Thurman) emerges from a coma and decides it's time for payback ... with a vengeance! Having been gunned down by her former boss (David Carradine) and his deadly squad of international assassins, it's a kill-or-be-killed fight she didn't start but is determined to finish! Loaded with explosive action and outrageous humor, it's a must-see motion picture event that has critics everywhere raving!
Description of Kill Bill - Volume One:
Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1 is trash for connoisseurs. From his opening gambit (including a "Shaw-Scope" logo and gaudy '70s-vintage "Our Feature Presentation" title card) to his cliffhanger finale (a teasing lead-in to 2004's Vol. 2), Tarantino pays loving tribute to grindhouse cinema, specifically the Hong Kong action flicks and spaghetti Westerns that fill his fervent brain--and this frequently breathtaking movie--with enough cinematic references and cleverly pilfered soundtrack cues to send cinephiles running for their reference books. Everything old is new again in Tarantino's humor-laced vision: he steals from the best while injecting his own oft-copied, never-duplicated style into what is, quite simply, a revenge flick, beginning with the near-murder of the Bride (Uma Thurman), pregnant on her wedding day and left for dead by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (or DiVAS)--including Lucy Liu and the unseen David Carradine (as Bill)--who become targets for the Bride's lethal vengeance. Culminating in an ultraviolent, ultra-stylized tour-de-force showdown, Tarantino's fourth film is either brilliantly (and brutally) innovative or one of the most blatant acts of plagiarism ever conceived. Either way, it's hyperkinetic eye-candy from a passionate film-lover who clearly knows what he's doing. --Jeff Shannon
Kill Bill - Volume One Reviews:
Awesome Movie 
2009-11-04 - Tarantino really outdoes himself with this one. All-star cast, interesting dialogue, intense fight scenes, incredible musical arrangements... you will not get bored with this gem of a movie. Uma Thurman really kicks ass, both literally and figuratively!
Tarantino really fumbles with this film. 
2009-10-01 - I'm happy to be one of the few who didn't care for this movie. Every few seconds a limb is sliced and BLOOD sprays everywhere. I don't care to watch that. People with swords flying through the air? One swordsman (woman) defeats an army of 30 trained swordsman in less than a minute? Characters are shallow and have no grounding to reality. I can keep going, but It'll just bore ya... I guess my taste in movies has improved since the days of Pulp Fiction. I'll still take Jackie Brown over Kill Bill anytime.
Don't mess with the Bride!
2009-08-30 - WOW!! That's all I can say when I first saw this film by Quentin Tarantino. Uma Thurman is superb as the left-for-dead bride who comes back four years after being left in a coma to wreck vengeance on the cowards who tried to do her in. David Carradine plays Bill, the clandestine leader of the Vipers, who seems to direct everyone's motives from the shadows. This is definately Tarantino at his best and I highly recommend it. It's not a film franchise for everyone; if anyone saw the interview he had with KRON's Jan Wahl a few years ago it just goes to prove that Tarantino makes films that he wants for his fans, not for those who love musical theater (not that there's anything wrong with that genre either).
"intentionally bad" is still bad
2009-08-28 - Ugh, this is one of the worst movies I have ever suffered through. And I'm saying this as someone who loved Pulp Fiction! Watching this rancid exercise in self~indulgence is like being trapped in a car on a long road trip with a boring film nerd who just won't shut up. I have been told that a lot of this tripe is "intentionally bad", which is apparently a good thing, but nevertheless intentionally bad is still bad. It's evidently based on all the B movies Tarantino has seen, so I guess it's trash stealing from trash. Avoid unless you're the kind of person who enjoys watching someone else play video games.
Ivan Rorick
You Don't F*** With The Bride! 
2009-08-25 - Initially, as you might now (probably not), The Kill Bill duo was pretty unimpressive in my eyes. I was definitely wrong about that one. While I still consider Vol 2 to be pretty boring and self-indulgent, Vol 1 has improved in my eyes mightily. Sure, the Kill Bill series contains quite a bit of fan service for the geeky comic book/roleplaying/wapanese crowd, but it's still mightily entertaining and fun, as most Tarantino works are. Kill Bill Vol 1 also is nicely paced, and although some of the dialogue is not rapidly paced and funny as some of his other works, it's dead serious and angry sounding (like revenge), but contains. That's pretty much the only obstacle that Pulp Fiction fanatics need to get over (as I intially was, though It's still one of the best movies ever). It's a slightly different taste, but it's still not entirely slow and contains some of his most fast paced action ever. It's still a Tarantino movie, and if you are fond of Tarantino movies you know what you are going to expect.
Tarantino's movies weren't known much for style beyond setting and camera, but Kill Bill kind of upped the ante a bit beyond those things. There's some slight split-screen used, highlighting sound effects, bits of CGI, a whole anime sequence, and a nice use of colors and such with the battle sequence. The settings, finally not being set firmly in LA (like his other works), allows for Tarantino to introduce some beautiful settings, and he does so with ease. The setting is further expanded by some pretty sunsets, use of lights, and many other aesthetics. The violence is even more stylized here then it was in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs (I don't think Jackie Brown was stylized at all), with lot's of spraying blood galore, including blood that sprays out like a huge hose (in the anime, though). It's also super fast and energetic, some of the most energetic violence anywhere, and much better done than any of it's predecessors.
Kill Bill Vol 1 doesn't have much of a premise. After all, it's a simple revenge flick. Girl wakes up after being trying to be killed and decides to kill the man responsible. But a premise that is simple can be, and does, become more rich when you introduce characters and dialogue into the mix, and Tarantino is able to do both. Tarantino's expert dialogue and characters are probably what makes the movie have a use of it's 111 minute run time. During her journey to get revenge on BIll, there's hardly just Bill. The Bride makes sure the whole Deadly Viper Assassin Squad gets their maker. We get introduced to the many colorful characters, such as O-ren Ishi, backed up by her own personal bodyguard and a whole army of ninjas The characters are probably the only weak link in the movie, as some of them are pretty fan service for the comic book set out there (I hate stereotypes, but I've been around my share of these type of people. Yes, I have been part of the crowd, but not exactly quite like them).
Probably another thing that stands out for Kill Bill is the way that, while setting up itself for Vol 2, has a natural drop off point, so you don't feel like it's haphazardly being cut off. It's divided into chapters, and the storyline is slightly convoluted, but other than that, it's not too confusing. There are some who probably find the chapter division to be a (lame) excuse for criticism, but really though, nothing can be said for the way he tells the story.
Kill Bill Vol 1 is actually one of his priemiere films, and while it's not quite Pulp Fiction, it's balance of action, dialogue, speed and slow, and style makes this one a winner in my book. It's shame that I let it kind of pass by me. Guess I was a bit determined to hate it or something (being made of up some things I am not exactly liking of), or maybe the fact that it is attached to vol 2 (which kind of reminds me of his new movie).
A-
