Kill Bill Volume 1 review (by P. Roberts)

From The Quentin Tarantino Archives

Written by Pete Roberts (Sunday, 24 April 2005)

No unauthorized reprinting, publishing or other use allowed without permission

Preface: I'm not going to go through the plot of the story. If you don't know it, then you should read another review. This review is for those who know. :)

Kill Bill is indeed a cinematic masterpiece. Its the most exciting and daring film I've personally ever seen in my life. I can honestly say Pulp Fiction is now my 2nd favorite Tarantino film.

Quentin Tarantino has taken Sergei Eisenstein's theory that "Cinema IS Violence" to its Nth degree. Peckinpah subscribed to it. DePalma based his films on it, but Tarantino has created a film that not only believes it, but throws a frat party for it. Kill Bill not only celebrates cinema violence, hell, it revels in it and finds the ultimate beauty and humor in it.

60s/70s Grindhouse Cinema is Kill Bill's roots, but as those roots grew they transformed into something brand new that I've never seen before in a movie. Think of a seed (Grindhouse Cinema) that grows until it becomes a never before seen species (Kill Bill). Quentin Tarantino is that special gold key that all the movie geeks wait for to unlock our cinematic dreams. He's The One.

Kill Bill is a work of cinematic art only a guy named Quentin Tarantino could create. Someone long obsessed with the films of Brian DePalma, Sergio Leone, Chang Cheh, Lucio Fulci, Kenji Fukasaku and Mario Bava to name a select few. A guy who loved the Grindhouse-Drive In films of the 1960s and 1970s growing up. QT has also created something that has surpassed the original written script (which I read and LOVED). The visuals along with the music will boil your adrenaline. This film is also a wholly original work. People have accused Tarantino of "ripping off" other films, but he doesn't. Kill Bill is a testament to what a true love of cinema can bring to the screen. As opposed to popular belief, It's NOT about making the AFI Top 100 List or winning shiny awards. Its about LOVING CINEMA in all its forms. That's EXACTLY what you get when you pay to see a Tarantino film.

The Kill Bill story is very simple. It's a Pure Revenge plot. But that "plot" is only the framework to hold something much richer and deeper. You could say that Kill Bill is an exercise in highly stylized cinema, and it DEFINITELY is that, but Tarantino has also brought something else to it: Heart and Soul.

Kill Bill has audible languages in it (Japanese), but the one language that QT speaks fluently and perfectly himself is the language of cinema. It's in every shot, every scene. Running through the film like a river. What once were seen as "references" or "rip offs" in his earlier films have become transparent, they aren't references anymore, they are all part of the World of Film. Tarantino has surpassed that bullshit. To him, EVERYTHING Cinematic is HIS. And it is.

When you see the old ShawScope logo, when you see The Bride show up on Vernita Green's doorstep and hear the adrenaline pumping Vengeance theme play, when you hear Elle Driver whistling the theme from Twisted Nerve in split screen, when you see Buck (Michael Bowen) discovering a truck drivers dead body, when you experience the ultra violent/beautiful Anime origin of O'Ren Ishii, when you meet the kind hearted Hattori Hanzo, when you see The Bride on her motorcycle in the Game of Death tracksuit, when you see O'Ren Ishii enter The House of Blue Leaves with The Crazy 88, when you experience the climactic, cinematically orgasmic, insanely gory, outrageously exciting, comedic, heart-bursting, Matrix destroying House of Blue Leaves fight, when you see The Bride and O'Ren Ishii facing off as warriors in the snow, you'll see why Kill Bill is a beautiful work of art.

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