Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

Spoilers

 

The fourth movie by Quentin Tarantino is an epic tale of one woman’s quest for Revenge, presented in two separate instalments. In Kill Bill— Vol. 1 the title character, played by David Carradine is a mostly unseen sinister figure looming over the story who has organized an elite group called the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.

All of the vipers are code-named after poisonous serpents and the deadliest of them all is Black Mamba (Uma Thurman), who is also Bill’s former lover.

Early in Vol. 1 a Texas Ranger (Michael Parks) surveys a grisly scene: an entire wedding party slaughtered during a dress rehearsal in a rural chapel. The pregnant woman in the blood splattered wedding dress is Black Mamba, better known as The Bride.

Bill and The Vipers left The Bride for dead, but unluckily for them, she was merely comatose. The Viper assassin California Mountain Snake, a.k.a. Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), creeps into The Bride’s hospital room, disguised as a nurse and brandishing a syringe— only to be called off at the last possible moment by Bill himself.

Four years later, The Bride suddenly awakens and realizes what has been done to her. She disposes of the hospital orderly (Michael Bowen) who has been auctioning off her (immobile) sexual favours, confiscates his garish “Pussy Wagon,” and sets off on a ferociously focused mission.

Her first target among the wedding massacre participants is the Viper known as Cottonmouth, O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). At seven O-Ren hid only inches away as her parents were killed. At age eleven she took her own bloody revenge, and has since become the first female boss-of-all-bosses of the Japanese yakuza underworld.

In Okinawa, The Bride acquires a legendary bladed weapon from the last of the world’s great samurai sword-smiths, the legendary ninjitsu master Hattori Honzo (Sonny Chiba). In Tokyo, O-Ren Ishii is surrounded by her lethal henchmen and holds court in a massive nightclub/restaurant complex, the House of Blue Leaves. The Bride’s assault upon this stronghold is a pitched martial arts battle with hundreds of black clad soldiers of O-Ren’s personal shock squad, The Crazy 88s. The assault also includes personal showdowns with two of O-Ren’s top aides, her personal assistant, Sophie Fatale (Julie Dreyfuss), and her private bodyguard 'Go Go Yubari' (Chiaki Kuriyama).

The assault culminates in a classic, tragic snowy standoff between these two formidable warriors, O-Ren Ishii and The Bride. We begin to sense that the quest for justice could exact a heavy emotional toll upon The Bride.

A few days later, in Pasadena, California, the Bride has moved on to her second knockdown- drag out battle with a Viper target, Copperhead, a.k.a. Vernita Green (VIVICA A. FOX). The presence of Vernita’s young daughter at the scene adds a note of grim irony to the tale of a widowed mother’s quest for retribution.

In the aftermath of the epic Tokyo battle, Bill appears on screen for the first time to question the fight’s sole survivor, Sophie Fatale, about The Bride’s intentions.

In Kill Bill— Vol. 2 the emotional momentum that builds throughout Vol. 1 will achieve its cathartic resolution, as The Bride goes through the remaining Vipers (including MICHAEL Madsen’s Sidewinder) to reach the man himself, the father of her child and make a deeply poignant discovery.

One thing that makes this film stand out above all other Quentin Tarantino is the fact there is very little gun violence. In fact all of violence is done by sword or some other form of melee weapon, for example Go Go Yubari; she wields a spiked ball and chain.

Overall Kill Bill Vol.1 is an excellent movie, let down only slightly by the lack of major example of Quentin style dialogue, sure it there but there isn’t much of it.

 

Final Score

9/10