KILL BILL VOLUME ONE review

Black & White Close-Up of Uma’s bloody agonized and beaten face… She’s had the snot beaten out of her, she’s scared… scared in that way only a victim about to be murdered is. We hear the voice of David Carradine’s Bill consoling her, his hand with a handkerchief cleaning some of the snot and blood off her face. He’s coming to the end of his consolation, we hear an off camera cocking of a gun… This whole time, we’re on Uma… Her lip trembling… Her life, it’s about to be over. She utters a last minute phrase, that I will not repeat here, and the gun is fired and an explosion of black blood splatters behind her head…

The screen goes black and then we hear Nancy Sinatra sing over the opening titles:

I was five and he was six
We rode on horses made of sticks
He wore black and I wore white
He would always win the fight

Bang bang, he shot me down
Bang bang, I hit the ground
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, my baby shot me down.

Seasons came and changed the time
When I grew up, I called him mine
He would always laugh and say
“Remember when we used to play?”

Bang bang, I shot you down
Bang bang, you hit the ground
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, I used to shoot you down.

Music played and people sang
Just for me the church bells rang.

Now he’s gone, I don’t know why
And till this day, sometimes I cry
He didn’t even say goodbye
He didn’t take the time to lie.

A great song written by Sonny Bono. The effect of this opening sequence isn’t funny, isn’t cool, isn’t a warm fuzzy feeling of your favorite teddy bear. This is the key moment of the film. What follows isn’t going to be happy gleeful fare. Oh, that’s there if you’re in an audience that sees it. This film can hit you many different ways.

On that Friday night audience, you’re likely to cheer with the film, be electrified and energized. You’ll want to run out and buy a samurai sword and take on the nearest horde of Yakuza Kato-mask wearing sons of badasses and cleave them down the middle, at the ankle and leave them spurting.

HOWEVER…

On that Monday morning matinee, in an empty theater in January when you go to see this film on a fifth viewing by yourself, because someone canceled an appointment, or you had time to kill and you wanted to get “that KILL BILL vibe” going… you’re likely to find a wholly different film. That opening scene holds true throughout this film by yourself. This isn’t a happy movie of ass-kicking. It can be, but if you are alone, and I was sitting entirely by myself this morning -- sure there were about 40 some odd people behind me watching this film… a mixture of clappings, excitements and laughs permeated the room… but I was in my own world. There were moments where I clapped out of pure exhilaration, but in all… and in the end as I walked out that theater, I wasn’t talkative, I was contemplative. Why? Because I saw two fists of hurt on screen. The House of Blue Leaves sequence hit me entirely different than what I was expecting.

You see… When I read that first draft of KILL BILL, the same one that’s been online and available for download for going on a year now, I thought it was fantastic. Finally here was a film that was going to be a gigantic big ol fuck it all, let’s have fun and celebrate everything there is to love about the movies. It read like a roaring rampage of revenge… hell that was even a line of dialogue in the script… and even on one of the two trailers on the Soundtrack for KILL BILL, but ya know what? You know that opening Monologue… the one that I quoted on this site two days after September 11th in 2001? That ain’t in this movie, at least not in this volume, and I can’t imagine it is in the second, but then I didn’t imagine this film, Tarantino did. Anyway, when I read that draft, I had told Quentin that what I loved about the script was that here was a screenplay that felt like there were real characters trapped in the confines of the exploitation genre, forced to carry out the lives they’ve been written, but hating every moment.

When I heard the film was cut in two, I was terrified that the emotional counterbalance had been neutered and that this film was going to feel like a frog in a blender… puree ya know?

When I was on set, I felt that Uma, Sonny Chiba, David Carradine, Kenji Ohba and Julie Dreyfus were all texturing what they were doing with a layer of humanity that was… alarming. But still that was pieces, moments… I really hadn’t a clue how it would come together.

The way it cuts together, the way the music makes it flow… the way this thing breathes and walks and dances on that screen. This isn’t a duck press of Grindhouse filmmaking, that might have been the goal that Quentin was shooting for, but what got up on screen… the results of that “duck press” is something the likes of which we’ve never seen on screen before.

I know the films Quentin pulls inspiration from. I live and breath cult cinema. The money I’ve spent on my DVD and 16mm collection is truly absurd by anyone’s definition… except maybe Quentin’s. I am buying film constantly, watching it incessantly, thinking about it subconsciously – the way you breathe or pump blood to your limbs, that’s how I think about film. And I love it like that. It’s that precious to me. And thinking about KILL BILL after seeing it, I can honestly say that without a doubt there isn’t a moment I felt I’d seen before.

Here’s the thing.

The whistle tune that Darryl Hannah is sashaying to is Bernard Herrmann’s TWISTED NERVE theme… or was. Now, Quentin owns it. I intellectually know where it is from, and kudos to me, give me the Pink Elephant with the purple polka dots, but that theme now belongs to a one eyed blonde bitch in a hospital. And yeah, I know that she’s from both SWITCHBLADE SISTERS and THEY CALL HER ONE EYE. Once again, goody for me, big whup. That look is now owned by Darryl Hannah and this film. It isn’t that it erases those prior films… it simply surpasses all that it borrows from.

Why? How?

In the exact same way that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK took the costume for Indiana Jones and the opening sequence from the character of Harry Steele and the film SECRET OF THE INCAS, along with dozens of moments and stunts from serials and b-westerns. Or how STAR WARS double-fistingly grabbed inspiration from Kurosawa, Joseph Campbell… oh and then all those damn Buster Crabbe serials. In the exact same way that the Wachowski’s looted Manga and Anime and Asian film to conjure up the MATRIX…

EXCEPT - and this is where Quentin grabs the triple crown of Cinematic Evolution from Spielberg, Lucas and the Wachowski’s… KILL BILL isn’t just exploitation film inspired… this is CINEMA, the whole… Everything from everywhere. The soundtrack, which is just a smidgen of the actual soundtrack, you’ll want Volume 2 of the Volume 1 soundtrack excruciatingly bad after you see this film…. That soundtrack representing the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia… that’s the flavor of the inspiration here. But here’s the thing…

Quentin completely gets what film is with this film. Every problem, every microbe of an issue that I’ve had with everything from MATRIX RELOADED to ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO to hell… the entire exploitation genre of Martial Arts films and Revenge flicks… Quentin gets right.

It’s something that I saw in SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGENCE that I had never really truly seen in a Western film of revenge… the sadness of revenge, the tragic nature of retribution. Now, this film doesn’t wallow in that, it doesn’t baste itself in seriousness, but it’s there. You can see it in Lucy’s apology, Uma’s sit in the snow, Vivica’s kitchen stare. There’s a very real sense of pain and regret in the actions of these people.

AT THE SAME TIME…

One of my top two favorite films of all time is Errol Flynn’s THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, one of the things I just absolutely love with every fiber of my being is the glee, the joy, the sheer celebration of being able to physically be able to do the things that Flynn does in that film. It’s what I love about Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire… or Charles Chaplin or Jackie Chan at their best… it’s that sheer kinetic full body expression of DOING. Doing what they love, loving what they are doing. You know they know they are the fucking man. Ya know? That at that moment, when that camera was rolling, they knew… I’m the coolest person on the planet doing the coolest thing on the planet at this moment, and one day… everyone is going to know it. You can see that on Bruce Lee in every fight he ever fought on screen.

Uma has that here. Now you may think, well, she doesn’t really know how to sword fight… here’s a secret, neither did Errol Flynn. In fact, in that classic swordfight between Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn… Rathbone would have skewered Flynn’s bloated liver the second that battle became real, but… FLYNN WAS THE MAN.

UMA IS THE MAN in this film. Sure, as Michael Parks puts it, Uma, “is a tall drink of cocksucker,” but nevertheless… SHE IS THE MAN! She owns every moment of this film she’s in that Sonny Chiba is not also in. Cuz, just for the record, Sonny Chiba is not just THE MAN, but THE MOLD from which they should all be cast.

KILL BILL VOLUME 1 is at it’s purest essence a complete celebration of all things I love most about film. It creates a universe that could only exist on film. It has the soundtrack you wish life pulsed to. It has characters you wish you could become. And breaks each and every rule 3 times in their most sensitive places.

OK… now that I got the basics out of the way, let’s talk about KILL BILL.

First off, Quentin dosed the MPAA. They had acid in their coffee the day they gave this film an R-rating, and god bless Lysergic Acid for giving them the vision to let this film grace American screens. Full, insane arterial sprays, bodies cut in two, mouth wounds, eye removal… and more and more and more. Of course they saw it with each other, and I’m sure they began to laugh, instead of seeing it alone each and realizing… JESUS… THE CARNAGE! But bless them all. The MPAA did the right thing and this film is going to stun you.

Hell, the Anime sequence alone would normally get a NC-17 I believe, but somehow… Somehow it got through, and it will knock the air out of you. What young O-Ren goes through… what she witnesses… How that got onto an American Movie screen, God bless the fates.

About the Anime sequence by Production IG, WOW. WOW. For Anime lovers, this sequence will be legend, as frankly it is one of the most affecting, haunting and tragic little origin stories I’ve ever seen. It also, stylistically makes sense to be Anime, simply because it isn’t events she witness, but rather… a story that the Bride tells us. As such, instead of it feeling like an odd choice or something that didn’t belong… it just rules. The sketchy nature of the animation, but then the way the blood sprays in Anime form is just beautiful. Technically the way blood happens in this film isn’t so much blood as some crazed crimson cinematic calligraphy upon that silver screen.

The fights… How are they?

Ok, first off, you are not prepared for how FAST these fights are.

FOR EXAMPLE… Vernita Green vs The Bride.

In the trailer, you can see how hard they are swinging the knives at one another, but the trailer has just a snippet… The second the Bride’s “I’m Going To Skull Fuck You” theme dies and she goes Kill Crazy… you see two people trying to KILL each other. This isn’t nice, this hurts. Hurts because they’re seemingly knocking the crap out of each other. The knife fight in full motion hurts, not in some “Girly” fight way, but in a trained edged weapon fight manner and with no intention of giving quarter. If you saw William Friedkin’s THE HUNTED – it’s that type of speed. Also, the sound design and sound effects creation for this film are just superb throughout. Every miss you hear as well as see, and the sounds, sound sharp and deadly.

This is never harder than in the Bride vs GoGo Yubari.

WOW! Just WOW! First off, Chiaki Kuriyama plays it to perfection. The part of the killer Japanese School Girl will forever be hers. The fight between her and Uma is legend. It hurts and is absolutely brutal. Watch Uma’s body fold around that ball when it impacts on her. You could almost see every last breath run screaming from her mouth. When she’s being strangled… DEAR GOD! The film wasn’t playing nice at all. At all. Sure the Ball & Chain was a helluvalot more than that. It’s was some fantastic hybrid of the classic Ball & Chain along with the MACE and the Flying Guillotine. I’ve never seen a battle quite like this one. I’m betting, neither have you. Again, the sounds are amazing, the impact sounds are crushing.

Bride vs The Crazy 88s and Johnny Mo.

On the trailer for THE LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH – there was a narrator quote that went something like, “Then they threw an army at him, and he threw it back… a piece at a time.” Yeah. Mhm. EXACTLY! That’s exactly what happens here. I know you think you know what you’re going to see, because you’ve seen maybe 20 seconds out of the trailers… which have had all the blood covered up digitally, so it could be presentable for “All Audiences,” but I can tell you… YOU. Yes, YOU. Until you see this sequence, you don’t know why Quentin Tarantino is a goddamn master.

You watch CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON or MATRIX RELOADED or EQUILIBRIUM or BLADE or BLADE 2 or any of those TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES movies… and you get a pretty solid definition of what a Samurai Sword does. It knocks you out, unless you are fighting the ultimate bad guy, then it actually develops “edge” properties, which might be showcased for a single effect.

Remember why Light Sabers were cool? Remember when OB1 did that bar-room swish swish, then bloody arm on floor? Well, that’s a beginning.

Hattori Hanzo steel is the sword equivalent to a wallet that says Bad Mutherfucker. I can’t really explain it, you’ll just have to see the chapter entitled THE MAN FROM OKINAWA, and when you do… you may get it, no… really, you should get it. I’ve got a feeling that this section, the scenes with Uma, Sonny and Kenji Ohba will end up being their favorite scenes of the film. Though the purpose of this whole sequence is to define Uma’s sword. Finally we have a film that really lets go with the concept that Samurai Swords are not blunt instruments. And I like that. I like that plenty.

Like the heydays of Ogami Itto, when fighting an army, it is impressionistic and highlighted by the arterial sprays of the victims of his wrath. The HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES mass battle is so long, that it takes on a couple of forms stylistically. Rather than remaining in a single palate, we watch Robert Richardson take over and create something beautiful. From the visual look of the battles of Chang Cheh to the stark black & white of the earlier Samurai films of folks like Kihachi Okamoto and Akira Kurosawa to the impressionistic stage like renderings we’ve seen from folks like Miike and Ryuhei Kitamura. All culminating in the Bride vs. O-Ren Ishii in the snow.

What sets this film miles apart from all that has come before is not just Robert Richardson’s stunning cinematography. Nor is it due to Tarantino and Yuen Woo-Ping’s choreography. Not just KNB’s exquisite destruction of many human forms. Nor is it just the dialogue and delivery by great actors. No. It’s the music. The music is the pulse of these scenes and watching samurai destruction to everything from Spaghetti Western score pieces to Latin – beats to well… the music for this film kills. It is vibrant and pulsing. It is the beat the editing follows, the emotion to the scenes, the fabric that is drenched red.

Now will everyone love this movie?

At my screening today, which was a press screening, there were about 45 people in attendance. The first 6 out the door apparently left immediately upon seeing the “Written & Directed By Quentin Tarantino” credit… thus they missed seeing a very significant epilogue, probably wouldn’t matter… I found out those 6 people HATED the film. The remaining 39 stayed till the film ran out and the lights came up and apparently, to the one, they LOVED it. I was the last one out, and as a matter of record, the first in.

What can I say to explain those 6 people? I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them. I’ve got a negative review that just came in while I was composing mine, and for the life of me, I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about.

I know that no film is loved by everyone. Some critics hated THE WILD BUNCH, STAR WARS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, RAGING BULL, TAXI DRIVER, THE EXORCIST, JAWS and other classic films. Even more critics hated ROLLING THUNDER, the Martial Arts films, Spaghetti Westerns, Samurai films and Grindhouse Gore. I have no way to explain those critics, who are in what I can only imagine, are in a walking coma, unable to partake in the sensation of greatness inherent to both types of movies. I simply mourn them. Personally, I feel KILL BILL can be mentioned in both lists… It is drenched in the drippings from Grindhouse film squeezed out of that Duck Press of Quentin’s brain, but this film is that Grade A Steak, that was just marinated in that saucy goodness. It is a classic.

Do not leave till you see the epilogue, if you have to use the restroom. I’m serious, this isn’t just some “trailer” this is a SIGNIFICANT part of the film, that changes everything.