Kill Bill: Vol 1 **** (2003, Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Lucy Liu, Vivica A Fox, Julie Dreyfus, Chiaki Kuriyama, Michael Parks) – Classic Movie Review 364

In 2003, Quentin Tarantino returned for his fourth film – or at least half of it, as it’s been chopped in two, with part two eventually released eight months later.

Uma Thurman, Marsellus’s sexy, drug-addled wife Mia Wallace in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, enjoys what’s still her best role so far as The Bride, the sole survivor of a wedding-party massacre, now on the revenge trail against the elite band of assassins responsible.

There’s tough, raw, edge-of-seat martial arts action as Thurman heads for Tokyo in trendy yellow leathers with a huge new samurai sword to despatch to hell the evil Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu) at the House of the Blue Leaves, first killing off dozens of minions in the most spectacular style.

Dazzlingly filmed by Tarantino and his cinematographer Robert Richardson, this is brilliant and essential cinema for those with very strong stomachs. As writer, Tarantino has managed to carve out some new ground from some old, video-store plots. It’s arrestingly stylised, and really quite peculiar in tone and atmosphere. In the end it emerges as a film quite unlike any other, which ultimately gives it its fascination and value.

Daryl Hannah’s one-eyed killer Elle Driver, Michael Madsen’s thick slob Budd Sidewinder and David Carradine’s The Bride’s ex-lover Bill. They all make quite an impression. And Vivica A Fox (as Vernita Green),  Julie Dreyfus, Chiaki Kuriyama and Michael Parks also have space to shine.

Kill Bill: Vol 2 followed in April 2004.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Film Review 364 derekwinnert.com