A roaring rampage of Revenge.
There were five on her list. Now it’s three. O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green were the first to fall, now The Bride is out to finish the job by killing Elle Driver, Budd, and last of all, Bill. If the final three aren’t afraid now, they better start, because she’s coming for them…
Kill Bill is probably one of Quentin Tarantino’s (who inhabits a very specific niche market specializing in nostalgia of all that was B-grade) finest moments, quite simply because it is an absolute fantastic tribute to both the B-grade film-making styles of the West and East all in one go (well two if you don’t see Volume 1 and Volume 2 as being the same beast just cut into two).
Volume 1 is an interesting creature in that it focuses more style than substance and as such the story it presents is not particularly deep and instead is merely the vehicle used to propel us from the one stylish fight scene to the next. However, the off-the-wall, typical Tarantino black humour combined with the straight-faced Uma Thurman performance works well in crafting an absolutely enjoyable piece of filmography that despite its storytelling weakness, is so overladen with over-the-top and ridiculous B-grade style that it simply can’t be ignored.
One of the highlights of course is the fantastic animated sequence that details the events leading to O-Ren Ishii becoming who she is and as per usual famed anime production house Production I.G. produce an absolutely stellar piece of work.
Volume 2 then switches gears and starts focusing more on the story than the style, though it does keep up the fantastic amount of violence and fight-scenes that made the first volume so attractive. Stylistically, it also makes the switch out of the blaxpoloitation, Chinese ‘wuxia’, kung fu and Japanese martial arts homage styles and instead shoots for a more of a spaghetti western, Western style of film-making that again works wonders in keeping that whole B-grade feel that the entire Kill Bill series so strongly shoots for.
And of course, just when you think you’ve seen it all, Tarantino flips the table out from under you and presents an ending that for the most part is completely contrary to the rest of the movie but then at the last moment switches back again and finishes off exactly as you would have expected it to.
And then there is of course the choice of music throughout the film – perhaps one of the most stylish, well-thought out sound tracks ever put together for a movie…
Without a doubt, Kill Bill stands head and shoulders above the rest as the best contemporary homage movie to everything that made the 70’s and 80’s movies as special as they were! And just in case you think I’m making fun of it, I’m not. All the performances are extremely strong, the filmography is sharp, the dialogue is extremely witty and overall, the films are just an absolutely engaging pleasure to sit through – if you can stomach the extreme levels of graphic violence that is! :)
Related link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_bill