Kill Bill Vol. 1
Kill Bill Vol. 1 ★★★½ 2003 (R)
Tarantino is back with a vengeance. In the first of two volumes of what originally was supposed to be a single film, Uma Thurman is spectacular as The Bride, a former assassin, betrayed and left for dead at her wedding by her associates and mysterious boss, Bill. When she awakens from a coma four years later she begins a mission of revenge that takes her from suburban L.A. to Okinawa, to Tokyo. Tarantino joyfully and masterfully immerses the audience in the different styles and ultraviolence of the Asian cinema he loves so much, even using anime for one backstory sequence, with some spaghetti western and ‘70s TV added for spice. His trademark sharp dialogue is not as plentiful as in the past, but what's here is layered,sometimes moving, and often humorous. Tarantino fave Chiba delivers as a master samurai swordmaker. 110m/C VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD . US Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon (Chia Hui) Liu, Sonny Chiba, Michael Parks, Chiaki Kuriyama, Jun Kunimura, Julie Dreyfus, Larry Bishop, Michael Bowen; D: Quentin Tarantino; W: Quentin Tarantino; C: Robert Richardson; M: The RZA; V: David Carradine.