Number 200 on the top 1000 films of all time is Quentin Tarantino’s martial arts thriller ‘Kill Bill
Volume 1.’ I just happened to see this film on TV, hence why I’m reviewing it
out of order.
The Bride (Uma Thurman) awakens
after an assassination attempt by her former hit squad goes awry. She vows revenge on her former colleagues
including her boss. (David Carradine)
Kill Bill pays homage to
many of the grindhouse and martial arts films of the 60s and 70s. However, I think it is more homage than
actual film. Of course, you would expect
there to be elements of the genre present, but I think it was overdone. Don’t get me wrong, the martial art scenes
were brilliantly choregraphed, the Crazy-88 fight being the obvious example,
but they became over-long and tedious.
I understand that the
film focusses on martial arts, but the extended fight scenes did little to push
the narrative forward. And that is my
main criticism of the film. It was all
more style than substance.
The
narrative, as it was, was stretched very thin.
The Bride has a fight with the first member of her hit squad, Vernita
Green, and then travels to Japan and has another fight with the Crazy-88 and
then a final fight with the next hit squad member O-Ren (Lucy Liu.) Throw in
some feet shots for good measure. We’ll
talk about this later.
I did think that the
staging and cinematography were brilliant, especially with how the Crazy-88
fight was in monochrome and later silhouetted.
Also, while O’Ren’s backstory being depicted as an anime cartoon was
certainly innovative, it became very familiar, after a while. I was hungering for some actual narrative and
fleshed-out characters.
Now is the time to talk
about Uma Thurman’s feet. It’s well-known
that Tarantino has a foot fetish, but this is the first time that I’ve really
been aware of it. Did we really need to
spend so much time looking at Thurman’s feet?
Ultimately, this is an
enjoyable film to watch once, but how any substance gives way to style, does make
it tedious after a while.
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