Starring Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Julie Dreyfus, Sonny Chiba, Chiaki Kuriyama, Chia Hui Liu, Michael Bowen
Written By:
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Studio: Miramax
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I think I must be the only person on Earth who hasn’t seen Kill Bill Vol. 1 up until now. Everyone around me is talking about it and saying how great it is. My first impression of the movie is it was overrated, and it got caught up in the Hype Machine. But after thinking about it, I think the movie is good.

I’m sure everybody knows the story by now so I’ll just go over it for the people who haven’t seen the movie yet. The Bride (Uma Thurman), a former assassin called the Black Mamba plans to get out of the business and lead a new life with her husband, and soon to be born baby. But that plan changes when her former boss, Bill (David Carradine) puts a bullet in her head at the altar and killing everyone at the wedding. Luckily for the Bride, that bullet didn’t kill her and she was put in a coma for 4 years. She wakes up and vows revenge on Bill and his Deadly Viper Squad, his highly trained international assassins that help participate in the attempted killing of the Bride. The group consist of Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu), a fierce crime boss in Japan, Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox), California Mountain Snake (Daryl Hannah) and Budd a.k.a Sidewinder (Michael Madsen).

After watching the movie, I kind of felt the movie was overrated and it was just all right. It wasn’t this BIG awesome, excellent movie everyone was making it out to be. I still feel that way but I’ve grown to like it a little bit better from thinking about it a few days. I kind of felt the same way after watching Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction for the first time. It’s one of those movies where you have to go back and watch it over and over again, just to see if you like the damn thing and then end you up loving the movie. So it might take me awhile to appreciate this movie. I still haven’t seen Volume 2 yet so I need to do that and maybe I’ll like this movie more. Personally, I’m kind of glad they split the movies in half because I felt the movie was so slow in the beginning, it would have made me insane trying to watch a 4 hour movie. Besides, it’s just another homage to make it 2 movies because a lot of kung fu movies were split into 2, or their TV shows would only be a one season long. Something American TV should do more often (i.e.. Band of Brothers).

The movie was very stylistic and made very well. Even though I don’t much about Kung Fu cinema and all the references Tarantino makes, I still got it. The opening of the movie, all the cult Kung fu actors appearing in the movies like David Carradine, and Sonny Chiba. Just the look of the movie, you can tell Quentin was paying homage to those things. The music was another aspect that paid homage to Kung fu serial films and TV series. The cheesy 70’s styled music, spaghetti western themes from composer Ennio Morricone, the even more cheesy sound effects, and anime sequences. If there was one thing I hated most about this movie was the music used for this. I think I liked maybe 3 songs out of the whole soundtrack. The rest was really freakin’ annoying. That “” song by the Japanese surf rock band, The 5.6.7.8’s was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo annoying. I wanted to chop my ears off with a samurai sword. The songs I did like though were stuff from composer (haha) The RZA, Charlie Feathers, and Santa Esmeralda. I dug those songs a lot.

Another thing I hated about the movie was the anime sequence. Yes it was a good reference to Japanese pop culture but I just HATE anime. The movie’s anime sequence was kind of pointless to have really, you could have done the same effect with live actors. I just think it’s some of the worst animation out there. I’d rather watch fluffy little Care Bears to anime any day haha. But if you’re gonna some anime in the movie, at least have it well drawn. The animation was all choppy, messy and just looked stupid. Maybe I’m just a person who doesn’t “get it.” All my friends are anime geeks and I fight with them a lot about it. I don’t know, I just think they could have done something else besides anime.

As I figured they would, the extras were crap because there’s going to be an inevitable Collector’s Edition coming out. There’s a 20 minute featurette with Tarantino and others talking about how the movie got started and other things like that. I didn’t know he wanted to make this movie back in the Pulp Fiction days with Uma Thurman. The feature was okay but it was definitely a tease. There was music videos with the band I hate, The 5, 6, 7, 8’s. There was also some trailers on here so big freakin’ whoop.

It took me awhile to think about the movie but I generally liked a lot of things about it, but I also disliked quite a few things as well. I hated the anime, most of the music, and the slowness of the beginning. I loved the fight scenes though! I just feel the movie was good, it’s not brilliant like people are making it out to be. I’m sure once I see Kill Bill Volume 2, I’ll appreciate the movie more though.

Features:
– The Making of Kill Bill Vol. 1
– Bonus Musical Performances by “The 5, 6, 7, 8’s”
– Quentin Tarantino Movie Trailers, including Kill Bill Vol.1

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
ENGLISH: DTS 5.1 CC
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Stereo

Video:
Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: Buck talking with his redneck friend about The Bride, the scenes with Sonny Chiba were cool, the fight scene with Vernita Green, the entire fight scenes in Japan.
Rating: Rated R
Running Time: 111 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: