Kill Bill V01 (Blu-ray) (2003)

"There is much to admire in Vol. 1, not least a performance from Uma Thurman as steely as the plate in her character's head...  Colin Kennedy, Empire
"Astonishing!  Newsweek
"The film may be bloody, but it's also bloody gorgeous: a grandly fetishized epic of cinematic aggression.  Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"...Tarantino brings delicious sin back to movies -- the thrill you get from something down, dirty and dangerous.  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"...brilliant, a blast of cinematic lunacy and as much of a guilty pleasure as the schlocky movies Tarantino adores...  Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
"Delivered with such high panache and brio, it's mesmerizing.  Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
"Exhilarating, daring and fun!  Time

Editor's Note After a six-year hiatus, Quentin Tarantino returns to the director's chair with KILL BILL. The movie proves once again that he is a hyperactive visionary and the master of cinematic coolness. Split into two volumes by Miramax in order to ensure that Tarantino's vision would not be compromised (and presumably to sell more tickets), KILL BILL: VOL. 1 tells the first half of the sprawling story, which is quite simple at first glance. A female assassin, referred to as "The Bride" (Uma Thurman), is attacked on her wedding day. Dead are her soon-to-be husband and unborn child. However, she doesn't die. Four years later, she wakes up from a coma looking for revenge. Although her ultimate target is her former boss, Bill (David Carradine), it's quite clear that The Bride is saving the best for last. And before she can track him down, she must methodically take out the minions who ruined her life. VOLUME 1's targets include Vernita Green/Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox), Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), and the heartless O-Ren Ishii/Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu). Using a blessed sword handmade by Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba), The Bride begins her relentless assault. Turning up the style and energy levels that he kept under a threshold with 1997's JACKIE BROWN, Tarantino's obvious glee and reverence for the underground kung fu action pictures of the '70s, and Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, makes for a stunning visual spectacle. Employing split screens, slow-motion, an anime sequence, and his trademark ultra-hip musical selections, Tarantino's film dares viewers to be unimpressed.

	Chiaki Kuriyama
	Sonny Chiba
	Chia Hui Liu
	Julie Dreyfus
	Vivica A. Fox
	Lucy Liu
	David Carradine
	Michael Madsen
	Uma Thurman
	Daryl Hannah
	The RZA - Composer
	Robert Richardson - Director of Photography
	Lawrence Bender - Producer
	Sally Menke - Editor
	Quentin Tarantino - Producer
	Quentin Tarantino - Screenwriter
	Quentin Tarantino - Director

Entertainment Weekly
"...It's a tale of vengeance that hinges on Tarantino's love of ferocity as spectacle..." 10/17/2003 p.57-8

Total Film
"...Quite brilliant....It's all here: the sudden shifts of tone, the flip-flopping time structure, the supercool slo-mo, the exquisite humour, the pitch-perfect performances and, of course, the trademark dialogue..." 11/01/2003 p.88-9

Rolling Stone
"...In KILL BILL, Tarantino brings delicious sin back to movies -- the thrill you get from something down, dirty and dangerous..." 10/30/2003 p.99

New York Times
"...There are some strong and diverse flavors, as well as vivid colors in the mix, all of them deftly reflected in the hip-hop artist RZA's clever, eclectic score..." 10/10/2003 p.E1

USA Today
"...Tarantino can glean excitement out of someone walking across a room....And he's funny..." 10/10/2003 p.1E

Los Angeles Times
"...The ultimate film-geek freakout, a compendium of 1960s and 1970s cine-references..." 10/10/2003 p.C1

Variety
"...A strange, fun and densely textured work that gets better as it goes along..." 09/29/2003 p.56-64

Sight and Sound
"...This is a down-and-dirty kung fu picture..." 12/01/2003 p.40-2

Film Comment
"A new wrinkle on pastiche -- the first bona fide mainstream mix movie, and long live the director as DJ." 01/01/2004 p.45

Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "KILL BILL offers many glimpses of Tarantino's maverick genius..." 01/01/2008 p.194

ReelViews 7 of 10
Quentin Tarantino fans have been waiting six long years for the release of the director's follow-up to Jackie Brown. So what do they get for their patience? An incomplete movie, artlessly cleft in the middle. Cinema interruptus...One aspect of Kill Bill that doesn't disappoint are the action sequences. Although no better than those in The Matrix Reloaded, they are fun to watch, as The Bride slices and dices her way through dozens of enemies, using hidden wires to do Crouching Tiger-like moves. Tarantino has designed Kill Bill as an homage to the Hong Kong movies he dearly loves, and it accomplishes that. There is so much blood that it's virtually impossible not to laugh as gallons of it spew like a fountain from a decapitated head. The level of gore is so over-the-top that only the most sensitive of viewers will be grossed-out...Throughout Kill Bill, I got the sense that Tarantino thinks he is being more clever than he actually is. This is easily the worst of Tarantino's four features (the other three being Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown). At this point, it's difficult to tell whether the story as a whole is worth telling - that judgment will have to await the release of Volume 2. But, based on what's available for the time being, I can only recommend Kill Bill for die-hard Tarantino buffs and Hong Kong action junkies. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
"Kill Bill, Volume 1" shows Quentin Tarantino so effortlessly and brilliantly in command of his technique that he reminds me of a virtuoso violinist racing through "Flight of the Bumble Bee" -- or maybe an accordion prodigy setting a speed record for "Lady of Spain." I mean that as a sincere compliment. The movie is not about anything at all except the skill and humor of its making. It's kind of brilliant...His story is a distillation of the universe of martial arts movies, elevated to a trancelike mastery of the material. Tarantino is in the Zone...The movie is all storytelling and no story. The motivations have no psychological depth or resonance, but are simply plot markers. The characters consist of their characteristics. Lurking beneath everything, as it did with "Pulp Fiction," is the suggestion of a parallel universe in which all of this makes sense in the same way that a superhero's origin story makes sense...There's B&W in the movie, and slo-mo, and a name that's bleeped entirely for effect, and even an extended sequence in anime. The animated sequence, which gets us to Tokyo and supplies the backstory of O-Ren, is sneaky in the way it allows Tarantino to deal with material that might, in live action, seem too real for his stylized universe. It deals with a Mafia kingpin's pedophilia. The scene works in animated long shot; in live action closeup, it would get the movie an NC-17. - Roger Ebert