Review #24 | "Kill Bill Vol. 1" (2003)

Deemed a classic, "Kill Bill Volume. 1" is considered one of Tarintino's best films. As his fourth film, Tarintino had already developed a working relationship with his editor Sally Menke and established is storytelling style. While the visuals in "Kill Bill" are stunning, the aspect that really stood out to me was the sound design. Like the colors and choreogrpahy, the sound design is very crisp, precise, and deliberate. Sound adds another element to this extrasensory film.

Uma Thurman delivers an excellent performance in this film. Although she steals the show, she is supported by a talented supporting cast including Lucy Lui. The two women go head to head (that's a pun if you've seen the movie) in a final battle for Thurman's character's revenge. I like the fact that we never find out her name. It adds to the mystery of her character and detaches us from the murders she commits.

The action is very gory. So gory, in fact, that the mise-en-scene for the pre-final battle was cleverly adapted for censorship reasons. Suddenly the action goes from full color to black and white and after the action goes back to color the action becomes backlit in purple to display silhouettes on a makeshift stage. Surely Tarintino wasn't quite happy to have censored his film, but the designers cleverly fixed the problem while keeping the action apace.

Don't watch if you don't like violence.

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Rated R.

Directed by Quentin Tarintino. Starring Uma Thurman, Lucy Lui. Editing by Sally Menke.