Product Description

The acclaimed fourth film from groundbreaking writer and director Quentin Tarantino (PULP FICTION, JACKIE BROWN), KILL BILL VOLUME 1 stars Uma Thurman (PULP FICTION), Lucy Liu (CHARLIE'S ANGELS, CHICAGO), and Vivica A. Fox (TWO CAN PLAY THAT GAME) in an astonishing, action-packed thriller about brutal betrayal and an epic vendetta! Four years after taking a bullet in the head at her own wedding, The Bride (Thurman) emerges from a coma and decides it's time for payback ... with a vengeance! Having been gunned down by her former boss (David Carradine) and his deadly squad of international assassins, it's a kill-or-be-killed fight she didn't start but is determined to finish! Loaded with explosive action and outrageous humor, it's a must-see motion picture event that has critics everywhere raving!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #729 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-04-13
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.com
Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1 is trash for connoisseurs. From his opening gambit (including a "Shaw-Scope" logo and gaudy '70s-vintage "Our Feature Presentation" title card) to his cliffhanger finale (a teasing lead-in to 2004's Vol. 2), Tarantino pays loving tribute to grindhouse cinema, specifically the Hong Kong action flicks and spaghetti Westerns that fill his fervent brain--and this frequently breathtaking movie--with enough cinematic references and cleverly pilfered soundtrack cues to send cinephiles running for their reference books. Everything old is new again in Tarantino's humor-laced vision: he steals from the best while injecting his own oft-copied, never-duplicated style into what is, quite simply, a revenge flick, beginning with the near-murder of the Bride (Uma Thurman), pregnant on her wedding day and left for dead by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (or DiVAS)--including Lucy Liu and the unseen David Carradine (as Bill)--who become targets for the Bride's lethal vengeance. Culminating in an ultraviolent, ultra-stylized tour-de-force showdown, Tarantino's fourth film is either brilliantly (and brutally) innovative or one of the most blatant acts of plagiarism ever conceived. Either way, it's hyperkinetic eye-candy from a passionate film-lover who clearly knows what he's doing. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
In this Quentin Tarantino fantasy pastiche of samurai and martial-arts films, the trunk of a body, its head lopped off, will spurt blood like a fountain. We know that the non-stop violence is not meant to be real: for starters, the blood looks like cranberry juice. Yet Tarantino is working in a photographic medium, and the real-world associations are not so easy to shrug off. Tarantino's heroine, Uma Thurman, kills another female warrior in front of the woman's little girl, and the child doesn't react. Tarantino wants the shock of a mother killed in front of her daughter without the audience undergoing any discomfort at all. The movie is what's formally known as decadence and commonly known as crap. Saying that it's an homage to long-established genres in Hong Kong doesn't reduce its pop-nihilistic stupidity. Some of the sequences have a scintillating visual flair, but you come out feeling nothing at all. And this is only the first half. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Artistic and Brutal in One
From the moment when the b/w Bride swam into view, drawing desperate gasps of breath, black blood splattering her face and neck, I knew that Kill Bill would be a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. This homage to kung-fu and spaghetti-western movies is more than just a two-hour smash-fest, however. It's a prime example of artistic cinematography and story build-up, taking what seems like a linear and predictable revenge-plot and constantly surprising the viewer. In fact, I don't think there are many movies out there that centre on revenge and violence and still manage to hold such an artistic quality.

Kill Bill started out as a premise shared by Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman on the set of Pulp Fiction. An ex-assassin (Thurman), on her wedding day, is brutally beaten by her ex-coworkers and shot to death by her ex-boss... or so it seems. She survives by the smallest of margins, falling into a four-year coma. When she wakes up - and discovers that she's no longer pregnant - she intends to make them all very sorry. Thurman deserves all the credit she gets for her performance; she is heartwringingly convincing as the heartbroken but unwavering warrior. Her dialogue often takes the backseat to her sheer emotional acting. Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox and Daryl Hannah are also inspiring in their characteristic, while diverse, roles.

When watching the movie, I'm constantly torn over whether I should feel bad or fascinated. The theme is a ruthless, brutal one, yet presented in such an aesthetic manner that I can't help but appreciate its beauty. Indeed, the flick is quite a cunning piece of art. I'll leave others to interpret the various connections to old marial arts/spaghetti western movies found in Kill Bill, but I think it very much succeeds as a modern-day version of such a film, enhancing the beauty and brutality of both. Volume One of the Kill Bill saga mostly pays homage to the old kung fu movies. The big fight scene goes from colour to black-and-white in a really satisfying manner, adding to the film's ambience as both old-school and modern. And the climax of the movie, of course - the confrontation with O-Ren Ishii - has to be one of the most beautiful fight sequences I've seen. The soundtrack compliments the entire movie perfectly; whether its the bouncy rock-funk of the 5-6-7-8s, the beautiful piece of hymnic Japanese music as the Bride looks at swords, or the classic "Urami-bushi", not a song in the movie feels out of place. This is not to say that Tarantino doesn't keep his humour up - indeed the fight scenes (the last excluded) are not always so serious. Blood gushes to an insane amount (anatomy is to no importance here) and chuckling slapstick moments frequently pop up.

The choreography of almost every scene is spot-on, as well; and I don't just mean the downright dance the Bride makes as she cuts her way through the Crazy 88. A particularly clever piece of camerawork is an almost two-minute long uncut shot at the House of Blue Leaves, transitioning from the Bride to the proprietor to Sofie Fatale to the Bride again. This sequence is so seamless and spotless, it's downright hard to believe it.

The character introduction is flawless, too. The prime example, of course, is the Japanese animation (not really anime, though) chapter dedicated to O-Ren's past. Her backstory adds to the sympathy of her character, and as such to the power of the confrontation between her and the Bride. O-Ren's isn't the only example, though. The hospital scene where the one-eyed Elle Driver 'visits' the comatose Bride is one of my favourite scenes in the whole movie, if not my absolute favourite. It is a very important, profound scene as it introduces what will be a key character in vol. 2, and the significance of her character. From the tune "Twisted Nerve" to the very cinematography of the scene, it couldn't be more obvious that Elle is one of the most significant characters in the story. As soon as the scene was over, I wanted to see her again, and knew she had a large role in what was to come.

My only real beef with the movie is that I have a hard time connecting to the Bride's motives. Is she getting her back at her ex-coworkers (and all who stand in her way to them) for the wrong they did her? Is she avenging her daughter? Or the people who died at the chapel? All of these, perhaps? I feel it could have been presented better. On the other hand, perhaps Tarantino wishes the Bride to develop as a character as well, maybe even show just how ugly revenge can make you. Who knows?

Kill Bill is, on all accounts, a terrific film. It succeeds and exceeds at everything it attempts to be. Tarantino has a real talent in showing us beauty in even the most ugly things. And in my opinion, Elle Driver emerging from the ladies restroom in her nurse's outfit with her white, red cross eyepatch is one of those iconic female moments in cinema, like Ursula Andress rising from the sea in Dr No. A brutal film it may be, but you'd be hard put to find one with a more artistic edge.

I think I'll be skipping Volume 2
I remember hearing two ex-coworkers raving about this movie when it came out. One of them was a backwards-baseball-hat-wearing Neanderthal with a "tribal" tattoo around his steroidal bicep, and the other was a keg-bellied 30 year old boy who still played video games. The endorsement of such people was all I really needed to know about this movie, but I guess ultimately I'm too much of a fair-minded rationalist to hold unsupported opinions, so I gave this movie its day in court. After seeing it, I have to say that I think there may be something to be said for the validity of prejudice. This movie reeked.

"Kill Bill-Volume 1" is a shallow, boring and interminable cat fight. Since everyone knows the protagonist is in no real danger (after all, Uma Thurman is on the cover of the DVD for Volume 2), there's no real drama or excitement here, and since Tarantino couldn't be bothered providing us with even the most basic character background or development, I couldn't care less why Uma's erstwhile comrades tried to assassinate her or how she will get her inevitable revenge in the sequel.

The movie amounts to nothing more than hot chicks fighting. For your average American fathead, I suppose that's all that's necessary. Everyone thinks that Tarantino's homage to cheesy 70s blacksploitation and martial arts flicks is cleverly ironic but I think those genres are actually the man's true artistic cynosure. He's not being brilliant when he references low budget cinematic ephemera- he's just showing that he's an arrested adolescent with no taste.

Trix Are Not Necessarily For Kids
The Good Things
*Excellent action and fighting. Lots and lots of blood.
*Good story laid out in a very interesting way.
*Excellent group of characters. You can really feel for most of them.
*Visuals and filming style is smooth, clear, and vivid.
*Impressive use of different medias to achieve unique effects (color film, black and white film, and animation).
*Dialogue, even though limited, is fun.
*Interesting music.
*Lots of homage to westerns, kung fu, and anime. These elements are blended together to make a very unique picture.

The Bad Things
*The extreme violence scared me away at first (but once you're used to it, it's all quite fun).
*Some disturbing parts (but this can be a good thing, because it makes the film edgy).
*Some absurd, unrealistic parts (but this can be a good thing too, because it makes the film stylish and fun).

Despite being one of the bloodiest movies I know, it has become one of my all-time favorites. The style of it is smashing; even when there is no action, the movie is very immersive. I've come to appreciate the characters and the story, in addition to the vivid style. Highly reccomended to anybody who likes martial arts or action in general, and doesn't mind some blood.