Fall 2014 #1: Kill Bill Volume 1 - Quentin Tarantino

Alright so I think it’s safe to say I failed miserably at my Summer 2014 Movie Bucketlist reviews. While I saw all 16 movies, I reviewed the first 3 and never made time to review the rest.

Now I have a new rule for my Fall 2014 Movie Bucketlist, and it’s that I can’t watch the next movie on the list until I review the previous one. So my first film on the list was Kill Bill Volume 1. 

This is my fourth Tarantino film, since I saw Django Unchained two winters ago, Pulp Fiction for my first Movie Bucketlist from January 2014, and Inglorious Basterds somewhere in between. After Pulp Fiction, I would say this is probably the one that comes up most in conversation. I always knew it as “That movie with Uma Thurman in the yellow suit where whenever she sees an enemy a really high pitched tone plays and the screen turns red.” I can probably thank Date Movie (2006) for that. 

But in all honesty, the movie really impressed me. I loved how it revived old spaghetti western motifs, and fused them with Japanese samurai movies to create this imaginative tale about kick ass women. I think anyone who has something bad to say about this movie, especially women, should probably be paying less attention to the violence and more attention to how a white male director has portrayed women as totally in control of their own lives and as complete badasses who don’t take shit from anyone. I mean… Deadly Viper Assassin Squad? DVAS? DIVAS!?

The film follows the Bride (Uma Thurman) after she wakes up from a four year coma caused by her team of elite female assassins betraying her at her wedding and killing all of her guests as well as her unborn child. She swears revenge on the women (and their leader, Bill), who wronged her and who were dumb enough not to kill her.

What the film does that makes it so impressive is that it juggles tons of fourth-wall breaking illusions, such as physically impossible amounts of blood and gravity-defying fight scenes, with the simplicity of a revenge story. Not to mention slightly off-chronological storytelling, which reiterates the idea that this is a movie and not real life.

Not to mention, the film includes a five minute short animated film to explain a specific character’s (played by Lucy Liu) backstory.

For a film that features more violence than almost any film I’ve ever seen, it’s also an incredibly well-written, well-acted piece of feminist cinema that should be looked at as pretty damn awesome. I said it. The F-word.

The film is split into two volumes because Tarantino filmed for 155 days and cut the film down to 4 hours before deciding it had to be released as two separate films. I will be watching the Volume 2 shortly (even though it’s not on my Fall Bucketlist). Currently Kill Bill Volume 1 is #166 on the IMDb Top 250.