2003, USA, Quentin Tarantino
Fire hoses full of blood were used in the making of this film, I’m sure of it. Yes, it’s violent. It’s as violent as you’ve heard and more. The body count is high, but heck, it’s all in fun. And yes, it’s one big exercise in style, but it’s got an entertaining story moving it along and a compelling cliff hanger that, once you get to it, you’ve had such a good time up to that point you don’t feel cheated by the fact that you’ll have to pay another eight bucks to see how it all comes out.
I won’t say too much more, because if you’re like me you want to know as little as possible before you see it for yourself. I will say that Uma Thurman has never come within a five-mile radius of my list of favorite movie actors, but in this role her cool, unemotional acting (??) style is perfect. And Tarantino has learned well from Scorsese how to effectively pepper a movie soundtrack with wall-to-wall song snippets.
On an interesting side note: Totally by chance, the night before I saw Kill Bill, I saw One-Armed Swordsman (1967) a Chinese martial-arts classic. This film, about a hero who becomes a samurai sword master despite the loss of his right arm (in a scene that would have fit right in Kill Bill), was a perfect set-up film. It began with the same “Shawscope” logo that Tarantino uses at the beginning of his film, an homage to the Shaw Brothers who were responsible for so many of the classic martial arts films that Tarantino reveres.
Here’s the Gist: Good clean fun, Tarantino style. [*****]
2 Things @ Once 